no offence but angels with their 6 wings, blazing halos, multitudes of eyes, 4 faces + booming voices are 100 times more terrifying than any demon I’ve ever seen a description of. oh it’s a dude with horns. that’s chill. come back when you’re an eternal arcane wheel of fire and maybe i’ll be afraid of you.
There are lots – billions – of religious people who don’t think ‘God is real the way poetry is real’ or ‘God is real the way love is real’, they think that the universe was created by a specific entity with thoughts, intentions, and desires, and which sometimes acts in the world, and which has expectations about our conduct which were communicated through historical prophets. Many of them think you can directly communicate with God through prayer.
There are lots – billions – of religious people who think that humans have immortal souls, which survive the destruction of our bodies and which have an eternal fate of some kind.
Call those type-1s. They have a belief about the supernatural. They think their belief is true, and tells us things.
These are claims about the world. They’re not claims about lenses we can use to see the world; they’re not claims about what makes us empowered and happy to believe; they are statements about what is actually true. If you say to these people ‘oh, you mean you find it fulfilling and empowering to think of yourself as having an immortal soul’, they’ll say “uh, no, I mean that humans have an immortal soul”.
This is true of some religious people on tumblr/participating in this argument, but a lot of religious people on tumblr are a different kind of religious, one which is more common now than it has been historically. They are more likely to agree with claims like “God is how we find ourselves in the world” or “God is whatever you find when you’re looking for God” or “God is love”.
Call this type-2.
There are also, separately, a bunch of people whose attitude about God is “people who have believed in God have gotten something really powerful out of this, or they wouldn’t do it. What is that? Can I inhabit that state and get a good description of what the powerful thing they’re getting out of it is?”
Call these ones type-3.
So now that we’ve described our groups, here are some fights they have!
Atheists: “Okay, it looks like there is no entity with thoughts, intentions and desires that created the world. Also, those historical prophets were recording their own beliefs/interests, they didn’t have any access to what a god thought.”
Religious people-type-1: “We disagree. God exists, and we have a lot of information about what specifically he wants, and he wants this.”/ “We disagree. Souls exist, and…”/ “We disagree. Eight different gods exist, and…”
Religious people-type-2: “You’re treating this like it’s an answerable question, when it isn’t. And then you’re acting like you have the one right answer, you dick.”
Religious people-type-3: “yes, yes, we know, but God is doing something, and that’s really interesting, and you’re missing out on a huge part of the human experience if you’re not trying to inhabit the perspective associated with faith in God”.
Atheist: “…fine, but God doesn’t exist. Like, actually, if you go and check for Jews in Egypt there weren’t any, and this is true for every revealed religion, they make claims that are factually false, and you’re talking about something other than that, but there are still people murdering gays because of that, so I want to talk about that!”
Religious-people-type-1: “You’re equivocating between ‘this belief causes people to behave badly’ and ‘this belief is false’. God exists, and also people do bad things in their mistaken understanding of what God wants. It’s bad that they’re doing the bad things, but we have to find a way to address that other than claiming God doesn’t exist, because as a fact about the world, God exists and cares how we act.”
Religious-people-type-2: “if you’re trying to think about God by checking for archaeological evidence of Jews in Egypt you’re completely misunderstanding how to think about God. God isn’t the sort of thing that even in theory would be disprovable by looking at evidence. And also you are still being a colossal dick. I’m not murdering people over my beliefs, so why do you even care what I believe? My beliefs are mine, they’re private, and they’re a huge part of who I am.”
Religious-people-type-3: “People who are religious are happier; that’s a true fact about religion. People who are religious have tighter-knit communities; that’s a true fact about religion. People who are religious have more kids; that’s a true and important fact about religion which will affect whether the next generation is religious. You’re focusing on the false claims but missing the true ones, and the true ones matter!”
