THE BIBLE: God’s Word or Man’s?

This is not a court of law. We are evaluating written statements, not witnesses, and how well they apply to the matters at hand. Therefore your strike count is just more of your delusional theatrics and attempts at intimidation.

"...saying things against the Judeo-Christian Bible...." That's what really bothers you. The debate shouldn't be viewed as an assault on a sacred bulwark, but rather a contention over preferred interpretations. However, the OP made it a brash declaration of presumed fact rather than a statement of position.

When? I'll do what I can to find time to do it.

 

ALTER2EGO -to- GELECSKI7238:

You expect me to take serious the opinions of a woman described as a lunatic (Madame Blavatsky) http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2010/01/06/dead-cool-madame-blavatsky.html and the supposed opinions of E.E. Goldsmith who apparently exists only in the mind of Lloyd M. Graham? Why do you suppose I asked you for credible sources? Anybody can write tripe and publish it. If their credibility is in question, their writings are likewise in question. If they were to bear witness in a court of law in the USA and came off as nitwits, their testimony would likewise be dismissed.

You claim Lloyd M. Graham is a "credible" source and that he confirms the existence of E.E. Goldsmith and together, their claims that the Bible was copied from pagans should be believed. Never mind that even Lloyd M. Graham comes off as a nutcase and provides no evidence to prove what he wrote in his book Deceptions and Myths of the Bible. In the book, he wrote, among other things, that all planets were once suns, and that our sun will someday burn out and become a planet. How in the world could he possibly know that? In addition, he wrote that the earth is older than the sun, and that the moon once had life. Pray tell, how would he know that? Oh, I forget! He did claim in the book that all of the aforementioned is found in the "Ancient Wisdom."


One source describes Lloyd M. Graham's writings as: "what can only be charitably be called semantic evasions." In fact, the source said that throughout his writings of Deceptions and Myths of the Bible, Graham assumed a haughty tone of: "If you were as smart as I am, you'd know all of this already." Below is a quotation from the source.

http://www.tektonics.org/gk/grahamlloyd01.html


You are relying on Lloyd M. Graham to confirm the existence of the apparently fictitious E.E. Goldsmith. It turns out "Lloyd M. Graham" was so embarrassed by his science fiction book, Deceptions and Myths of the Bible, that he chose not to reveal their his true identity and used a pseudonym aka a fictitious name, while writing tripe against the Judeo-Christian Bible.


STRIKE THREE!




I will deal with Geoffrey Hodson, your fourth "credible" source, the next time I log in.

 

That was the same reaction that I had when I saw your assertion that God, sitting out "above the stars", would see the Earth in the same limited fashion that an astronaut would. It seems to me that the divine eye would not fall prey to such an optical illusion, and would perceive the Earth as it truly is, i.e. a sphere.

 

ALTER2EGO -to- STAGNANT:
I understand your "point" so well that I debunked it. You above comment is an attempt at pretending you don't realize you've been debunked.

ALTER2EGO -to- STAGNANT:
I provided the quotation from the Bible where Isaiah gave the viewpoint of someone above earth.


"{22} There is One who is dwelling above the CIRCLE of the earth, the dwellers in which are as grasshoppers, the One who is stretching out the heavens just as a fine gaze, who spread them out like a tent in which to dwell, {28} Have you not come to know or have you not heard? Jehovah, the Creator of the extremities of the earth, is a God to time indefinite. He does not tire out or grow weary. There is no searching out of his understanding." (Isaiah 40:22 and 28 )


If that is not enough for you, tough. You were debunked when you presented a source that gave only one definition for the Hebrew word "chuwg." It turns out the word "chuwg" has three different meanings when translated to English--based upon context--and one of the English definitions is "circle." Here again is the weblink to that source.
http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?Strongs=H2329


You were debunked by three different dictionaries that define the word "circle" as "orb" and "sphere"--which are 3D objects. Here again is the weblink to Post 43 where those dictionaries are presented. http://www.politicalforum.com/showthread.php?t=249982&page=5&p=1061423712#post1061423712


Because you realize you cannot get around my rebuttals regarding the use of the word "circle" at Isaiah 40:22, you are now playing slick by telling me that I am supposed to demonstrate that, to quote you: "you have to actually be able to get real knowledge that, at the time could not be otherwise known from Isaiah." You are the one arguing against the my OP. Therefore, you have the burden of presenting that evidence to prove me wrong. Or didn't you know that?

