abra, red and sisu, i'll confront your theories as soon as i get a moment. i can't wait !

Anoasis:
i think you should date abra, go watch together "what the bleep do we know" movie (watch it and you'll understand why), move to california (if you're not already there), marry, found another of these fancy new-age sect, and be rich and happy everafter

abra:
i'm really sorry if i get on your nerves, but most readers of your posts will agree with me that your sense of logic seems sometimes very poor for a "professor of mathematics", unless you teach in private schools ok, i'm going too far. accept my apologies for this joke, i couldn't resist

now let me explain to the 98% theists of this forum why they should bear the burden of proof ....

_______________________

First important question I've asked myself : isn't it impossible to prove the nonexistence of something?

There are many counter-examples to such a statement. For example, it is quite simple to prove that there does not exist a prime number larger than all other prime numbers. Of course, this deals with well-defined objects obeying well-defined rules. Whether Gods or universes are similarly well-defined is a matter for debate.

However, assuming for the moment that the existence of a God is not provably impossible, there are still subtle reasons for assuming the nonexistence of God. If we assume that something does not exist, it is always possible to show that this assumption is invalid by finding a single counter-example.

If on the other hand we assume that something does exist, and if the thing in question is not provably impossible, showing that the assumption is invalid may require an exhaustive search of all possible places where such a thing might be found, to show that it isn't there. Such an exhaustive search is often impractical or impossible. There is no such problem with largest primes, because we can prove that they don't exist.

Therefore it is generally accepted that we must assume things do not exist unless we have evidence that they do. Even theists follow this rule most of the time; they don't believe in unicorns, even though they can't conclusively prove that no unicorns exist anywhere.

To assume that God exists is to make an assumption which probably cannot be tested. We cannot make an exhaustive search of everywhere God might be to prove that he doesn't exist anywhere. So the skeptical atheist assumes by default that God does not exist, since that is an assumption we can test.

Those who profess strong atheism as I do usually do not claim that no sort of God exists. instead, they generally restrict their claims so as to cover varieties of God described by followers of various religions. so whilst it may be impossible to prove conclusively that no God exists, it may be possible to prove that say a God as described by a particular religious book does not exist. It may even be possible to prove that no God described by any present day religion exists.

In practice, believing that no God described by any religion exists is very close to believing that no God exists. However, it is sufficiently different that counter-arguments based on the impossibility of disproving every kind of God are not really applicable.

__________

ok, now i see you coming and say : "but what if God is essentially non-detectable?"

I have an answer for you: if God interacts with our universe in any way, the effects of his interaction must have some physical manifestation. Hence his interaction with our universe must be in principle detectable.

If God is essentially non-detectable, it must therefore be the case that he does not interact with our universe in any way. I would then argue that if God does not interact with our universe at all, it is of no importance whether he exists or not. A thing which cannot even be detected in principle does not logically exist.

Of course, it could be that God is detectable in principle, and that we merely cannot detect him in practice. However, if the Bible is to be believed, God was easily detectable by the Israelites. Surely he should still be detectable today, right ? Or then why has the situation changed ?

Note that I am not demanding that God interact in a scientifically verifiable, physical way. I might potentially receive some revelation, some direct experience of God. An experience like that would be incommunicable, and not subject to scientific verification, but it would nevertheless be as compelling as any evidence can be to me.

But whether by direct revelation or by observation, it must surely be possible to perceive some effect caused by God's presence; otherwise, how can I distinguish him from all the other things that don't exist ?!!

__________________

I hope now you understand better what I mean by "burden of proof" and why it should logically be handled by those who make assumptions.

anoasis :
it's funny, because you're precisely proving my point.

Let's suppose for a moment that indeed, animals do praise a god. Given the fundamental and drastic difference between their ethics and ours, it's ok to assume animals don't praise Feral's or Eljay's modern God, right ?

They would rather be praising other kind of gods, closer to aztecs', native americans' or polynesians' gods, that share in common sacrificial rituals. just trying to follow your theory

anyway, animals' gods wouldn't have less reasons to exist than christians' God, right ? Animals might even have had their own messiah, who knows ? After all, homo sapiens are on earth only for 130,000 years, thus who knows if animals didn't have their own messiah before then ?

