The naivete of the New Atheist scholars

Dimitrios Trimijopulos said: What I mean is that you should take into consideration all this… garbled nonsense before pretending to be the omniscient persons who knew what the ancient people believed without having ever bothered to read mythology. To the ancients, Giants and Titans were a race of men and so were the gods. Then Giants evolved into gods and therefore there was a time without gods.
Were those beliefs based on evidence or imigination?
Now you can realize how idiotic is the view that humans are psychologically primed for religion. That is what I am telling you since the op but you bias is to heavy for you to lift and get rid of it.
What odd logic. In the entire memory of human history, all races and cultures have believed in imaginary spirits and gods. And now you claim that this is proof we are NOT pre-disposed to believe in spiritual beings? I would argue it IS proof that hominids, and possibly other species capable of abstract thought, ARE pre-disposed toward spiritualism, albeit from ignorance of meta-physics, the hierarchical order of underlying Universal Constants. In religions, the Gods. In science, the Maths. Define "an idea" without being pre-disposed and able to imagine (the mirror function of the brain) what could be.
IDEA, i-de-a , Noun, 1. any conception existing in the mind as a result of mental understanding, awareness, or activity. 2. a thought, conception, or notion: That is an excellent idea. 3. an impression: He gave me a general idea of how he plans to run the department. 4. an opinion, view, or belief: His ideas on raising children are certainly strange. 5. a plan of action; an intention: the idea of becoming an engineer. 6. a groundless supposition; fantasy. 7. Philosophy. a.a concept developed by the mind. b.a conception of what is desirable or ought to be; ideal. c. Platonism.. Also called form. an archetype or pattern of which the individual objects in any natural class are imperfect copies and from which they derive their being. d. Kantianism. idea of pure reason. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/idea
Our very ability to imagine (to mirror) a prime causality exists today even in physics and cosmology, with our search for a TOE. We believe there MUST be an answer. As Tegmark proposes, this answer is a simple mathematical equation of a Prime archetype, Mathematics, (a quasi intelligent function). Religious people stop searching after mirroring the word GOD. It is the spiritual (imaginary) equation of a Prime archetype and it is able to bestow rewards or punishment, (a motivated intelligent being).
I am presenting to you a theory. Accept it as such and learn something more or you may go on pretending to know everything without ever having studying anything relevant.
What's your theory? In one sentence.
What I mean is that you should take into consideration all this… garbled nonsense before pretending to be the omniscient persons who knew what the ancient people believed without having ever bothered to read mythology.
This is what truly fascinates me. I'm probably asking the wrong person, but how do you do this? How do you spend 15 pages arguing for something that you haven't proven, have scant evidence for and bad logic, and keep turning around and saying that's what others are doing? Occasionally you have said you have a theory, or that we need to search the archaeological evidence or do more archaeology, then other times you say it is obvious, if you just read hieroglyphics or something. I can't tell what you think it takes to demonstrate truth. When I questioned my own beliefs, the first thing I realized is that I never developed a decent method of discerning good evidence from bad. I studied the entire history of how the scientific method developed and how it still has flaws. It's main advantage is that it (that is those who use it), recognize the flaws and continue to improve on it. You, like lots of people, so I'm not calling you crazy, instead of doing that, saw that Egyptologists had made some conclusions that you thought were wrong, you decided not to believe them, which is fine, they don't want you to believe them, but instead of taking all available knowledge and building on it, you took off in your own direction. You say nothing but, "go read an ancient book, the answers are there", that's what priest say. When we tell you what we have read and what we found, you say we read it wrong. That's what priests do. How do you maintain your that worldview?
Were those beliefs based on evidence or imigination?
Did you read my new topic entitled “When gods were men"? The ancients believed that the gods were normal person, i.e. creatures, not the creators, they did not exist since the world was created and became heavenly beings when it was said that they moved to the sky by climbing ladders. No predisposition for spirituality and no psychological priming for religion. Now, if you want to know whether those gods were figments of their imagination or products of experience, you may go ahead and apply your mathematical formulas or, do the logical thing and start studying paleoanthropology, comparative mythology and the ancient texts.
