Comment Response.

So I got me a comment on a youtube video that's much too long to respond to.  I'll do so here.  It's on this video.  Give it a watch if you haven't yet.

Let's dive right in.

Many of the questions you ask about this woman's position reveal an incredible amount of ignorance about the subject.

Cool story bro.

Your comment about Israelite cities is cringy because you have obviously never read any scholarly literature about it. As a scholar of the ancient Near East (milieu of the Bible), I can tell you that her observations about cities are largely correct.

Fair enough.  I never actually said she was wrong.  Although, being a scholar, you do know that the first mention of Israel wasn't until about 1200 years or so after Jesus died, right?

My point was, if a god made heaven, why is it described as only being as good as the best city from two millenia ago?  Sounds like god wasn't involved in this particular narrative, just people.

God certainly wouldn't have had the knowledge to know what a resort and casino is, right?  Paradise was nothing more than a safe place to live to those people, because that would've been a huge step up in those days.  Sucks god couldn't have told them how to cure polio or something, but at least heaven is a huge house where they can live with their horrible leprosy forever.

You can walk into the Semitic museum at Harvard University and see exactly what she is talking about.

Yep.  One museum at one university totally sums up the entirety of every civilization contained in the old testament over the course of the few thousand years it covers.

Also, there are SO many Jewish and Christian views on hell and salvation.

Again, if your god created both of them, why is there more than one?  Why is it a view?  If god is threatening me with damnation, but we can't agree on what it is, how is that supposed to motivate me to avoid it?  You seem to have ignored this point.

REGARDLESS of that, she was talking about the new testament mostly.  I've discussed in some small detail the fact that Sheol is described as being under the earth, between the pillars of creation, and that the bible calls the sky a glass dome which contains the floodgates (literal gates) from which the rains flow. 

Despite this, I have yet to see one picture of any of those things.  What a view!

The fact that you act like there is only one (presumably the one you originally inherited from your parents?)

Did your god claim to make more than one heaven, more than one hell?  I think my bible only has one book on creation, for some reason.  If you have some other bible that says that god created a second heaven and earth in a second week or something, please present it!  Otherwise, I'm just gonna pretend you didn't say that.  I can only find one biblical creation story, and there's only one heaven ever created in it that contains the throne of god from which a river flows.  Please, let me know.  My bible has the apocrypha, but not that.

shows how incredibly shallow your investigation into this was.

Says the guy who can't even follow my arguments.

Your comments about evangelism and the reasons for believing in God is SOO frustrating.

If I'm not going to hell, why did Jesus die?  If I can just leave hell, why did Jesus sacrifice himself?

I'm not sure I understand.  Please, expound.  If there's no negative consequence for not believing, and I'll definitely be allowed into heaven anyway... what is the motivation for your evangelism?

How can you be so one dimensional?

You're the one throwing strawmen around like you're playing paper football on a line with no ends.

Did you parents tell you this?

No.  I read most of it in this 'bible' thing you keep telling me I haven't read.  Do you realize how condescending you are right now?  Is the bible the word of your god or not, and if it is, do you really think he cares if you agree with it?

Religious people believe and worship for all kinds of reasons.

Most people are religious for one reason, that they believe in a god (deity, universal power, whatever) and they believe there are consequences for not believing in a god.  In fact, I would challenge you to find one person who is religious and believes in a god who does not also believe in some kind of universal judgement.  Karma, Heaven and Hell, Valhalla, Samsara, etc.

You make so many assumptions about what this woman believes without any evidence.

No, I didn't.  I discussed her actual argument.  You're trying to strawman me here again.  I don't need evidence to discuss philosophy, after all.

Do you have any evidence that ANY of the heavens or hells you claim to find in the bible are real?  You can post a picture of Sheol here any day you like.  I'd even settle for a small piece of that glass dome.  However, I'm not actually making a positive claim, you see?  All I'm saying is that hell is like a leprechaun: it doesn't exist.  I can't show you something I don't have evidence for.  Let's say you did want me to prove leprechauns don't exist.  What would I show you, an empty field?  A photograph of anything but a leprechaun?

Do me a favor.  Prove to me that Thor doesn't exist in exactly the same way you think I should prove that Hell doesn't exist.  I honestly don't know how to do it.

What if she doesn't think that Jesus was omniscient?

Well then he wasn't god.  Simple, right?  I don't think my argument relies on that.  The bible either is, or is not, the word of god.

If we both agree it wasn't, I don't see what the problem is. Also, in case you missed it, Jesus didn't write the bible.  Also, in case you missed it, Jesus could supposedly LITERALLY talk to god.  Also, Jesus claimed he was going to heaven (again, as though he'd been there before he was born or something) to prepare the place. He also claimed that people get cast into the fire and brimstone hell.  A real place, that he allegedly literally died to save people from.