Ok, i'm kidding. but my point is that if i follow you and eljay, one thing is sure, it proves at the same time that there's not only one god, but multiple ones, since ethics prove we can't be sharing the same

Thus one way or another, it either proves there might no god at all if animal don't praise any god, or that we live in a polytheistic universe.

abra said "I don’t recall declaring that conscious = spirit"

>>> here : "You have no choice but to share this view, especially in light of the fact that you claim that humans have no spiritual element. As an atheist you are this universe, and you are conscious. Therefore the universe has consciousness."

You are comparing the words spirit (spiritual element) and conscious, putting them at the same level.

_____________


you say "the universe obviously is conscious through you". once again, your view is to not separate the container from the contained. you consider we are the universe, while i consider being part of the universe. that's a huge difference.

i consider myself as being a separate entity from the universe, limited by my physical body. you consider the universe a 1 entity, a kinda a fusion of all elements it contains. I guess that's a point we won't agree upon.

________

"I don’t recall speaking about any “supra-consciousness”

isn't it what you meant by "the universe obviously is conscious through you" ?

On top of that, your definition of pantheism adds up to confusion because it's quite different from how the scholars define it.

The problem is that I still don't really know where you exactly stand. Sometimes you seem to believe in reincarnation, sometimes not. Sometimes you seem to believe in a god-like supra-conscious connected through every living (and nonliving) object constitutive of the universe, and sometimes I'm not so sure it's the case. I'm sorry but i have to say it's a bit confusing. where is it exactly you stand when it comes to pantheism then ?

_____________


dark matter

it's closer to 90% and it's very controversial since indeed it's a theory trying to explain the hidden mass of the universe. i'm pretty sure we'll find an explanation to this phenomenon one day, and it's a bit easy to jump on conclusions and immediately affect such an unknown elements to god-like theories. history is full of examples where we explained the unknown by irrational explanations, most of which fed religions.

Socrate said "the only thing that i know is that i know nothing" and I indeed share this wise thought. But that's not a reason to jump to irrational conclusions as soon as scientist step upon new enigmas.

And again, you must understand that from my atheistic standpoint, I consider that burden of proof should be on the one who makes assumptions. Thus when you say "Who knows if the universe's consciousness is not precisely hidden in dark matter", I'd say prove it. I could also say that dark matter is as inert as my first chewing gum ... these are pointless assertions as no one may prove them one way or another.

That's why I think it's wiser to follow Picasso's philosophy who spent his life trying to draw like a child, and eventually said he succeeded by the end of his life. That's where is stand. I'm gonna try the rest of my life to "think" like a mosquito and stay away from unanswerable questions. Life is too short.

eljay:
of course there's no such thing as a proof that animals don't praise your "God" (or any god) in their own way. Unfortunately, Christians like you tend to reverse the burden of proof, but i consider it fair game. Thus I'd say the following : if animals where in anyway connected to you God, they'd for sure be guided by the same message, right ?

Then now tell me why animals don't share with us the same relation to killing its own specie, stealing, infanticide, polygamy, etc.. to name a few ? Yes, why animals have a very different approach of what's right or wrong, according to judeo-christian ethics ?

I guess that answers your question.

Remember :
Dogs lick their balls because they can. I truly think humans believe in gods simply because they can.

abra :

1) i'm not placing you in any box, you do it yourself. You claim to be a pantheist, right ?.. therefore you are a theist. Am i missing something ?

and when i added "whether you like or not", it was just to emphasize that you seemed in your own topics to distance yourself sometimes from pure pantheists and not share 100% of pantheism thesis, that's all. But if there's a sure fact, it's that pantheism is a theistic philosophy.

____________

2) fear of void : i'm just saying that there's 2 roots for religions and creation gods : it's either (or both) fear of death and/or fear of void (lack of explanation for origins of the universe, what is outside or before our universe). You said in a previous post that you're not afraid of death. I conclude that the second type of fear is probably what drives you into believing in pantheism. However, I might be wrong in your case, but this assumption is still valid for most theists.
But don't get me wrong. Atheists have fears too. I, for example, am terribly afraid of both death and void (the latter usually following the first), precisely because I believe there's nothing after, no reincarnation and no god to soothe the grief of my own death. I just didn't choose to go the easy way and not fall into religion, even though I was a true catholic until I was 15 years old.

