Societies don't have to be secular to be modern

[Viking]

My moral sense is present before reading the bible,

Oh I suspect whether you knew it or not, or whether it was explicit or not, your own moral sense was very much shaped by what is in the Bible.

Well, no shit sherlock. Individualism and the Individuals ultimate responsability for his/her own salvation are uniquely western Ideas. But here the question does remain, are we christian because we are individualists, or are we individualists because we are christians.

Don't kill, don't steal, don't lie, be a good member of your community etc.etc. these are found in all religions. Any religion which didn't have this would in all likelyhood go under pretty damn quickly.

[Pat]

Which historial personages claim to have known and met him?

All the "rightly-guided" Caliphs, and Muhammad's own family (Aisha, Fatimah, Ali, etc)

In which sources do we find these claims? And when are they written down?

[grumbler]

This is definitely not true for the Penn State astrobiology degree:

Astrobiology is a field devoted to the exploration of life outside of Earth and to the investigation of the origin and early evolution of life on Earth.

http://www.geosc.psu.edu/graduates/degrees.php

Whose theoretical xenobiology degree are you thinking of?

It is true that Penn State's Astrobiology program isn't the one I was thinking of.  The one I am thinking of is relatively recently established, and had its head appear on NPR maybe a year ago.  He made the distinction between the search for earthlike life on other planets (called by Penn State astrobiology) and the formulation of more basic concepts of life that could be tested in more environments, which he referred to as xenobiology.

[The Minsky Moment]

Well both Rabbi Hillel og Babylon and Konfucius got the golden rule about 500 years before Christ. Now, since you seem to expect me to find it obvious which are "true" or "false" how is that different from me making my own mind up without the help of the bible or any other book? Why do I need the bible? Or God?

Hillel was roughly contemporaneous with Jesus, interestingly enough.

[Viking]

No, the end of the story is about Noah's relations with his sons.

The descent from Noah is more significant than the descent from Adam, as Noah was universally considered to be a good guy. The earlier Adam story is more confused - Adam wasn't himself particularly a good guy - he disobeys God and gets cursed, and his "good" son gets killed by his "evil" son. Adam fathers another afterwards (Seth), and presumably everyone around at the time of the flood was descended from Seth or Cain.

Noah is described as being descended from Seth (see Genesis 5).

The fact that God showed favour to a 'righteous man' who was not a Jew (Noah) is extremely significant in Judaism. It is if you will the positive good that can be found in the story.

I'm sure all the jews in the world will applaud the public service announcement that comes from killing millions and millions of people.

[grumbler]

BTW, it is amusing to see the same people who insist that the Bible is hogwash turning around and citing Wikipedia as authoritative! 

Wiki has a rather huge advantage over the bible. At least it can be updated.

The problem is that it can be updated! 

[Berkut]

This is definitely not true for the Penn State astrobiology degree:

Astrobiology is a field devoted to the exploration of life outside of Earth and to the investigation of the origin and early evolution of life on Earth.

http://www.geosc.psu.edu/graduates/degrees.php

Whose theoretical xenobiology degree are you thinking of?

It is true that Penn State's Astrobiology program isn't the one I was thinking of.  The one I am thinking of is relatively recently established, and had its head appear on NPR maybe a year ago.  He made the distinction between the search for earthlike life on other planets (called by Penn State astrobiology) and the formulation of more basic concepts of life that could be tested in more environments, which he referred to as xenobiology.

I asked earlier about this distinction, because while I thought there was a difference(albeit I will admit to being blurry on what exactly the difference was), I did not see what the difference could be that would make it impossible to run experiments (and hence generate data) on xenobiology.

[The Brain]

Which historial personages claim to have known and met him?

All the "rightly-guided" Caliphs, and Muhammad's own family (Aisha, Fatimah, Ali, etc)

In which sources do we find these claims? And when are they written down?

Fragments of a police report from the time concerning a pedophile ring have survived.

[Barrister]

I'm sure all the jews in the world will applaud the public service announcement that comes from killing millions and millions of people.

Except I think very very few of all the jews in the world actually think that the flood literally happened.   

[grumbler]

I will keep that in mind if I run into someone who makes such a claim.

Good.  Unlike you, I allow people to pretend that they agreed with me all along.

[Valmy]

It's important, and I don't know how you can call it false.  But it clearly is about God telling the Jews what to do.

Because on the surface its claims are incorrect.

I think the context is more important than simply saying 'this is what you are to do'.

Anyway since those rules were never meant to apply to Ukrainians I fail to see how anything got superceded for you.  'Wow so the rules that do not apply to me now do not apply to me?!  Thanks Jesus!'

[Viking]

I'm sure all the jews in the world will applaud the public service announcement that comes from killing millions and millions of people.

Except I think very very few of all the jews in the world actually think that the flood literally happened.   

Without the flood the covenant to never agains flood the world makes no sense since god doesn't murder almost all of humanity. Without the flood the redemption of a single good non-jew by god makes no sense because god hasn't saved a single man since he didn't kill everybody else. 

[Malthus]

Hard to be a part of western civilization without that being true.

For better AND worse.

Anyone want to buy a slave?

Certainly the Bible contains detailed laws and regulations respecting slavery. What is instructive is to compare that code to how slavery was treated in other cultures in the area. In that respect, the Bible offers quite an advance in terms of ethics - slaves had certain rights under the Biblical rules; for example, the right of sanctuary.

Deuteronomy 23:

15 If a slave has taken refuge with you, do not hand him over to his master. 16 Let him live among you wherever he likes and in whatever town he chooses. Do not oppress him.

Slaves must be given rest:

Exodus 23:12 (New International Version)

12 "Six days do your work, but on the seventh day do not work, so that your ox and your donkey may rest and the slave born in your household, and the alien as well, may be refreshed.

[Maximus]

Without the flood the covenant to never agains flood the world makes no sense since god doesn't murder almost all of humanity. Without the flood the redemption of a single good non-jew by god makes no sense because god hasn't saved a single man since he didn't kill everybody else.

I thought we had established that murder was a legal term.

Or were you just being emotive?

[Malthus]

No, the end of the story is about Noah's relations with his sons.

The descent from Noah is more significant than the descent from Adam, as Noah was universally considered to be a good guy. The earlier Adam story is more confused - Adam wasn't himself particularly a good guy - he disobeys God and gets cursed, and his "good" son gets killed by his "evil" son. Adam fathers another afterwards (Seth), and presumably everyone around at the time of the flood was descended from Seth or Cain.

Noah is described as being descended from Seth (see Genesis 5).

The fact that God showed favour to a 'righteous man' who was not a Jew (Noah) is extremely significant in Judaism. It is if you will the positive good that can be found in the story.

I'm sure all the jews in the world will applaud the public service announcement that comes from killing millions and millions of people.

Most Jews in the world do not believe that the flood literally happened.