What odd logic. In the entire memory of human history, all races and cultures have believed in imaginary spirits and gods.
That is what you have been told, and you were also told that the ancients were unbelievably stupid because they said that they had sex with the gods and spirits and believed that after they die they will go to the other world where they would be very happy, because they would be working there in their own plot of land, they will eat, defecate, urinate and have sex. And you questioned nothing of these nonsense! So, whose logic is odd?
And now you claim that this is proof we are NOT pre-disposed to believe in spiritual beings? I would argue it IS proof that hominids, and possibly other species capable of abstract thought, ARE pre-disposed toward spiritualism, albeit from ignorance of meta-physics, the hierarchical order of underlying Universal Constants. […] Our very ability to imagine (to mirror) a prime causality exists today even in physics and cosmology, with our search for a TOE. We believe there MUST be an answer. As Tegmark proposes, this answer is a simple mathematical equation of a Prime archetype, Mathematics, (a quasi intelligent function). Religious people stop searching after mirroring the word GOD. It is the spiritual (imaginary) equation of a Prime archetype and it is able to bestow rewards or punishment, (a motivated intelligent being).
No noise, please. I hate philosophy!
What's your theory? In one sentence.
Since you want me to repeat myself, here you are: How the immaterial gods were created] How the One God was created]
What's your theory? In one sentence.
Since you want me to repeat myself, here you are: How the immaterial gods were created] How the One God was created] Your theory is one big etymological fallacy
The etymological fallacy as a logical mistake results when one reasons about the etymon as if the conclusion applied to the current word. This is a logical error similar to equivocation, which involves confusing two meanings of the same word; but it differs from equivocation in that the etymological fallacy involves the meanings of two different words, though those words are historically connected.
The etymological fallacy as a semantic error is the mistake of confusing the current meaning of a word with the meaning of one of its etymons, or of considering the meaning of the etymon to be the "real" or "true" meaning of the current word. If one's goal is to communicate, then the "real" or "true" meaning of a word is its current meaning. Since the meanings of words change over time, often considerably, the meaning of an etymon may be very different from the current meaning of the word derived from it. The fact that a word historically derives from an etymon may be interesting, but it cannot tell us the current meaning of the word.
You, like lots of people, so I'm not calling you crazy, instead of doing that, saw that Egyptologists had made some conclusions that you thought were wrong, you decided not to believe them, which is fine, they don't want you to believe them, but instead of taking all available knowledge and building on it, you took off in your own direction.
OK, I’ll try once more! There is an ancient Egyptian text known by the title “The Dispute between a man and his ba". For 118 years, since 1896 when Erman published a transcription and translation of the text, the translators are struggling to understand the plot of this monument of ancient Egyptian thought, as Allen calls it, from the perspective of the New Kingdom theology, i.e. taking “ba" to mean “soul". New Kingdom theology has much in common with modern theology but, apart from basic traditional concepts, almost nothing in common with Old Kingdom theology, i.e. Judgment of people alive, gods feeding humans their excrements, gods operating slaughter houses for killing humans labeled animals and, especially, life after judgment which was transformed into life after death by the New Kingdom theologians. All the translators, without exception, are convinced that the author presents the dispute of a man with his own soul, his ba, with the result their translations, guided either by prejudice, idiocy or intellectual dishonesty, to result entirely ridiculous. What actually happens is that “Ba" is the title of a person who acts as instructor and care taker of those subject to judgment, and not the term denoting “soul". So the man is talking with his Ba and the dispute arises from the fact that the man wants to be subjected to a strict, demanding inspection in order to attain the best possible social status, while the Ba is of the opinion that the man does not qualify and is thus risking his life. The social rungs can be considered to have been the following: -Son of god -Demigod -Man suitable to serve as a high official -Commoner -Slave -Subhuman creature to be exterminated I have already mentioned James P. Allen so you know who he is. He has also translated the text in question with his translation being the most ridiculous of all of them. The following is a review of mine of the said translation of Allen. https://www.academia.edu/8223138/Laymans_review_of_Allens_Debate_ It is a 95-page article which, if you read, you will come to know what no university on earth can teach you about the ancient Egyptian way of thinking. So, do not jump to conclusions and get that chance which is given to you to know things that you could not have known otherwise.