______________

3) "you have no choice but to share this view especially in light of the fact that you claim that humans have no spiritual element. As an atheist you are this universe, and you are conscious. Therefore the universe has consciousness."

... Well, now you're becoming presumptuous too :-)

I think your error is to declare : conscious = spirit

It is, in my humble opinion, 2 separate things.

a) conscious
Every living creature has a conscious of its environment, of its own reality. This conscious is nothing but perceptions routed from its senses to the nerves and then to the brain or reflex center.

b) spirit
that is an abstract thing that would position humans above animals. there no evidence it exists, and when in evolution it suddenly appeared making humans "different".

That being said, you continue to say that one has no other choice than drawing the conclusion the universe has a conscious. I don't know if you like maths, but it's not because elements of a group have all separately a given characteristic that the group itself has necessarily the same characteristic.
In other words, it's not because living creatures have each a conscious of their reality that the container (universe) has a conscious of its own. And considering could be a big mistake, because it'd imply that the universe "conscious" as a whole would be the sum of all individual consciouses. Unfortunately, as far as I know, you can't add apples and bananas in an equation. Each of us has a different conscious, his own perception and even his own reality. Not even to mention animals consciouses. Therefore, because your conscious is different than mine (because your reality is different than mine), you can't add them up to create a kind of "supra-conscious". But again, that's me, and i fully respect your point of view.

I just regret indeed you don't go a bit deeper in your explanations, because indeed, I find it a very interesting subject.

abra said : "Skidoo, I can see from your last post that you aren’t interested in hearing other people’s views."

I can't figure where you see that in my post. If you do see such condescension, please accept my apologies, it wasn't my intention.

On the contrary, I'm very opened to discussion and ready to be convinced. What I did is simply pinpointing flaws in your approach of what you define as pantheism.

Eventually, your reaction could also mean you're closer than you think to someone you've criticized a lot (Feral) and not ready for contradiction, just like her.

Abra:
With all due respect, the length of your response reflects one thing to me : confusion.

I respect your conclusions, but they're often contradictory and in many ways illustrate a lack of knowledge of what Pantheism really is. It's like you've cooked your own sauce and decided the closest philosophy fitting your thesis is called Pantheism.

Unfortunately, this is not the case. And I'll start with the definition of pantheism as it's described by true pantheists themselves in wikipedia. Do some research and you'll see that indeed, Pantheism is based on the true belief there's a god-like entity above us, that is "personal", "conscious" and "omniscient" (quoted from wikipedia).

- "Personal": my understanding is that this "god" is in every person, thus every living entity of the universe (humans too). Are objects such as stones included ? Objects are not "persons", are they ? But they're part of our universe, right ? I see here a first contradiction.

- "Conscious": we have a god that is a spirit present in every person, distinct of our own conscious, designing his big picture through us, as if we were puppets.

- "Omniscient": in order to be omniscient, the pantheistic god needs to have created invisible spirit-like connections between every single person hosting a share of his spirit. Exactly like the world wide web.

This is my understanding of Pantheism and the way it's defined by pantheists themselves.

Now you say that it's precisely science, logic and intuition that lead to such conclusions. First, intuition has nothing to do neither with science nor logic, and to be totally honest, intuition remains something very abstract to me and would deserve illustration as it's no part of the 5 senses that make us define our reality.

And when it comes to science and logic, I really don't see where it leads to Pantheism, besides the obvious fact we're part of this universe. I can say that water wets, does that make it a philosophy ? I mean, come on, it's a bit too easy to say that because science confirms we're made out of atoms that pantheism is true. Fortunately, there's much more to pantheism than this obvious and dumb fact.

Once again, pantheism is based on 3 factors describing its universal god (personal, conscious, omniscient), and there's no such thing as scientific proof of such a thing i'm aware of.