 

Your strike three is full of silly daydreams.

"...claims that the Bible was copied from pagans should be believed...." There you go again, deciding whether or not to believe based on reputation rather than deciding on merit of what's behind the claim. You're racking up points toward being a hopeless case.

As far as the concern for E.E. Goldsmith goes, YOU FAIL. The good gentleman a page or so back found roughly 3000 references via internet search looking at extended pages.

Regarding your source that badmouths Graham's book, it sounds like the same disgraceful, derisional critique I dealt with maybe three months ago in another thread which I'll give reference to when I get a chance. You should have guessed that it was too good to be true, but then you could not be expected to anticipate that a devout person with a title could be so blatantly dishonest in blind pursuit of an agenda.

So you wonder how Graham could know so much as to expound on a cosmology that features unconventional sequences? He certainly didn't copy your method of groveling on reputations. He extracted it from the wealth of consistent symbolic processes in scriptures that are right under your nose.

 

ALTER2EGO -to- FIFTH OF NOVEMBER:

Oh, we all know how it seems to the average skeptic. But then again, you would neither understand nor appreciate that it was wisdom on Jehovah's part when he used descriptions and instructions that humans can relate to. Had Jehovah instructed Isaiah and Moses to give descriptions of earth that only God could see but that no humans could confirm, the skeptics would have had a field day claiming the Bible is incorrect. As proven by Isaiah and Job, the Bible is right on point. Even so, the skeptics are trying to argue semantics about the meaning of "circle." Imagine what would have occurred if God, in his wisdom, had not described earth in human terms?


WRITTEN BY ISAIAH:
"{22} There is One who is dwelling above the CIRCLE of the earth, the dwellers in which are as grasshoppers, the One who is stretching out the heavens just as a fine gaze, who spread them out like a tent in which to dwell, {28} Have you not come to know or have you not heard? Jehovah, the Creator of the extremities of the earth, is a God to time indefinite. He does not tire out or grow weary. There is no searching out of his understanding." (Isaiah 40:22 and 28 )


WRITTEN BY MOSES:
"He [God]is stretching out the north over the empty place, hanging the earth upon nothing;" (Job 26:7)



QUESTION #1 to FIFTH OF NOVEMBER: The Bible is Jehovah's message to mankind. What purpose would it have served if it had contained instructions and descriptions that humans could not understand or relate to?

 

Job was written by moses?

 

Humans understand the concept of a sphere just fine, thank you.

 

ALTER2EGO -to- GELECSKI7238:

Lloyd M. Graham is a fraud using a pseudonym aka not using his real name so he can regurgitate the usual tripe about the Bible--while not providing a shred of evidence in his science fiction book to prove his claims.

http://www.skyhorsepublishing.com/author/?fa=ShowAuthor&Person_ID=1772


Nowhere in his book Deceptions and Myths of the Bible does he provide evidence to back up his fallacious claims. Just another phony mystic out to make a buck, publishing books loaded with tripe. You claim he is "credible" because you are desperate for a win. You won't win this debate, fella, not when you presented E.E. Goldsmith, whose writings you have not yet identified, and Madame Looney Tunes aka Madame Blavatsky, with "Lloyd M. Graham" and his ridiculous claims that all planets were once suns, and that our sun will someday burn out and become a planet.



DEBUNKED!