It doesn’t matter how many times you try. The results are the same. If one of us has a different opinion, we are brainless and haven’t read enough ancient text. If it’s in an ancient text and doesn’t fit your paradigm, you say it’s “just the text”, “it’s just what they wrote”. If some other expert has a different opinion than you, they are covering up something, or don’t dare speak the truth. If there is some loose connection between texts that are separated by thousands of years, but it fits your theory, then that’s evidence for you. Truth to you is what you say it is. There is no discussion going on here.

What's your theory? In one sentence.
Since you want me to repeat myself, here you are: How the immaterial gods were created] How the One God was created] I don't believe in gods. So how gods were created seems ridiculous to me.
What's your theory? In one sentence.
Since you want me to repeat myself, here you are: How the immaterial gods were created] How the One God was created] I don't believe in gods. So how gods were created seems ridiculous to me. The existence of atheists is a problem for his theory, so he redefines "New Atheists" (a poorly defined term in the first place) to be naïve agnostics. Atheism is a belief statement and agnosticism is a knowledge statement anyway, so that doesn't even make sense. But atheists have existed in any number of ways throughout history. How does this fit into Dimitrios' hoax? It doesn't. So he has to ignore the existence of science, and a system designed specifically to uncover hoaxes. He makes his argument circular by saying that this system of scholars and methods to determine truth is all part of the hoax. The only way out of this is to follow him. I'm pretty sure he's used this little trap to get sex. I don't want to know the details.
Because succeeding religions destroyed all records of previous religions? As they are definitely wont to do at times. I don't know?
You mean to say that the professors of Oxford, Cambridge, Heidelberg or any other university announced that they tried but they could not reconstruct the history of religion due to lack of material to work with?
The burning of the Great Library at Alexandria...what was in that Library that we will never know about?
The truth maybe? Why were the ancient Greeks prohibiting, on pain of death, the revelation of the secrets taught in the Eleusinian mysteries? Why are the stories in the Tanakh so obviously childish and insane? Because the truth cannot and must not be told? Why do the Egyptologists keep deceiving with their translations scholars and laymen alike? Maybe because the truth about religion stinks?
Why most people do not even know that for the ancients there was a time that there were no gods? Why most people do not know that it was the Giants (or Titans) who gave birth to the gods?
Which if I was an Empire, and wanted to spread my religion around, that's exactly what I would force people to believe.
The belief that the Giants existed before the gods, and therefore there was a time that there were no gods on earth or above the earth, and that the Giants were the progenitors of the gods, obtained among many cultures before any theocratic empire was established. Dimitrios, in the history of hominids, ask yourself what came first: Thunderstorms or Gods that made thunderstorms? A simple question and the answer is obvious: Thunderstorms came first, the rest is hominid imagination based on "fight or flight" instinct. Also, in deism many large animals were depicted, Bulls with enormous horns, Elephants with large tusks, other animals (dragons) with enormous teeth and claws, Demons (Tulpas). Anything beyond our control was and is believed (assumed) to be controlled by greater, unseen but motivated, powers, to be worshipped and appeased (sacrifice of living things) such as lambs, goats, doves, and on occasion humans (especially virgins). Giants did actually exist long before man came along, look at paleontology
Paleontology lies on the border between biology and geology, but differs from archaeology in that it excludes the study of anatomically modern humans. It now uses techniques drawn from a wide range of sciences, including biochemistry, mathematics and engineering. Use of all these techniques has enabled paleontologists to discover much of the evolutionary history of life, almost all the way back to when Earth became capable of supporting life, about 3,800 million years ago. As knowledge has increased, paleontology has developed specialised sub-divisions, some of which focus on different types of fossil organisms while others study ecology and environmental history, such as ancient climates. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleontology
Those are your Titans or Giants, but of course they became extinct long before hominids appeared. But the fossils of dinosaurs gave birth to the *concept* of Giants (Titans) and Gods. The rest is hearsay from verbal stories, eventually compiled into scripture. It ls all make-believe from start to finish. True History of civilizations will not diminish the fundamental assumption of greater powers, beyond our control. I have no problem with any of that. My problem lies in the fact that regardless of science, these memes of Giants, Titans, Gods, and Spirits continue to exist, without modification. And, of course, it is impossible to modify the fundamental assumption (imagining) of *intentional* supernatural beings, who created us in their image. What we need is a TOE to replace the concept of supernatural phenomena. IMO, Tegmark is getting closer to the True nature (essence) of unversal functions, such as evolution, natural selection, and the implaccable Mathematical functions.