Anyway the current argument on tumblr is unproductive because all of these people are talking at each other without much clarity about what they believe and which people they’re directing their arguments at. And I think a lot of people think that “God isn’t an answerable question” is a concession everyone should be willing to make instead of one specific opinion about religion which you could hold.
This.
When I say I am an atheist, I’m saying something that’s compatible with 2 and 3, but I’m also saying “if you believe 2 or 3, I don’t understand why you consider yourself a theist. That seems weirdly imprecise.”
I can and have gotten a lot out of the kind of Christian practice that goes like “Jesus is this being that is maximally compassionate. He wants you to try to be, knows you will fall short, and doesn’t mind as long as you tried because he’s… well… maximally compassionate. We get together every Sunday and remind one another to try to imitate Mr. Maximally Compassionate as much as we can, and to try to push ourselves to do it more than we usually do and thereby become morally good through practice.”
However, I am uneasy about calling myself “a Christian” because I do not believe Mr. Maximally Compassionate existed. I think he’s a template, used as a reminder to be moralLy good and an inspiration to be more morally good than you currently are.
And an imperfect one at that.
I’m an atheist, someone who used to be type 1, and really don’t understand why type 2′s and types 3′s keep wanting to use the name of the religion that type 1s originally used.
if you say ‘i’m spiritual but not religious/ i’m animist/ whatever’ then fine, but acting like christianity/ islam was never about type 1 stuff, and suggesting it ever was is a strawman from lazy unsophisticated atheists who don’t know what they’re talking about and that’s not an interesting or important question anyway is disingenuous and frankly infuriating as someone who used to be type 1, knows a LOT of type 1s, and tbh thinks type 1 is probably more common than type 2 or 3 at least when it comes to abrahamic religions and maybe even in general, but if it’s not an actual majority is still a HUGELY relevant chunk and not a tiny minority.
Also, i’m someone who cares about the truth. Like, i care about things like ‘people are killing gays because they think god told them to’, but i ALSO care about the truth, and whether or not the actual type 1 claims are true. If there was a religion that had adherents who ALL behaved morally and were super nice and caused no problems, but they also said that ‘you have an imortal soul and dying is not a big deal and some people who die will go to heaven and some will go to hell’ that’s something that i actually care about whether it’s true or not. Whether when i die i go to heaven, hell or oblivion is kind of a big deal to me, i don’t know about you guys.
Yeah, that. I feel like type 2s and 3s want atheists to stop talking about type 1s but I don’t know why that would be required.
Endorsed. I’m even going to go a bit further and state that type 1′s make up the overwhelming (as in, >99%) majority of the religious, and so I’m a little tired of being treated like an unsophisticated /r/atheism philistine for pointing this out and treating it as a baseline in discussions.
It’s usually the type 2′s that are doing this. Type 1′s and I just have a fundamental disagreement about the facts-of-the-world. I think the evidence is clearly on my side, but they don’t… and that’s about as far as most discussions get. They are, at least, usually upfront about the material differences between our positions. Type 3′s, you guys are an odd bunch, and I think you really should call yourselves atheists, but you don’t usually give me grief and so I return the favor. As long as you’re not hurting anyone, you do you.
But it’s the type 2′s who are really condescending toward atheists, which especially bugs me because most of the time their arguments are muddy and confused. They are very slippery and won’t state plainly what they believe, leaving me with no way to actually examine and invalidate their claims, which they then take to mean I’m just a STEM-lord who can be brushed off because I don’t understand Kant or whatever. Hey guys, “communicating badly and then acting smug when you’re misunderstood is not cleverness”.
So, as a type-2 and type-3 believer, your reblog here just gave me a big clue as to why such people wander into your debates and get mad at you:
You assume type 1s are 99% of religious people but they’re really not.
But more to the point, type 1s like to assume that they are and should be 99% of religious people.
And it’s erroneous as heck according to the vast majority of demographic data, but it’s also, specifically, a power play in support of religious fundamentalism, against the rest of us. It’s the claim that they have the only ‘real’ way to believe. And when you accept their claim unchallenged, you are unwittingly supporting that power play.
