Lack of belief is agnosticism, not atheism.

Agnosticism is a lack of certainty, atheism is a lack of belief.

I don’t see how “atheism” is “lack of belief“ - as the word clearly means “not-God-ism”.

Most atheists actually believe in God; they just hate him. They never rail against Allah, Buddha, Lord Ganesh, etc... but they've got plenty of venom for Yahweh & Jesus Christ.

I think "American Christianity" has had a lot to do with that problem.

While I’m no Protestant, the general “tone and timbre” of American Christianity, while starkly divided, was actually doing pretty darn bangin at ordering societies up until the 20th Century

It's fundamentalism. There was at least some understanding that religion and science could reasonably coexist with accomodation, and then the Red Scare happened, the Dulles brothers got the bright idea to weaponize religion, and we've been in backslide ever since.

People don't want to listen to it man.

Even when explaining the Jews - the Jews WROTE THE OLD TESTAMENT.

Do you not think it's reasonable to ask where they got this information and how they decided upon it?

But they never look into how the Jews do things. And consider it all "divine" when it's not. It was a bunch of Jews sitting around arguing until they all decided someone had won the argument. The entire jewish religion starts out with Abraham arguing with god and "winning the argument".

This is the basis for their whole religion - this is your old testament. It has nothing to do with divine beings from the sky.

Even if it were true that the OT were ahistorical (a claim I highly doubt), it misses the point entirely.

The OT was written centuries before the Incarnation of Christ, and was positively stuffed with Messianic Prophecy that wasn’t fulfilled until hundreds of years after all the authors had died. No merely-human agency at any level could possibly pull that off. That’s its actual significance

Of course it can be pulled off.

That's like saying "That last domino can't possible fall just because someone pushes over the first domino."

That’s not at all what it’s like; nobody human could possibly have steered events like the God-Man being born in a specific town, to a specific virgin. One doesn’t get to decide things like that about their own birth.

Yeah, they did, because these are narratives being presented within the context of things the narrators could not have witnessed.

Yeah I don’t know what to tell you. Shepherds and peasants and fishermen don’t really have a lot of ability to steer the sorts of narratives that rulers pay to have written down

That would presuppose the lack of a pre-existing oral tradition, which given that the apostles are mostly working-class illiterates, would dismantle the concept of apostolic tradition. I'll trust that's not what you meant to do, because that would be blasphemy to Orthodoxy.

Pretty sure we’re talking past each other; I’m referring to OT Messianic Prophecy

Which came from a bunch of Kabbalah Jews - which 'word for word' come out of the Torah.

So you might want to get interested in how they decided what was in the Torah, and what they mean by "God"

I’m not sure I understand why you’re claiming to know so much about “Kabbalah” being sourced “word-for-word” from the “Torah”. Are you an authority on jewish mysticism ?

I never said that, reread it.

I called them "Kabbalah Jews"

I didn't say it was sourced from the torah, I said the OT was.

And I'm reasonably well versed in some of the Kabbalah, enough to know it's a system, and that yeah, you can engineer systems to fall like dominos as you see fit.

So if the OT was sourced from the Jews, you might want to work out how they came about those things. And it was because of the arguments the rabbis use to do everything they do.

This is a fun discussion and I’ll get back to it when I get the chance; not blowing it off or anything 😆

No never talk to me or my son again.

So please set me straight if I’m missing something. You’re arguing roughly that:

The Messianic Prophecies of the OT are an elaborate, kabbalistic sort of shell-game, with the Gospel writers penning their “fulfillment” in a largely fictional account around a man being called “Jesus Christ”.

That this was the ultimate aim of the writers of the specific Prophecies - to which they employed many tricks and puns in order to project their intention centuries into the future, where they figured they’d be “unlocked”.

Am I missing anything here ?

I don't know about the bible itself - probably so - I know writing can manifest these things in people.

However, through Kabbalah you can harness energy in particular ways to use to manipulate people, yes. And the Kabbalah is itself a macrocosmic system of logic as well.

This is where you get your Nostradamus's, etc. It's not magical, it's logical.

Like, in retrospect, if we created electricity, would AI become the logical conclusion?

Keep in mind they created the movie Metropolis (with the thinking robot) back in the early 1900's. Is this not a logical conclusion we could surmise from actions taken in the past?

Kabbalah is the same thing but on a very human level. I'm sure there's tonnes of it I know little about, but that's the way it is supposed to work.

Okay, I’m not going to deny any of that, at all. I’m totally open to the possibility that Isaiah, say, was “forecasting” certain things through “kabbalistic” word-and-number play - which the Gospel Writers seven-hundred or so years later “decoded” - illuminating them as to how properly to ”fulfil the Prophecy” with their fictional account of the God-Man Jesus Christ. Sure, why not ?

So, by now, because it’s already been “decoded”, it should be pretty easy to find a few examples, right ? Do you happen to know of any ? Sincere question: what was the specific forecast and how was it fulfilled ?

Surely there must be many of these. In fact I know of a few off the top of my head.

It's not just word and number play.

It is in some ways - very biblical.

God is within you and all around you. <- it takes this very seriously.

If god is logic, why not do the logic inside yourself? This is the root of Kabbalah.

It's not some devil worship or something. I wouldn't suggest that kind of thing.

It's certainly not Christian - I'll give you that. But this is also why I had a rant the other week about my suspicious nature of Hitler and was talking about inflection points - I'm talking about the logic of it all.

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Numerology is not logical for physics and chemistry predictions

Numerology does not enable you to understand what will happen based on physics

Numerology is a language to send secret messages to specific individuals that know the code without the rest of the public that sees the message understanding the intended meaning

Yeah I've never gotten into numerology.

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How can you claim to know so much about the Kabballah but so little about numerology

Are you telling me the Kabballah is nkt full of numerology

I don't DO Kabbalah, but I've been a victim of it, and read up on it and understand both from being a target and what I've read on it.

I don't practice it.

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What would anyone "do" with it? Isn't it just some kind of jewish mysticism?

As far as I can tell, kabbalah is just one of many in the jews’ bag of tricks to hoodwink the gullible goyim

That's what black magic is though: cultivating the favor of negative spiritual beings, who are inherently deceptive, so that you can more effectively flimflam your fellow man.

I mean just listen to this shit.

You were the fucker going on about mystical nonsense that can't really be proven earlier. "I believe because I believe"

And that's not flimflam?

I didn't mean it that way (I believe simply because I believe). It took me a long time - most of my life - to come to the conclusion that demons are real, and in large part because I've had strange demonic experiences myself. I rarely talk about this kind of thing because most people believe, as you do, that it's all crank nonsense. I know it irritates the hell out of you. It used to have the same effect on me, but I changed my mind, and I know that I'll never be able to prove what I now believe.

I don't believe it's crank nonsense depending upon the context.

I've seen shit that would make you question reality itself, but I don't believe in people levitating and climbing the walls. Not without proof. And the proof should be easily gotten, but we don't because <reasons>. And that's not good enough.

" ...people levitating and climbing the walls."

Yeah, that's something I'd pretty much have to see with my own eyes. I haven't experienced anything like that, and I don't know what to make of people who say that they have.

THAT is my sticking point.

And we're talking Catholic priests and shit saying this stuff.

It's not a protestant thing. Like ok, just get me some video. Half the world will fucking come and be baptised. But they don't.?!?!

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They would argue they do not do special effects videos of exorcisms because of confidentiality just like you do not hear priest confessionals