I just ran across this little gem.
They switched covers of the OT and the Quran and let people read what they thought was the Quran. It is interesting to note the different reactions of people condemning the horrible violence of the Quran, not knowing they were actually reading from the OT.

Believing they were being read passages from the Quran, people reacted with surprise, disgust, and negativity.

There is no discussion going on here.
That is true! You are having a discussion with someone who has some work to show but you dare not read his work and point out the faults found there. You just go on criticizing that which you are unable to understand. If you are interested only in metaphysics, go comment in some thread about metaphysics. This is a thread about religion and the naiveté of modern atheist scholars.
I don't believe in gods. So how gods were created seems ridiculous to me.
I know, I know… the same old poem chanted by all agnostics: “I do not believe in gods, but I do not know whether they exist or not". Be an atheist by realizing that the God idea is a hoax. Yet, to achieve that you have to stop regarding the evolution of the God idea as something which is ridiculous.
Atheism is a belief statement and agnosticism is a knowledge statement anyway, so that doesn't even make sense.
Question: "Is there a God?" Theist: Yes! Agnostic: I do not know. Atheist: No! Theism and atheism refer to knowledge. Agnosticism refers to ignorance. :lol: I own a community where I beat agnostics… Atheist vs Agnostics] ...and so I am experienced in the craft.
I'm pretty sure he's used this little trap to get sex.
:exclaim: :exclaim: :exclaim:
Dimitrios, in the history of hominids, ask yourself what came first: Thunderstorms or Gods that made thunderstorms? A simple question and the answer is obvious: Thunderstorms came first, the rest is hominid imagination based on "fight or flight" instinct. Also, in deism many large animals were depicted, Bulls with enormous horns, Elephants with large tusks, other animals (dragons) with enormous teeth and claws, Demons (Tulpas). Anything beyond our control was and is believed (assumed) to be controlled by greater, unseen but motivated, powers, to be worshipped and appeased (sacrifice of living things) such as lambs, goats, doves, and on occasion humans (especially virgins). Giants did actually exist long before man came along, look at paleontology
You insist on pretending to be the expert in a field of knowledge you are entirely ignorant about. Sorry, but your ideas cannot be taken into consideration.
Those are your Titans or Giants, but of course they became extinct long before hominids appeared. But the fossils of dinosaurs gave birth to the *concept* of Giants (Titans) and Gods.
You again know the above by means of the inspiration presented to you by the holy ghost!! According to your theory the ancients saw the bones of large animals and immediately exclaimed: “These are the remains of the Giants who gave birth to the gods who are now sitting on the clouds and send down to us the lightning and the thunder"
My problem lies in the fact that regardless of science, these memes of Giants, Titans, Gods, and Spirits continue to exist, without modification. And, of course, it is impossible to modify the fundamental assumption (imagining) of *intentional* supernatural beings, who created us in their image.
Modern people believe, as you say above, that supernatural beings created us in their image. Ancient people said that the lords raped some primitive women and from the hybrids born they kept only those who came out in the lords’ image: us modern people. You prejudice is fogging you mind and cannot see anything beyond the theological nonsense you are fed in your entire life. You have to listen to the words of the ancients before pronouncing judgment. You have to make a list of what it was said about Giants and decide whether the characteristics attributed to Giants describe some large animals or an extinct race of Homo sapiens. As long as you have not done that, what you assert is just noise.