And for your information, according to the latest surveys, 60% of scientists are atheists. I know, it's not 100%, but a good portion of scientists being americans, I'll tend to believe they're the ones who are theists or agnostics. In europe, figures are much closer to 100%.

It's just like your justification of reincarnation. There's not the slightest scientific evidence of a separate spirit from our physical body, and still you rely on science to make yourself comfortable with it. What a joke. If there would be any scientific illustration for reincarnation, it would rather be the first law of thermodynamics (conservation of energy), but in now way relativity or quantum physics.

_________

Now, when it comes to my claim of being a "strong" atheist, it's simply because there's 2 sub-categories, one is "weak" and the other one is "strong". It's gnostic atheism vs agnostic atheism.

______________

About the "intelligence" of the universe.

I'm afraid that "intelligence" could also be called simply "evolution". Where you see a "design" master-planed by an omniscient universal god, I see evolution and the selection of the most probable perennial event.

Btw, that's one of your contradiction, because when you say : "To ask me what are the benefits of believing in pantheism is the same as asking me what the benefits are for believing in evolution", I assume you believe in evolution too, then.

And that's precisely what your so-called "intelligence" of the universe is. It simply obeys to the laws of physics and what you call "accidents" is nothing else but the process of evolution in action and the selection of the best occurrence.

_______________

About the meaning of the universe and its course

You say : "your theory is that this is all just one big happy self-conscious accident ...".

Now you're arguing like feral and use your own theory to draw conclusions. Like a dog trying to eat his own tail. Because when you say "self-conscious" and "accident", that implies :

1) the universe is "conscious" (which is the pantheistic theory I don't share)

2) nothing is here by accident, there's a master plan

See ? you're running in circle. The same way feral uses the bible to justify her faith.

Now if you want my humble opinion on this subject, it's simply that before the big-bang(s) (nothing proves there's only 1 universe), there was nothing. Oh, i know what you're gonna say : "nothing ? how's that possible? !!!". By nothing, I mean no universe and no time either. It's hard to figure, I know, but it's the most likely.

The same way quantum physics taught us a particle may be physically present in 2 locations at the same time. It's just that it's beyond logic and comprehension for us at this stage.

The problem with theists - and yes, you are a theist, whether you like it or not - is that they're afraid of the very notion of void. They can't figure absence of existence, emptiness and void. And this is understandable as it's not a "natural" concept to apprehend, given what our reality is.

But it's unfortunately the most probable origin and fate of our universe. Now, in regards to what's in between, it's all digression and pointless analysis. Your dog could ask itself why you talk and drive a car, and never get the answer because he's not intelligent enough to figure it out and even to ask the question. Thus it's highly probable that our level, we too are too dumb to ask the right questions.

Eljay :
Animals build nests and burrows, however there's no such thing as an animal church where they unite to praise their immediate "superiors". Unless witnessed otherwise, insects don't praise birds, birds don't praise cats, and cats don't praise humans, even though every specie could possibly consider its superiors as "gods", since they are entities they can't comprehend. But they don't. Why should we ?

abra,

thanks for your honesty. i see however 2 flaws in your response :
_____________________________

1) you distinguish humans from animals saying that the latter have no clue of their origin, future, etc...

First, this assumption is not proven (since we're not intelligent enough to communicate with other species) and it ironically puts us in a quite condescending god-like position towards our animal "inferiors".

But let's assume this is the case, that we know better than they do : if science teaches you on thing, it's humility. The more we learn, the less we know. In other words, what separates us from the apparent lack of knowledge of animals is far less important than the whole lack of knowledge we have facing the mysteries of our universe.

We may know a lot about our solar system, until someone will solve the question of universe's infinity (both ways), I'll feel not much more evolved than an mosquito.

Btw, I don't see any contradiction in my thesis : i added on purpose (with some irony) the word "supposedly" when it came to illustrate the given fact that human have the ability to "feel" the effect of time. I don't believe we have this exclusivity. There are countless examples proving the opposite, such as elephant cemeteries, turtles birth-beaches etc... I was just giving a typical example usually advanced by theists opposing humans' status versus animals'. Not to mention that quantum physics prove in many ways that our way of feeling the effect of time is probably totally wrong.