Can you see now why we’d be against that, and very tired of it?
Anyway, already having typed this response, I see your tags say you’re tired of this, and that’s fine, I don’t know that I’ve got the spoons to really engage at length. But I thought you might want to know that, like, if you’re running into people saying “you sound like a fundamentalist”, and it’s confusing to you, what they’re saying is, “you’re accepting as basis an unsupported statement that the fundamentalists are using to try and trample us, please stop helping.”
*Even leaving aside Christian denominations which do so, and Christians who exist in type 1 denominations as a type 2 or 3 adherent, there are several religions that explicitly encourage type 2 and type 3 practice and belief. Buddhism, Judaism and Neopaganism are among those. That’s at least twelve million Americans. And it’s not a new movement in Judaism either; the Talmud deals with this stuff and there are tons of Jewish in-jokes about how Jews often wind up basically being atheists. This is not new, and the cultural erasure of it by fundies isn’t new, either.
This is literally the funniest week for me to see this
We are told that St. Francis used to spend whole nights praying the same prayer: “Who are you, God? And who am I?” Evelyn Underhill claims it’s almost the perfect prayer. The abyss of your own soul and the abyss of the nature of God have opened up, and you are falling into both of them simultaneously.
just read an anne carson essay that dovetails w this and i’m realizing that a lot of people who are very thoughtful about religion experience it as a sort of constant horror
I’m re-watching the Prince of Egypt, and the whole God saying “totally, just kill a lamb and paint your door with it’s blood so I know not to kill your first born children” really strikes me as a ruthless Pagan God move…
So my question is… What the fuck?
Some secondary and follow up questions? are:
God sent plagues, but that feels like a lot more work than just saying “Hebrews grab your shit, revolt, and leave, you easily out number the Egyptians.”
God appeared to Moses as a burning bush… Why not something idk, more obviously god-like? He has ultimate power and chose to look like flaming shrubbery.
This story is so weird, because you could change the names of the people and places, then tell me it’s a fantasy story about some Pagan God that wants to deliver his worshippers out of bondage.
But also fuck everyone else who’s having a rough time? He doesn’t care about delivering anyone else, including future enslaved races? Just the Hebrews… That one time… Dude sounds like some choosy guy who has to use a surrogate… Must not have ultimate power if he can’t come down from his high throne and do it himself??
If someone can give me a real solid answer as to why God sounds just exactly like some Pagan Gods (with the lambs blood, water into blood, plagues and shit) then I will shut the fuck up. Until then, imma be questioning this
So these kinds of questions are always amusing from the Jewish perspective, because well…we talk about this all the time. Why bother killing the first borns? Dayenu. (It would have been enough to just let us go free.)
But basically, you’re approaching this from a heavily christian-normative atheist perspective. I don’t think asking Xtians about this story will help, because this is the most fundamentally Jewish story to be tackling.
Here goes:
“totally, just kill a lamb and paint your door with it’s blood so I know not to kill your first born children” really strikes me as a ruthless Pagan God move…
Animal sacrifice absolutely exists in the Torah and during the first and second temple periods. The fact that Judaism explicitly bans all human sacrifice is seen as (in historical context) a huge step away from pagan ritual sacrifice. Many scholars believe the shift to animal sacrifice in general is reflective of understanding man’s more primal urges, and redirecting it away from murder or human sacrifice.
At any rate, the sacrifice of the lamb and painting of the lintel with lamb’s blood could have any number of possible parallels or reasonings.
It’s worth noting that sacrificing a lamb would be considered to be inappropriate by the Egyptians, which is mentioned right there in the text of Exodus. (I assume you didn’t read it):
(Chapter 8) 21 Thereupon, Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron, and he said, “Go, sacrifice to your God in the land.” 22 But Moses said, “It is improper to do that, for we will sacrifice the abomination of the Egyptians to God our Lord. Will we sacrifice the deity of the Egyptians before their eyes, and they will not stone us? 23 Let us go [for] a three day journey in the desert and sacrifice to the Lord, our God, as He will say to us.” 24 Pharaoh said, “I will let you go out, and you will sacrifice to the Lord, your God, in the desert, but do not go far away; entreat [Him] on my behalf.”