A LOT of Christians don't believe that.

So what?  Again, if your bible is the word of god, do you really think he cares what you believe?  If you and I both do not believe those things, aren't we both functionally atheist?

"Hey guys, I know the bible says these things, but I don't believe them..."

Why am I the atheist when you claim that those people are making that statement?  Do they believe in god or not?  Why would you say I believe less than them when they don't actually believe either?

Jesus claimed that mustard seeds were the smallest seeds in all the world during a parable.

Again, I don't care. I agree with you, it's not the word of a god.  Maybe we're both atheist, you and I.

That is not factual, but most Christians don't care if Jesus doesn't have perfect knowledge of 21st century science.

Again, your god created him without it, for some reason.  The perfect son of god, fit to be a sacrifice for all humanity, but there sure were a lot of imperfections in him for some reason.

Almost like he wasn't really talking to god, don't you think?

You should really investigate some of these issues more critically before making videos.

"Well, that's just, like, your opinion, man."
-Some famous guy, probably.

Lastly, your comments about God not wanting women to speak (sending them to hell for it....where does the Bible connect it to hell, exactly?) really show that you never read any serious debates about those issues.

Again, it's in the bible.  I don't care if you don't believe in the bible.  I also don't believe in the bible.  But the verse is in there.  The book of Timothy, actually.  He wasn't important or anything, right?  It's not like he was Paul's student or anything, right?  It's not like they felt it was important enough to include in the book attributed to god, right?

You just blindly accepted someone's interpretation (your parents?)

I agree, indoctrination by parents is really shitty sometimes.  However, I referenced Young's Literal Translation.  Go ahead, look it up.  Take your time, you're the 'scholar' after all.

Then maybe go watch The Bible Skeptic for a while and see how an ACTUAL biblical scholar handles the bible.  You could do well to learn things yourself.

or criticism of two statements from Paul's letters (the HIGHLY debated 1 Cor 14 and 1 Tim 2) and applied it accordingly.

The whole book is highly debated.  That phrase is meaningless. However, here's some bible verses on how women should be treated though.

Go ahead, tell me you don't believe those either.  We can be atheist together!

This ignores Paul's praise of a female apostle (look up what apostles do),

But for some reason the slaughter of Holophernes by Jude is apocryphal...

his regard for Phoebe (a deacon and the one that read his letter to the church in Rome),

Another argument from anecdote.  See, you really can use the bible to support any stance.  Remember that part where Jesus said that unfruitful things should die?  He's talking about women who don't have children. That one was Mark.

Let's see though, what an apostle does, while we're at it.  According to this website,

(1) to have been an witness of the resurrected Christ (1 Corinthians 9:1), (2) to have been explicitly chosen by the Holy Spirit (Acts 9:15), and (3) to have the ability to perform signs and wonders

So basically he was chosen by the holy spirit to deliver these messages.  Messages that tell us that unfruitful women should be caused to wither away, and that women should be silent.

I'm not sure what else you could possibly mean.  God chose them because they interpreted his message correctly, according to the book.  Again, if you don't believe it, that's fine, neither do I.

Just read Romans 16 for a good primer on this.

See, that's the thing.  I don't have to skip the bits you don't like.  I don't have to 'just read' certain parts.  I can read the whole thing. Why don't you 'Just read' the parts I gave you, and ignore the rest, like you're asking me to do?

Oh, that's right.  You'd have to be ethical and have scruples and intellectual honesty.  Things you don't appear to be familiar with.

Additionally, there are numerous women in the New Testament that speak freely (read the Gospels and Acts).

Funny, isn't it? How they didn't get the testimonies of those actual women in the forms of books like the men got.

How interesting a woman was never chosen to author a book by your god.

How very interesting that the only time women are allowed to 'freely speak' is when some man is deciding which of her words to write down.

How very, very interesting, indeed.

I could add Old Testament women that have the same roles as men too

Which books did they write?  I'm curious.  My bible doesn't seem to have them.

(prophets, judges, etc).

Well, then much like the other major prophets, and even some minor ones, surely they have books that aren't authored by men?  You said they get to speak freely, right?  Or is it only free speech if a man writes down what he thinks she said? 

Speaking of the old testament, why do women have less worth than men?  Do you think it's related?  Why can't female slaves go free as male slaves do?  Equality, right?

Anyway, that's enough for me at the moment.

I'm sure this bit of mental gymnastics was quite the workout for you.  Please, catch your breath!  Maybe this can help.

Have a good day.

I'll do whatever I please.  Apparently you will also.  Aren't those the best kind of days?