Anyway, my point was just to illustrate - and i think we agree at least on this point - that since animals don't praise any god, why would we ?

_________________________________

2) I respect pantheism and in particular your declared approach of treating it as nothing but a philosophy. However, you can't deny that believing in reincarnation is something that helps pantheists coping with the idea of death, even though you claim this is not what motivates you.

And the first problem is see with reincarnation is that it implies a strict distinction between body and spirit, and that, my friend, is a common factor to all religions. And please don't serve me the "21 grams" urban legend BS, even though i loooove Iñárritu. Thus pantheism does only one thing on this subject, it unites all religions.

Plus you seem to elude other controversial aspects of Pantheism that contradict your "strictly-philosophical" approach. Pantheism claims that there's a "personal, conscious, and omniscient God". "personal" sounds very monotheistic to me. Depending of its meaning. does it mean "personal" as in "1 individual" (or spirit), or as in "present in every person" ?
Given what you said, I'll tend for the latter.

If that's the case - and because the pantheist god has a conscious and is omniscient - that would imply that all objects and living entities in the universe would be connected by a superior mind in a web-like spiritual inter-connection. wow ! sounds pretty creepy to be reduced to a puppet.

The problem i have with your legitimate claim is that you don't sound 100% involved in your belief. As if there would be some areas of Pantheism you would not fully share (such as the reincarnation part). You haven't really responded to my question : "so what ?" ... yes, what are the benefits to believing in Pantheism ? you didn't develop and that's the most interesting part :-)

you say : "My actually reasons for holding a pantheist view stem from many different areas, including, (mostly) scientific reasoning, pure logic (philosophical arguments), and last but certainly not least, intuition and life’s experience. "

Excuse me, but I don't see where Pantheism is helping in science, logic or intuition. can you develop ?

There's also the possibility that you're not a "pure" pantheist per se, thus why don't you just read philosophy instead ? I'd highly suggest Sartres, Kant or Nietzsche if your still searching explanations. Because as a strong atheist, I would far better respect your position if you were 100% backing up your religion or philosophy (the way feral does), unless indeed, you're still searching.

tinabelle sayd "but it's understandable that we find reasons to doubt what we are afraid of. "

unfortunately, it's the exact opposite. humans created gods because of their fear of death. i'm not afraid of believing in a god. people embrace religions precisely because they're afraid of their fate. and that's a typical human reflex. put 2 kids castaways on an desert island and you'll soon discover they'll create their own gods, once they witnessed death of other animals.

_________________________

Abra, i respect your approach, which sounds to me more like the one of an agnostic. kind of. you say it's semantic, but it's not. an agnostic says : "i don't believe in religions, and when it comes to god, well, i'm not sure, maybe yes, maybe not." That's the bet of Pascal who studied both sides of infinity and not finding any logic behind it, decided to bet on god's existence.

true atheists are different. they don't believe in the need of a god, period. i don't feel my life is empty if there's no god and if my existence is pointless. believing in god is trying to find a logic behind the unexplainable, at least for now.

if i was to follow a religion, that would be something we could call "naturalism" or rather "animalism" (it doesn't exist). i don't believe i'm different than an animal. a bit more evolved, maybe. still need proof on that, though. it's not because whales don't build highways that they're less intelligent. but my point is that i can witness sometimes more differences in level of intelligence between some humans than between some humans and say, chimpanzees. would that make the first category gods or super-humans Nietzsche was writing about ? i don't believe so.

dogs lick their balls because they can. well i think humans believe is gods because they can.

see, animals don't venerate superior species. they fear them, sure, but there's no adoration there. thus if I'm an animal too, and consider only myself as slightly more evolved, why couldn't i simply follow animal's philosophy too ? after all, humans are a minority on this planet. my theory might sound odd, but not more than considering the whole universe is god or that a guy came down on earth 2,000 years ago to save me from a sin i didn't even commit yet.

abra, you theory is charming, but i don't see any point there but just another new-age kinda theory. ok, universe is god. so what ? ok, i'm part of it, because your theory of inclusion states that atoms form the universe (which is only partially true since like 95% of the universe is empty), now what ?

will that help you in your everyday life ?... it'll eventually help you cope with your own death fate, but even that i'm not so sure.

since humans are supposedly the only specie able to "feel" the effect of time, and therefore understand that their lifespan is limited, the easiest way to cope this this terrible idea is to believe in a god. therefore our intelligence is also our weakness, and in many ways i'd rather be an animal and not be tortured by that question. and guess what ? that's precisely my philosophy.