 

Really? Because your response was utterly irrelevant. I don't care whether or not Isaiah 40:22 describes the earth as flat. It does not matter. What matters is whether or not you can affirmatively state that Isaiah describes the earth as a sphere. And you have not provided any evidence to that nature. You've shown how it could mean that the earth is a sphere, but you have not done anything to combat the very basic flaw in your argument - that we don't know that it was intended to mean a sphere, and that we can't determine that from within the document. What evidence do you have to claim that Isaiah 40:22 refers to a spherical earth?

And I accepted that refutation, and thanked you for correcting me.

Except that you're playing fast and loose with definitions, because although the english word "circle" can be used as such, the Hebrew word "chuwg" does not translate to that. This is a basic equivocation fallacy - like translating the german "spalte" into "column" and then assuming that it can also mean the columns on a greek temple, when in fact the only way that translation works is when talking about the columns in a table or spreadsheet.

The translation of it as "circle" denotes quite specifically a flat circle like a disc or a coin. In fact, there closest ancient hebrew term to "sphere" was actually used in Isaiah 22:18; Dur (דו&#1512 to denote a ball.

So... why didn't they just say "Dur"? That would have cleared up most of the ambiguity and made it as plain as day that this segment was actually talking about a spherical earth. Instead, they used a word which is fairly ambiguous. And, coming back to my point, this is the problem - you cannot show that it actually says anything scientifically revolutionary. Even worse, the following sentence, referring to spreading out a tent or canopy, makes no sense on a spherical earth from a purely geometric standpoint, even as a metaphor - but it makes perfect sense on a flat earth. This is why I brought up that the flat earth movement is, was, and almost always has been based largely on the bible, to point out just how flimsy the claim is that Isaiah 40:22 actually refers to a spherical earth. So prove it. Prove that Isaiah 40:22 refers to a spherical earth.

I've seen some pretty impressive mangling of the concept of "the burden of proof" in my day, and this is pretty impressive one. In making the claims you did in the OP, you hold a pretty darn substantial burden of proof. I don't really have to do anything other than demonstrate that the evidence you use to prop that up fails miserably. If your evidence doesn't hold up, it doesn't matter what evidence I have, as your claim fails the burden of proof on a fundamental level. So... Prove that Isaiah 40:22 means a spherical earth.

 

Yep,...
The Hebrew word can mean a circle or a sphere.

Its like when a little kids says something is "round."

 

course if we believe the story of Columbus, Christians back then thought the world was flat and we could sail right off the edge

 

ALTER2EGO -to- FIFTH OF NOVEMBER:
That is not what I asked you.

Do not forget, in your previous post, you said Jehovah should have given descriptions that only God is able to see from his unlimited viewpoint. If only God was able to see and describe it, humans would not have been able to confirm it during space flight.

The word "circle" at Isaiah 40:22 is an accurate viewpoint description of how earth appears to someone who is in outer space. If Isaiah had used the word "sphere," the skeptics would have argued that he should have said "circle" or whatever else they chose to use as semantics. My point being, members of the Religion of Atheism simply choose to not believe what the Bible says because it serves their purposes.


BTW: Nothing you have written thus far is a rebuttal to my OP. I am still waiting for you or one of the other skeptics to explain how Isaiah could have known in the 8th century BCE that earth is circular and how Moses in the 15th century BCE could have known that earth is floating in space and held in its orbital position by invisible gravity, described as "hanging the earth upon nothing"

 

I think the explanation is being evidence by scientists who are doing research on the Third Eye Theory, i.e.; that the Unconscious mind inside us has a lot to "say" about what it has observed from generation to generation as regards mankind and his Conscious existence.


The Unconscious mind is "born again" inside our head as babies reappear in every generation.
That part of our mind remembers previous life experiences as evidenced by the Instincts that tell us about things in the world before we even learned ourselves.

This Third Eye in us, also is part of the Collective Unconscious which is the sum of everyone's Unconsciousness.
The Collective Unconscious is the "Good Shepherd" which silently looks after us and whispers things, unbidden, into people's awareness, like ideas about things that just seem to come to us from no where.