I just ran across this little gem. They switched covers of the OT and the Quran and let people read what they thought was the Quran. It is interesting to note the different reactions of people condemning the horrible violence of the Quran, not knowing they were actually reading from the OT.
Would you have known better than those people? The translation of the Tanakh (OT is a silly Christian name) into spoken languages had been a huge theological blunder. Theologians, however, were lucky to have avoided the consequences of their blunder because people do not read the Tanakh. And, by the way, I suggest that you start reading it yourself. The good book says that the sons of the gods raped the daughter of some primitive humans and thus modern humans were created. Nothing supernatural about it, just natural serial raping. :cheese:
I don't believe in gods. So how gods were created seems ridiculous to me.
I know, I know… the same old poem chanted by all agnostics: “I do not believe in gods, but I do not know whether they exist or not". And what does that have to do with New Atheists? Are they agnostics?
Be an atheist by realizing that the God idea is a hoax. Yet, to achieve that you have to stop regarding the evolution of the God idea as something which is ridiculous.
All Atheists DO NOT believe God(s) EXIST. I don't understand what you have against the New Atheists who, by definition, advocate for aggressive rejection of religious and spiritual matters. They certainly understand the concept of *evolution* better than you or I. It is their area of expertise. And you want to condemn these knowledgeable minds for being naive? If your OP had stated that *agnosticism* is not going to change anything, I agree!!! But New Atheist are not agnostic, they are ATHEISTS. But you are attacking these very people who passionately argue against the existence of Gods as being naive and ineffectual. Do you really think that revisiting and correcting religious history is going to make a difference to *believers*? IMO, that is naive. If you saw the link above, you can understand that most religious people are not well versed in their own religion. They just believe and don't care about the history. I do agree that targeting young people is a good idea, their mind has not yet been corrupted by Scriptural nonsense. But once the meme of God has been accepted, it is a*mirror* mindset and that is difficult to change. It is a very complex problem, thousands of years old, and which cannot be solved by correcting history alone. My point here is that there never were any giant or titan humans either. You cannot correct history which is fundamentally flawed to begin with. As Carlin said, "we made the whole thing up", all of it!
I just ran across this little gem. They switched covers of the OT and the Quran and let people read what they thought was the Quran. It is interesting to note the different reactions of people condemning the horrible violence of the Quran, not knowing they were actually reading from the OT.
Would you have known better than those people? And you do?
The translation of the Tanakh (OT is a silly Christian name) into spoken languages had been a huge theological blunder. Theologians, however, were lucky to have avoided the consequences of their blunder because people do not read the Tanakh. And, by the way, I suggest that you start reading it yourself. The good book says that the sons of the gods raped the daughter of some primitive humans and thus modern humans were created. Nothing supernatural about it, just natural serial raping. :cheese:
Nothing supernatural about the phrase "sons of gods? And who were those gods who had sons, who raped the daughters of *primitive humans and thereby created "modern humans"? Do you realize your are making a theistic statement and discarding Darwin. Are you saying Darwin was wrong? Why on earth should I read the Tanakh. I can recommend reading Little Red Riding Hood or Humpty Dumpty. IT IS ALL MADE UP. Suppose I suggested that Humpty Dumpty is historically incorrect and by changing medieval history of which kings and kings men, we can correct the story of Humpty Dumpty?
Dimitrios Trimijopulos" date="1450444096",
Write4U said,, Dimitrios, in the history of hominids, ask yourself what came first: Thunderstorms or Gods that made thunderstorms? A simple question and the answer is obvious: Thunderstorms came first, the rest is hominid imagination based on "fight or flight" instinct. Also, in deism many large animals were depicted, Bulls with enormous horns, Elephants with large tusks, other animals (dragons) with enormous teeth and claws, Demons (Tulpas). Anything beyond our control was and is believed (assumed) to be controlled by greater, unseen but motivated, powers, to be worshipped and appeased (sacrifice of living things) such as lambs, goats, doves, and on occasion humans (especially virgins). Giants did actually exist long before man came along, look at paleontology, but the were not hominids and able to mate with humans,, They usually ate them and that's where the concept of blood sacrifice came from. Those are your Titans or Giants, but of course they became extinct long before hominids appeared. But the fossils of dinosaurs gave birth to the *concept* of Giants (Titans) and Gods.