Roddimus, I do share your opinion in most aspects (i'm an atheist, not an agnostic).

In term of ethics, i'd put it this way : precisely because i believe there's nothing after death, i have the highest respect for life. that's the roots of ethics for atheists. from there, you may build at least as strong morals as the ones christian's pretend to have, and in many instances fail to respect.

i fully agree lizard, being myself a pure product of a christian family, I finally woke up.

Redykeulous
_________________________________________

Horus'mother, Isis, was indeed married to Osiris. But after the authority of Thebes had risen, and made Amun into a much more significant god, it later waned, and Amun was assimilated into Ra. In consequence, Amun's consort, Mut, the doting, infertile, and implicitly virginal mother, who by this point had absorbed other goddesses herself, was assimilated into Ra's wife, Isis-Hathor as Mut-Isis-Nekhbet. On occasion, Mut's infertility and IMPLICIT VIRGINITY was taken into consideration, and so Horus, who was too significant to ignore, had to be explained by saying that ISIS BECAME PREGNANT WITH MAGIC, when she transformed herself into a kite and flew over Osiris' dead body.

Interesting imagery from Luxor Temple explaining this :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:LuxorAmenhetep.gif

Also, iconography provides some clues. Scholars believe that Isis worship in late Roman times was an influence behind Catholic development of the cult of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

>>>> Evidence suggests that this precisely allowed the Catholic Church to absorb a huge number of converts who had formerly believed in Isis, and would not have converted unless Catholicism offered them an "Isis-like" female focus for their faith.

Iconographically the similarities between the seated Isis holding or suckling the child Horus (Harpocrates) and the seated Mary and the baby Jesus are apparent. :
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/15/MaryAndHorus.JPG

Late Roman beliefs regarding the attributes of Isis are almost identical to early Church beliefs regarding Mary. Though the Virgin Mary is not worshiped (only venerated) in Catholicism, her role as a merciful virginal mother figure has parallels with the role formerly played by Isis, while the absolute VENERATION of Mary in Orthodox and even Anglican tradition is often overlooked.

__________________________________

FeralCatLady :
_____________________________________________________

It would be impossible to date the appearance of the gospels based on the extant manuscripts, since the autographs or originals were destroyed long ago, an act that would ny the way appear to be the epitome of blasphemy, were these texts truly the precious testimonials by the Lord's very disciples themselves.

Although a minuscule bit of papyrus (Rylands) dating to the middle of the second century has been identified speculatively as part of "John's Gospel" (18:31-33), the oldest fragments conclusively demonstrated as coming from the canonical gospels date to the 3rd century. The two verses of "John's Gospel," comprising only about 60 words, could easily be part of another, non-canonical gospel, of which there were numerous in the first centuries of the Christian era.

That such texts contained verses paralleling those found in the canonical gospels is known from the writings of Justin Martyr, for example, who quotes from a number of them.

In reality, the four gospels selected for inclusion in the New Testament do not make any appearance in the literary and archaeological record until the last quarter of the 2nd century, between 170 and 180 ce, and even then they are not much mentioned for a couple of decades. In this regard, Church father and archbishop of Constantinople John Chrysostom (c. 347-407) stated that the names traditionally attached to the canonical gospels were first designated at the end of the second century.

The orthodox dating, of course, attempts to put the gospels a century earlier, between 70 and 110 ce. However, it should be kept in mind that the current mainstream dating was heretical when first propagated, over 150 years ago, causing apoplexy in the faithful, who believed the texts were composed shortly after Jesus's death. Over the centuries, because of increasingly scientific scholarship, the date of the canonical gospels has been continually pushed to later decades, as it has long been accepted that there is absolutely no evidence, internal or external, for such an early date.