The logic for this follows from the fact the Unconscious mind contains all the Truth of our phylogenetic past experiences, even prior to that perhaps.
The Unconscious mind inside us KNOWS the truth because we, in our past lives, have lived through all those millions of years.

The concrete EVIDENCE for this can be found the experimental studies and theories in writings such as "Subliminal: How Your Unconscious Mind Rules Your Behavior, by Leonard Mlodinow.

Leonard Mlodinow, the best-selling author of The Drunkard’s Walk and coauthor of The Grand Design (with Stephen Hawking), gives us a startling and eye-opening examination of how the unconscious mind shapes our experience of the world and how, for instance, we often misperceive our relationships with family, friends, and business associates, misunderstand the reasons for our investment decisions, and misremember important events.

The meaning of this is that we are about to evolve into a new State of Mind wherein we WILL be conscious of our own Unconscious past experience and be JUDGED by that facility inside ourselves.

John 12:48
He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day.

 

Your question:
"QUESTION #1 to FIFTH OF NOVEMBER: The Bible is Jehovah's message to mankind. What purpose would it have served if it had contained instructions and descriptions that humans could not understand or relate to?"

My response:
Your question is irrelevant because a sphere is indeed a description humans can and could understand and relate to. Furthermore, it is ridiculous to say the description was confirmed during spaceflight, since the ACTUAL description of the Earth as a sphere had been confirmed long before. You are just piling on whetever assumptions it takes to try to defend your made-up crap.

Also, I noticed that you quoted my post putting "it seems to me" in bold, as if that somehow lessened my point. The stupid thing about that was that you fully granted the point I made that God would not be fooled by an optical illusion. So it obviously also seems to you the same way, and you only put my words in bold color to be a mocking ass.

The Earth is NOT circular! Have you ever taken geometry? And "hanging on nothing" absolutely makes no mention of gravity, so both of your points self-refute.

 

ALTER2EGO -to- STAGNANT:
This might come to you as a shock. But your obscession with the word "circle" and "chuwg" is not shared by me. So do not be surprised that I did not read all of your latest argument along that line, during which you give me more of the same ole same ole.

Truth be told, I stated several times in this thread that Isaiah 40:22 is a viewpoint description. Somehow you have managed to convince yourself that viewpoint descriptions are always supposed to be literal. For instance, a viewpoint description of the moon appearing like a half-moon is not literal. We all know that the moon is never literally halved and that part of it is hidden on those occasions when it is described as a "half-moon". Are you going to then argue with the viewer who says the moon appears as a "half-moon" that their viewpoint description is incorrect? That is basically what you are doing when you argue that the Hebrew word "chuwg" should have never been used at Isaiah 40:22, despite the fact astronauts have confirmed that earth appears 2D from certain locations in outer space. For instance, astronaut Charlie Duke is quoted as saying the following:

http://nolapost.com/2012/11/charlie-duke-visits-harvey/


Keep in mind that Charlie Duke knew ahead of time that earth is spherical and not flat. But from his viewpoint in outer space, it appeared to him as a 2D circle, just as Isaiah had described it 2,800 years prior.


"{22} There is One who is dwelling above the CIRCLE of the earth, the dwellers in which are as grasshoppers, the One who is stretching out the heavens just as a fine gaze, who spread them out like a tent in which to dwell, {28} Have you not come to know or have you not heard? Jehovah, the Creator of the extremities of the earth, is a God to time indefinite. He does not tire out or grow weary. There is no searching out of his understanding." (Isaiah 40:22 and 28 )



Charlie Duke admitted he was not particularly religious when he made the above observation, but the realization came to him at that time that the Isaiah description was right on point.

You will find the above Charlie Duke quotations under the subtitle "Faith" when you get to the website. It will be Paragraphs 4 and 7 under the "Faith" subtitle.



QUESTION #2 to STAGNANT: How could Isaiah have known that earth appears as a circle to someone ABOVE it, when Isaiah was earthbound at the time?

 

Right.
The Earth is round.