The Egyptians had Sheep/Ram headed Gods, so it’s not surprising that sacrificing a lamb for God would indicate that the Jewish people are truly not Egyptians, especially if an Egyptian might be inclined to stone someone for doing this.
The choice of sacrificing a sheep might very well be completely intentional as an affront against Egyptian oppressors. We have corroboration historically about the importance of rams and sheep in Egypt:
Herodotus, in his survey of Egyptian customs, writes (Histories, 2:42):
Now all who have a temple set up to the Theban Zeus (=Amun) or who are of the district of Thebes, these, I say, all sacrifice goats and abstain from sheep… the Egyptians make the image of Zeus (=Amun) into the face of a ram… the Thebans then do not sacrifice rams but hold them sacred for this reason.
So this isn’t just a random “pagan” act, this is a group of people intentionally sacrificing an animal held sacred as representative of a pagan god, because that is what God requires and asks for. The Egyptians would never sacrifice a sheep, if the sheep represents some of their deities – but the Hebrews, who do not worship pagan gods, most certainly would.
If you read chapter 9, you will also see Pharaoh try and command that the Hebrews should leave behind their sheep and cattle (in part to prevent their sacrifice) – which they refuse to do.
The “sacrifice” of the lamb fulfills a few different purposes:
it is considered sacrilegious by the Egyptians, thus setting them apart from the pagans (and symbolically showing a willingness to destroy pagan gods)
the lamb is meant to be cooked and prepared so that the families can eat it. It’s a meal to be prepared in light of the fact that they’re preparing to flee.
Torah also tells us the blood is a sign for the Hebrews, and not the Egyptians. The blood is actually marked on the inside of the door (as per Rashi’s commentary on the Hebrew), and therefore the only people who can see the blood would be God (who is able to see all) and the Hebrews from inside their homes. It looks more impressive to do it the other way when you animate it, though.
The verse shows us this:
And the blood will be for you for a sign upon the houses where you will be, and I will see the blood and skip over you, and there will be no plague to destroy [you] when I smite the [people of the] land of Egypt.
Rashi explains: And the blood will be for you for a sign: [The blood will be] for you a sign but not a sign for others. From here, it is derived that they put the blood only on the inside. — [from Mechilta 11]
and I will see the blood: [In fact,] everything is revealed to Him. [Why then does the Torah mention that God will see the blood?] Rather, the Holy One, blessed be He, said, “I will focus My attention to see that you are engaged in My commandments, and I will skip over you.” -[from Mechilta]
Your other questions are also interesting:
God sent plagues, but that feels like a lot more work than just saying “Hebrews grab your shit, revolt, and leave, you easily out number the Egyptians.”
Well, again, have you read a haggadah? We uh, talk about this once a year. If God had let us flee Egypt and not bothered with punishing our oppressors – that would have been enough!
So like, in general, you can’t attend a passover seder without questioning…why God bothered with the plagues.
God appeared to Moses as a burning bush… Why not something idk, more obviously god-like? He has ultimate power and chose to look like flaming shrubbery.
A bush that is on fire but does not get burnt is pretty impressive. But again, I guess you haven’t actually read exodus, because it’s not just a burning bush:
An angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire from within the thorn bush, and behold, the thorn bush was burning with fire, but the thorn bush was not being consumed.
So Moses said, “Let me turn now and see this great spectacle why does the thorn bush not burn up?”
An angel appears in the fire, the thorn bush is on fire, but does not burn. Then God appears. But eh, maybe that isn’t as wild as you want it to be, so the following exchange between Moses and God is a bit more…miraculous. First God turns Moses’ staff and turns it into a serpent, and back into a staff. This is the first sign Moses can use to prove that God is here. And then…
And the Lord said further to him, “Now put your hand into your bosom,” and he put his hand into his bosom, and he took it out, and behold, his hand was leprous like snow.