The early dating is mere wishful thinking on the part of those who truly believe that Jesus Christ existed and that his words, deed and life were faithfully recorded by eyewitnesses, i.e., his disciples. Such a scenario is not reality, however, and the most scholarship can offer in bending the dates to fit the alleged advent of Jesus Christ in the time of Herod is that the gospels were composed during the last decades of the first century. The internal evidence cited for this "late" a date is that the gospel writers were aware of the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 ce. Therefore, Mark, considered by most mainstream authorities to be the earliest of the gospels, could not have been written any earlier than 70 ce. The others followed, with John appearing perhaps as late as 110 ce. That is where mainstream scholarship ends. Nonetheless, the fact remains that the gospels are conspicuously absent from the writings of the Church fathers and apologists until the end of the second century.

Also, keep in mind that average life expectancy before the health transition of the modern era is thought to have varied between about 25 years and 35-40 years. As a reference, life expectancy in the United States in 1900 was 47 years. It is therefore very unlikely any of your "thousands" of witnesses was still alive by the time the bible was actually written.
_________________________________________________

Guys, it's not that I dislike digression, but I think it'd be better if we stick to the subject.

My thread was never about the existence of God(s) or not. I leave that to anyone's opinion, and the fact there's been many religions throughout history proves people might believe in God(s), and not share the same religions. After all, Polynesians, Africans, Asians,or more recently Aztecs, all believed they knew the truth with similar fierce.

The subject was about the roots of modern religions, and never about God(s), which is a radically different.

@Mr Right
You might well know the bible, but you obviously don't know anything about other religions. There are hundreds of prophecies in the Qur'an as well as in the Torah.

@TheLonelyWalker
I'm sorry, but if freedom of speech is a true American value, it's not true to say that one may be openly atheist in this country. To some extent, it's easier to be gay nowadays than agnostic or atheist. There's less than 5% atheists in USA, compared to, say 35%, in France or Germany. I'm originally from Europe where Descartes, Nietzsche or Sartres had probably more influence in our way of approaching philosophy than here, where dollar bills still display "In God we trust" and where presidential candidates have no other choice than playing with their faith in God to get elected. And the funny part is that our country, supposedly the most technologically advanced in the world, is also one of the less rational and most inclined to religion. Thus no, I don't feel it's easy to not believe in god in USA, especially on a dating site, if you see what I mean...

@feralcatlady
if you can't argue, save JSH's bandwidth.

@Fitnessfanatic
you have a good point there. and nice abs. you're proving both are compatible

spider,

Horus'mother, Isis, was indeed married to Osiris. But after the authority of Thebes had risen, and made Amun into a much more significant god, it later waned, and Amun was assimilated into Ra. In consequence, Amun's consort, Mut, the doting, infertile, and implicitly virginal mother, who by this point had absorbed other goddesses herself, was assimilated into Ra's wife, Isis-Hathor as Mut-Isis-Nekhbet. On occasion, Mut's infertility and implicit virginity was taken into consideration, and so Horus, who was too significant to ignore, had to be explained by saying that Isis became pregnant with magic, when she transformed herself into a kite and flew over Osiris' dead body.

Interesting imagery from Luxor Temple explaining this :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:LuxorAmenhetep.gif

Also, iconography provides some clues. Scholars believe that Isis worship in late Roman times was an influence behind Catholic development of the cult of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Evidence suggests that this allowed the Catholic Church to absorb a huge number of converts who had formerly believed in Isis, and would not have converted unless Catholicism offered them an "Isis-like" female focus for their faith.

Iconographically the similarities between the seated Isis holding or suckling the child Horus (Harpocrates) and the seated Mary and the baby Jesus are apparent. :
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/15/MaryAndHorus.JPG

Late Roman beliefs regarding the attributes of Isis are almost identical to early Church beliefs regarding Mary. Though the Virgin Mary is not worshiped (only venerated) in Catholicism, her role as a merciful mother figure has parallels with the role formerly played by Isis, while the veneration of Mary in Orthodox and even Anglican tradition is often overlooked.