Let My People Go!

Originally posted by twhitehead
But Jaywill is arguing that it was payback. Obviously if the only aim was to get Pharoah to yield there would have been other solutions that were far more reasonable.
If he could part the oceans etc then surely he could simply erect an invisible force field around the Hebrews camp complete with a path out of Egypt. Even easier would have been to magically transport them straight to Israel.

Right now I am doing some construction work and the most annoying thing is for 'friends' who think they are helping me when in fact all they are doing is trying to display their 'superior' knowledge, to ask 'why did you not do X or Y. My answer is usually.. "If I did X or Y you would have asked why did I not do A or B.

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But Jaywill is arguing that it was payback. Obviously if the only aim was to get Pharoah to yield there would have been other solutions that were far more reasonable.
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Maybe the only aim was not to get Pharoah to yield.

Maybe that was only one of a number of object lessons.

If I remember rightly, when Pharoah changed his mind about the deal and set off with his army after the Israelites, it seems that God spoke to Moses and said "I have hardened Pharoah's heart" That seems an interesting thing to do. When Pharoah had let them go, why would God harden Pharoah's heart, so that he would reneg on the deal to release God's people?

Originally posted by muppyman
If I remember rightly, when Pharoah changed his mind about the deal and set off with his army after the Israelites, it seems that God spoke to Moses and said "I have hardened Pharoah's heart" That seems an interesting thing to do. When Pharoah had let them go, why would God harden Pharoah's heart, so that he would reneg on the deal to release God's people?

Yeah .. seems so. God was looking for an excuse to further kick his butt.

Originally posted by Rajk999
Yeah .. seems so. God was looking for an excuse to further kick his butt.

don't think so.

the story is told to show that the nation of Israel was still a collection of insufficiently faithful people.

Moses needed help to keep them moving out at speed, so
Ramses' chariots helped create the sense of urgency. Moses was having trouble maintaining order and discipline -- something that came to a head more than once. The big one was at the foot of Mt Sinai involving the incident of the Golden Calf. There were other problems.

By the time the Israelites were allowed to enter the land of Canaan under the leadership of Joshua, the original generation of emigrants from Egypt had died out. Those who were alive had been properly indoctrinated in the faith new to them and were thus a cohesive group.

This is just a story, not the facts. There are as many interpretations as one might care to invent. This one was what I was taught as a kid by my father, who was a scientific rationalist, not a religious person.

He did not believe in heaven or hell; he did not believe in an afterlife. He was agnostic with respect to how the universe got started, why we are here, etc. He didn't believe in answers to questions that he could not rationally confirm.

But he didn't deny the possibility of things that may be of which we cannot now know.

So the whole exodus thing is a nice story used for various purposes.

Not worth debating as though it was an historical account of actual events.

Originally posted by Scriabin
don't think so.

the story is told to show that the nation of Israel was still a collection of insufficiently faithful people.

Moses needed help to keep them moving out at speed, so
Ramses' chariots helped create the sense of urgency. Moses was having trouble maintaining order and discipline -- something that came to a head more than once. The big on ous purposes.

Not worth debating as though it was an historical account of actual events.

Egypt was an exceedingly proud kingdom which lasted 3000 years. They liked to tell their story only in the most positive way for the world of the future to know.

One thing is known about Egyptian history. They did not record things of which they were embaressed. Their kings told details of victories over enemies. Even when they were in retreat they told of victory.

Their pharoahs told the stories of their usually always "glorious" reigns on the walls of their tombs and on their columns. When something was in the hieragriphics of which latter kings were ashamed, they scratched out the details and inserted positive things. For example, the one woman Pharoah they had of which latter generation became embaressed. They attempted to eliminate her from Egyptian history because they did not want it known that a woman queen had made herself not only queen but king.

You would not expect the Egyptians to record how the God of the Hebrews humliated Pharoah and plagued Egypt. Thier silence about it would be expected.

It has also been determined by some Egyptoligists that whoever wrote the story of Joseph in Genesis, did do so with a clear knowledge of ancient Egyptian culture. The writer seems to have had firsthand experience of ancient Egyptian ways.

Originally posted by Scriabin
It was explicitly payback -- the God of Abraham, Jacob, and Moses is an angry, vengeful autocrat. He gives commandments, He renders judgments, He allowed Joshua to stop the sun in the sky, notwithstanding the rather disconcerting physics of such an undertaking.

Don't mess with this one.

This is not a God of compassion, forgiveness, etc. No turning t ...[text shortened]... al: the New Testament, that's YOUR book.

The Old Testament, that's MY book.

OK? 😉

It was a lesson in reality.
God is God, not a man, you may as well complain water is wet,
or fire hot.
Kelly

Originally posted by Scriabin
don't think so.

the story is told to show that the nation of Israel was still a collection of insufficiently faithful people.

Moses needed help to keep them moving out at speed, so
Ramses' chariots helped create the sense of urgency. Moses was having trouble maintaining order and discipline -- something that came to a head more than once. The big on ...[text shortened]... ous purposes.

Not worth debating as though it was an historical account of actual events.

Smart guy your father.

"..But he didn't deny the possibility of things that may be of which we cannot now know. "

Originally posted by Rajk999
Smart guy your father.

"..But he didn't deny the possibility of things that may be of which we cannot now know. "

My father was speaking of facts we cannot now know. He spent a lot of time from my earliest childhood teaching me that, as the great Yogi said, you can observe a lot just by watching.

He was not speaking of anything supernatural. He and Spinoza wouldn't spoil a pair, except my father would do without any concept of the divine whatsoever, as he had no evidence the word referred to anything but that which humans had cooked up as comfort food.

He did not think he knew everything -- there was more to be discovered. He did not think there would ever be anything supernatural to observe. What we want to be part of reality and what is the case are two different things.

That is why I seek to become exceedingly aware of what is the case, what is happening now as it happens. I do not seek to invent castles in the air, whole neighborhoods and cities of playing cards, all resting on thoughts that exist only between people's ears. It doesn't help to write those thoughts down, and they don't gain credibility or become more real with age.

My father used to take me to the Boston Museum of Fine Art, where they have a reconstructed ancient Eqyptian tomb, the walls, the ceiling, and the sarcophagus all as they were found. He could read the symbols. He was a student of language as well as an organic chemist. I found hand written spreadsheets in his den after his death. The pages were lined and ruled as an accountant's book would be. But the subject wasn't money. The contents of the spreadsheets, hundreds of pages, were a comparison of words. The comparison started with Sanskrit, and included all Indo-European languages, plus a few outliers.

I know my father would appreciate, above anything else Obama said the other night, the line: "I like to know what I'm talking about before I speak."

Originally posted by Scriabin
He did not think there would ever be anything supernatural to observe.

It is my argument that if something is observed then it is by definition not supernatural. The only way we can know anything about the natural is by observation. What we observe is necessarily part of the natural.
The whole supernatural category arises from an incorrect understand of science and the universe in general. It arises from the belief that there is a known set of laws that the universe operates by and that those laws can be violated and the phenomena of said violation is called 'supernatural'.