And He said, “Put your hand back into your bosom,” and he put his hand back into his bosom, and [when] he took it out of his bosom, it had become again like [the rest of] his flesh.
…you might want to picture it a little bit like this:
– You best start believing in holy stories, Moshe. – you’re in one.
But again, you don’t need to believe in this literally or accept it as literal. But I think it’s a bit silly to say it’s not “miraculous” enough or something.
This story is so weird, because you could change the names of the people and places, then tell me it’s a fantasy story about some Pagan God that wants to deliver his worshippers out of bondage.
Except you couldn’t, which is why it’s a story about the Jewish monotheistic God. If you swapped out the name of God and the people, it would still be a monotheistic story.
You could take “In order that they believe that the Lord, the God of their forefathers, has appeared to you, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.“
and instead say “the King, the Ancient One of their forefathers, has appeared to you, the God of Maharba, the God of Caasi, and the God of Bocaj,” but you’re still fundamentally naming a monotheistic deity.
But also fuck everyone else who’s having a rough time? He doesn’t care about delivering anyone else,
Again, this isn’t true, and even PoE illustrates this! Watch it again, and you’ll notice Egyptians dropping their weapons and walking alongside the Hebrews, even crossing the sea! and why else would God give commandments before the Hebrews cross the sea about what to do with the converts and strangers living among them?
Exodus 12:37-38:
The children of Israel journeyed from Rameses to Succoth, about six hundred thousand on foot, the men, besides the young children. And also, a great mixed multitude went up with them, and flocks and cattle, very much livestock.
These are the others, fleeing with the Hebrews. Anyone who wanted to flee was able to do so, and join the Israelites.
including future enslaved races? Just the Hebrews… That one time…
Well there’s a few ways to look at this. But I don’t believe this is an issue of “just this one time.”
1.) the issue of the Jewish people being enslaved and kept from Israel is an issue because if the Jewish people fulfill their end of the covenant (contract) then God should also fulfill their promises. An exodus from slavery in Egypt had to occur for the return to Israel to happen. The covenant is a contract. God is making good on their end of that contract with the exodus.
So here, God intervenes lest they fail to uphold a contract.
2.) But also, ultimately, Judaism promotes the idea that in times of distress mankind should act as if there is no God, and do the right thing. We take action because it is up to us to take that action. It was ultimately up to the Israelites to leave Egypt, even if God made it seem more possible to do so. It was up to the Israelites to pack their things and prepare their rations and even up to them to bravely step forwards into the sea and keep going, even though it took time for the waters to part. (Some say the waters did not part until the Israelites were so far into the water that it would have drowned them.)
So have other people been liberated from slavery? Absolutely. You have two choices – you can say it was because of “God” or you can say it was because of the hard work of abolitionists and slave uprisings. It’s not a mystery why the African American community references Exodus so heavily in gospel music – Jewish freedom is a template for all freedom (and anyways, there are also black Jews!). So did God free black slaves, or did black men and women and abolitionist allies work tirelessly for that freedom? Couldn’t it be both? Shouldn’t we say, be capable of going “If God freed us then, then now our lives should be also dedicated to freeing everyone else?” Why would you assume mankind is free from the work of liberation? It is our job to work for freedom on behalf of others, not to just sit on our ass and expect God to do the work.
Again, no surprise that Jewish Americans were involved in abolitionism throughout the world and heavily involved in the US civil rights movements.
Dude sounds like some choosy guy who has to use a surrogate… Must not have ultimate power if he can’t come down from his high throne and do it himself??
…Choosy, absolutely. Not having ultimate power is endlessly debatable. One way or another, it happened, and certainly God sent down the forces to do so in Exodus. But also, uh, you realize a lot of this was a learning and teaching process, right?