You insist on pretending to be the expert in a field of knowledge you are entirely ignorant about. Sorry, but your ideas cannot be taken into consideration.
And why should I accept your hypothesis, because you base your argument on the historical inaccuracy of scriptures (hoaxes). So far you have not proved anything why people believe in the supernatural.
You again know the above by means of the inspiration presented to you by the holy ghost!! According to your theory the ancients saw the bones of large animals and immediately exclaimed: “These are the remains of the Giants who gave birth to the gods who are now sitting on the clouds and send down to us the lightning and the thunder"
On the contrary, that is YOUR position. My position is that there are no gods only mathematical functions and all of mythology is wrong, and products of imagination..
You keep talking about the evolution of the Hoax.Why don't you just say it is a Hoax and prove it scientifically? My problem with you lies in the fact that regardless of science, these memes of Giants, Titans, Gods, and Spirits continue to exist, without modification. And, of course, in view of the millenia old meme of all mythologyt is impossible to modify the fundamental assumption (imagining) of *intentional* supernatural beings, who SUPPOSEDLY created us in their image.
Modern people believe, as you say above, that supernatural beings created us in their image.
Well, religious people do, don't they? What is your point? I am wrong in making that objective observation? Does that make me an agnostic? It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. – Aristotle
Ancient people said that the lords raped some primitive women and from the hybrids born they kept only those who came out in the lords’ image: us modern people.
NO, nooooo, I won't let you get away with that. You are again shifting terms to suit your argument again. The origial quote you used was "god's image", not "lord's image, which would be just the powerful and privileged", just powerful humans who took what they wanted. Which is my position. But your problem is that you do't see the hierarchical order of powerful people. Plain old power politics.
You prejudice is fogging you mind and cannot see anything beyond the theological nonsense you are fed in your entire life.
Wrong again, I was brought up Atheist and to me the entire history of giants, titans, gods and other mythological figures are from ignorance of the natral world. It is YOUR prejudice that stands in the way of reason.
You have to listen to the words of the ancients before pronouncing judgment.
Listening to ancient mythology wil reveal a true picture of the way it happened, does not proveanything about the mythology itself. It's all made up . You have to make a list of what it was said about Giants and decide whether the characteristics attributed to Giants describe some large animals or an extinct race of Homo sapiens. As long as you have not done that, what you assert is just noise. But you see, I have investigated that, and it is entirely natural for primitive man to assume the existence of Giants, Titans, or gods. If you know nothing of paleontology, finding a dinosaur thigh bone as tall as a human, it is entirely reasonable that primitive man believed in the existence of human Giants (Titans). I prefer to listen to scientists such as paleontologists who provide proof of their theories, such as carbon dating and DNA. No one has ever found a 6 foot thigh bone with human DNA, and therfore could not have come into the daughters of man. You are the one talking nonsense. And as I said once before you have absolutely no idea of what I know and do not know. In fact, you are a contrarian who offends agnostics instead of seriously discussing the evolution of the universe the earh and its living creatures to give an agnostic a sense of the way evolution works, thereby encouraging them to investigate further. Instead you dismiss agnostics as ignorant fools. Behold Dimitrios, our latest prophet. Al you create is divisiveness. Just look at this discussion between confirmed atheists. btw, most agnostics were brought up in the religious tradition but do not accept Scripture as Thruth and question their religion. Now you come along and insult these people as "ignorant fools". One thing is abundantly clear, you know nothing about the human mind and the psychology of memes, Tulpas. But if you are not interested in what I have to say, why should I be interested in what you have to say. Your hubris is abundantly clear. If that is your way of combating the spiritual belief systems, you are going in the wrong direction, my friend and fellow atheist. You just want to historically alter the Hoax as if that would turn the Hoax into Truth. Nice try, but no cigar.