Evidence for God

No some make more outlandish claims, some less so. That is really beside the point though isn't it? I would belief neither seeing as how almost all religions claims to be god inspired. Being able to shout the loudest does not make you right.

Which prophet is said to have written The Book of Judges?Edited by Brian, : spellin

You say another religion claims that G-d spoke to more than 600,000 people? Please explain which religion does this.

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You can't use the book of Judges to diprove the Torah.

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I'm not. I'm using it to point to a big hole in your argument.

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Do you even notice what you are doing.

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Yes, I'm pointing to a big hole in your argument. A story written long after the fact, after the true events have supposedly been forgotten can easily be a fabrication.

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However, you have no reason to believe this book, and it must be kept out of the arguement. As far as you are concerned, the book of Judges may be false.

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It may be false. But you need to show that it is wrong in this case or your argument fails. More, you need a positive case to show that the story you refer to is actually true and not a fabrication or a legend that grew up long after whatever really happened.

This isn't necessarily what the Tanakh says though.

Why does it matter that the religion claims that god spoke to 600.000 people?I can make a religion right now with the same claim, that wouldn't make it true.It all still boils down to a single liar.

The same reason for every religion: to explain stuff.Your arguments are entirely circular.

I did not claim that another religion made the same claim. I said all religions claim to be god inspired. I would have thought that was pretty clear in my post. Since it wasn't, then lets say the religion of the flying spagethi monster. It was actualy the FSM whos' words were heard that day. He only let people believe it was someone else because he knew the people were not ready at the time to know the truth. You can't prove that it wasn't. I can't prove that it was. So the statement that 600,000 people heard the word of god, so everthing that the torah says has to be true and it has to be so because it is written in a torah is completly baseless. It is not a reason to be able to say with certanty that you could select between the validity of one religion or the other. However this is completly of topic. Since none of this is evidence for god. If you would like to discuss it further I will join you in a new thread.

Explain how you would go about doing this. I was waiting for such a post. Think away.

Let me quote for you, the great text of my prophet Lurr. I think my book is way better than yours. Mine has more than yours.Edited by rbp, : No reason given.Edited by rbp, : added a lineEdited by rbp, : No reason given.

Let us assume that you are right for argument sake. I want you to explain how the story of the 600,000 hearing G-d speak originated. All you have said is that it was around before the rest of the Torah. Moreover, why is there only one story like this in all of the religions?Another question would be the motive. What motivated the Jews to form this religion? I can tell you the motive of every other religion. When one individual starts a religion he has many things going for him. If you start a religion right now you would receive publicity. You would have power to influence the world. You would receive money from your followers. You would receive worldwide fame. This is how the Church became very wealthy and powerful. All of these motives do not exist in the Torah. If you claim (without evidence of course) that the Torah was compiled by a few people in order to achieve all of what is listed above, you will easily see that you are wrong. The people you are referring to are unknown. So much for fame. The Jewish people live restrictive life styles and do not demand converts. In fact, according to Judaism, the rest of the world is free to act as they please for the most part. Jews do not demand large amounts of money from the rest of the world. Large sections of the Torah speak of curses that will befall "the Jews" if they sin. What motivated the Jews to accept such things readily knowing that the rest of the world will be free from these laws? If you suggest that it was a large conspiracy in order to spread a lie, how many people were in on the conspiracy? If you suggest that 600,000 people conspired in a lie in order to put self restrictive laws on themselves, is that not absurd? If it was only a few tribal leaders, how were they able to convince anyone to join the religion? This is especially true since there is no gain from joining the religion since it allows non believers to act as they please. If I presented you with the Torah, and said that you are Jewish and your forefathers were taken out of Egypt by G-d, and you must live a restrictive lifestyle, what would you say to me? You would probably ask: "How do you know? Prove it? I never knew that I was part of the chosen people that to my knowledge never existed." How would you form such a religion? And if this guy managed to convince a tribe to follow in this restrictive religion full of warnings and curses for this chosen people, why is this group of individuals completely unknown? Still a further problem; if these people wished to convince a whole nation that they were chosen by G-d to live a restrictive lifestyle, why was weird stories like the great flood put into the book? This, if anything, would hurt the chances of spreading such a religion. That is, of course, unless a great flood really did happen. Was this group of people smart or stupid? A final question; if all of this is really possible, and it is not hard to create a story with 600,000 people hearing the voice of G-d, why has no other religion attempted to do this? What is the motive, and how would you go about doing it? EXPLAIN PLEASEEdited by Open MInd, : No reason given.

Unfortunately, you will not have anyone believing that they are part of those billion people. You will convince nobody of this text. How was anyone convinced of the Torah?

You are wrong. Religions are not started to explain stuff. They are started for fame, money, and power.

The torah and my book seems alike to me. The book of Lurr is just a little shorter, as to not bother the readers too much. It all happened a long time ago, they are dead by now, but they all saw it and believed it. You would have known all of this had you read the Extended version of Lurrs book.How do you know, that any of the 600.000 mentioned in the Torah saw god? Did they all write it down? Or was it just one guy?

Your heretical objection to the Great Prophet rbp is noted. For the likes of unbelievers such as you is reserved the hell of being flayed for a thousand years a thousand times over while watching a thousand copies of your family going the same, before spending an eternity being humiliated by we who knew the truth when we heard it. Of course not, religions are rarely the result of a single lie or single liar! For Christianity to spread required dozens of gospel writers, all writing stories about one character that they claimed as true - many of which are massively contradictory. In turn, people changed these stories when they copied them. They, like any other human idea, cannot easily be traced to a single source.Why are you obsessed that a single liar is required as opposed to a collection of liars, delusional people, people who misheard or misremembered something or people acting to 'correct' a 'mistake' they think has been made in a text and so on, not all of whom are acting in concert? Well, it is difficult to say that there is one motive since there was not one single creator. However, the clues from history and the Tanakh leaves me believing that the Israelites were in danger of being absorbed and essentially destroyed by surrounding cultures as they lost their territories to others. By taking the traditions of their people which were slightly different from the traditions of the dominant cultures that they were forced to live under, and historicizing them, they sought to protect their culture against invasion/dilution and maintain solidarity through a common history even as the people were spread far apart. They chose El, the father deity of Canaan who in some circumstances took on the role of Marduk and later also Haddad.It seems to me, though, that given the fact that we have the exact same evidence that Allah appeared to the same 600,000 people as YHWH is claimed to have appeared to, means that this avenue of thought cannot provide evidence that the poster in the OP was seeking. The fact that the evidence is Biblical in nature rules out this evidence, even for later reformulations.Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.