 

Job and the other prophets all were "told" by a little voice inside their mind, that's how they knew.

Neils Bohn heard the same voice himself, as he described the experience:



In 1920 when Neils Bohr was getting on a bus and thinking intently only of his daughter, the entire structure of quantum mechanics came to him in a flash (as he describes it). Where that flash or intelligence came from, and the timing of it, this is the Pure Intelligence I'm speaking about.

This experience revealed the inner immanent God to which Christians refer when they speak of a personal relationship with God.

 

More correctly, the Earth is a sphere. A pipe can be round.

 

ALTER2EGO -to- FIFTH OF NOVEMBER:

If my question is irrelevant, what do you think your answer is? A circle is also a description that humans can and could understand and relate to. So I do not have a clue what you are arguing about--aside from the fact you want to dictate to God that he should have told Isaiah to use "sphere" instead of "circle" at Isaiah 40:22.


"There is One who is dwelling above the CIRCLE of the earth, the dwellers in which are as grasshoppers, the One who is stretching out the heavens just as a fine gaze, who spread them out like a tent in which to dwell," (Isaiah 40:22)


Your remark that a spherical earth was confirmed before space flight has already been stated in my OP where I mentioned that Ferdinand Magellan and other explorers confirmed it when they circumnavigated the globe in 1519 AD/CE—2,251 years AFTER Isaiah wrote that the earth is a circle. So why are you telling me what I already stated in my OP?

 

True,... that would be more explicit, but round is not wrong.

 

Do you have a personal relationship the spirit of Truth?

Do you see how Truth has manifested over millions of years of experience and been storied inside us as the Unconscious Mind?

The Unconscious mind is only unconscious in the sense that we, consciously, have neither noticed it nor tried be conscious of it.

But the Unconscious mind is quite well aware of us, and is that long-suspected Third Eye which has subtly become known to us in many ways.
The Unconscious mind is what Jesus called the son-of-God.
The Unconscious mind is immortal in that it reappears in every generation to add to those Unconscious minds in the Collective Unconscious of the generating already living.
The Unconscious mind is the reflection of the past Reality within which we are both trapped and yet nurtured.
The Unconscious mind is the image of this God which unfolds the next frame of the Life we enjoy at His discretion.

 

Strictly speaking, it's physically impossible for the Earth to be a circle. A circle is just a closed line whose points on the line are equidistant from the center. A circle is just a two-dimensional figure that is only viewable from one position. And, don't forget, a circle has no area. The space enclosed by the line is a void. Therefore, it's impossible for the Earth to be a circle because the shape of the Earth does does not conform the definition of a circle.

The English language has over 1 million words so it's easy to use the correct word for any idea. The word "circle" is inappropriate when describing the actual shape of the Earth. It can be used to describe it poetically.

 

ALTER2EGO -to- FIFTH OF NOVEMBER:
If you would bother to read what I previously stated on this, you would have seen that I have repeatedly said that the expressions "the circle of the earth" (Isaiah 40:22) and "hanging the earth upon nothing" (Job 26:7) are viewpoint descriptions that can only be seen by persons in outer space. Both descriptions were confirmed by 20th century astronauts.

The Bible did not mention gravity at Job 26:7 and I never said it did. I stated that the expression "hanging the earth upon nothing" accurately describes invisible gravity holding earth in its orbit. I also stated that this viewpoint description was confirmed by astronauts. Of course if you now want to argue that gravity is visible, go right ahead.

 

ALTER2EGO -to- FIFTH OF NOVEMBER:
You are resorting to personal insults rather than asking me why I bolded some of what you said. The only reason why I bold parts of people's comments is to let them know what I am directly responding to. If you are going to carry a chip on your shoulder and start thinking people are mocking you simply because they bolded something you wrote, do not click on my postings and invite me to debate. You know the saying: "If you can't stand the heat...."


I do not have tolerance for personal insults and tend to put people on "Ignore" when they persist in personally attacking me.