If someone can give me a real solid answer as to why God sounds just exactly like some Pagan Gods (with the lambs blood, water into blood, plagues and shit) then I will shut the fuck up. Until then, imma be questioning this
Like I said, lamb’s blood is in direct contrast/opposition to local Pagan worship.
The Nile running red with blood is actually deeply symbolic – recall that in the beginning of the Exodus story, the first born Hebrew sons are being thrown into the Nile River. So what God is doing is illustrating the fact that the Nile was filled with the blood of the Hebrew people – specifically their firstborn sons – and this is the blood which Pharaoh was responsible for shedding. It’s similar to Macbeth, when Lady Macbeth hallucinates blood on her hands after her murderous act. Except here, the entire Nile turns to blood, haunting Pharaoh with the blood of the slaves his father had murdered. Talk about facing the reality of your actions. This is where the blood comes from.
Either way, none of these things make God more or less pagan? The issue of paganism is not how a God acts or behaves, but whether or not there are other Gods. Like that’s literally it. Hope that helped? Lmao. These questions aren’t that weird.
Shoot son, you sure rose to that challenge!
Ngl, you schooled me. Historical context was missing in the movie, so you’ll have to give me that one. The rest of that I never fucking learned in years of Sunday school, (and these kind of questions weren’t encouraged.) Thank you, @keshetchai I’ve learned a lot today!
Forgive me that I remain skeptical, it still boils down to having faith or not having faith; this isn’t a reflection of you though and thank you again for such a thorough answer 🙂
no problem! This is a big example of the massive differences between Judaism and xtianity as a whole. A lot of the questions you touched upon are built in to the passover seder, and are encouraged. We ask exactly a lot of these things!
There’s also a part of the seder where we discuss the four questions (why is this night different from all other nights?) and then we discuss the Four Children, each child covering a different attitude towards the story. To paraphrase:
The Wise Child asks: What does this all mean? What are the laws we are commanded, the customs and traditions we uphold?
The Wicked Child*** asks: What does this mean to you? [Why do you even bother with all this?] ***wicked isn’t like, “evil” it’s more like “challenging.” or “isolated” from the community by distancing themselves.
The Simple Child asks: What is it that we’re doing? What’s the seder about?
The Child Who Does Not Know How to Ask doesn’t ask a question at all, and instead can be prompted into thinking of questions to ask, being helped to understand things, or may just be too young to formulate the question– and yet we still must include them.
Each “type” of question is meant to be met with an answer. So asking these questions might be discouraged in xtianity, but is part of the Jewish tradition.
It’s okay if you don’t believe everything, or don’t take it literally. Honestly, that isn’t why I answered your questions – I’m not concerned about convincing you of the truth or literalism of the story. I just think it’s fair to want honest answers to interesting questions. Personally, whether or not it happened literally isn’t really a big deal for me, or even where i derive meaning when hearing the story. Faith means something different in Judaism than it does in xtianity, so I don’t have any kind of investment in trying to convince you to “just believe” because someone said so.
if you don’t want to believe in parts or all of it, it’s no skin off my nose. Frankly, I’m way more concerned with impressing the idea that “slavery is bad and we as people are obligated to help in the liberation of others.” 🙂 the times when these questions become an issue are when gentiles present the questions as if Jewish people are stupid/backwards/barbaric/etc. That would be an issue, but asking “what the hell was going on there??” earnestly isn’t.
Reblogging because:
(a) this is an excellent and thoughtful discussion of various theological issues;
(b) I really appreciate people doing what @keshetchai does here, giving questions serious, thorough, and kind answers;
(d) this is just a super sweet exchange all round; and
(e) I learned things from it! (I did not realize about the blood being on the inside of the doors, or about other Egyptians joining the Israelites in their flight.)
Dude sounds like some choosy guy who has to use a surrogate… Must not have ultimate power if he can’t come down from his high throne and do it himself??
just moving along like everyone else 