Kavod

Here's what I found: It would appear that we are ALL correct.

"THE KAVOD OF THE LORD
The Godhead and its appearance are associated with the term kavod, a term underlying the imagery of the Divine Presence in the Bible and paralleling the term Shekhinah in rabbinic literature. The Tabernacle is said to be sanctified by the "Kavod of the Lord" (Ex. 29:43) and indeed when God enters the Tabernacle after its inauguration the Tabernacle is said to be filled with the kavod (Ex. 40:34–35). The dedication of the Jerusalem Temple is described in similar terms in I Kings 8:11. In both cases the kavod enters the holy abode, accompanied by the cloud, up to the Holy of Holies during which time Moses, on the one hand, and the Jerusalem priests, on the other, could not come in to minister. Only after the cloud departed and the kavod arrived at its place between the cherubim could Moses or the Jerusalem priests reenter the holy House.

The cloud serves as an envelope which screens the Deity from mortal view. Only Moses, who converses with God face to face, may enter into the cloud (Ex. 24:18). To the Israelites, however, God manifests Himself only when covered by a cloud. Unlike Moses they see only flames flashing forth from the cloud (Ex. 24:17). Only once does God manifest Himself to Israel without His screen of cloud – on the day of the inauguration of the Tabernacle (Lev. 9:23), an event whose importance parallels the Sinaitic revelation. The cloud departs from the Deity only when He assumes another mode of concealment, namely the Tent of Meeting or the Sanctuary. When the kavod enters the Tabernacle, the cloud remains outside and covers the tent. When the Tabernacle is dismantled, the kavod leaves the tent which is enveloped once again by the cloud which awaits Him and rises upward (Num. 9:15ff.).


THE NATURE OF THE KAVOD
Knowledge of the underlying imagery of the concept of kavod, which is embedded in Priestly tradition, is provided by Ezekiel whose ideology and divine imagery is grounded on Priestly doctrine. In Ezekiel 1, the kavod is described as an envelope of fire and brightness conveyed on a chariot. From afar, the apparition is like a blazing fire upon a great cloud swept by a storm wind (1:4). It is this radiance and brightness of the kavod which made Moses' face radiant after he spoke with God (Ex. 34:29–35).

This characteristic feature of God, i.e., His being surrounded by an aureole or nimbus, is salient in the description of gods in Mesopotamia. The terms denoting the halo of the gods in Mesopotamia, pulhu-melammu, actually correspond to the Hebrew kavod-yirʾah and indeed refer to the flame and fire enveloping the Godhead. Like the Tabernacle and Temple in Israel, the Mesopotamian shrines and chapels were clad with the melammu, i.e., the divine splendor. The kavod is said to cover (cf. Hab. 3:3, ksh) and fill (Num. 14:21; Isa. 6:3, mlʾ) heaven and earth. The same idea occurs in connection with the pulhu-melammu in Akkadian expressed by the verbs katāmu and malû which are identical with the Hebrew ksh and mlʾ. The Akkadian pulhu-melammu is often employed in connection with overwhelming the enemy and terrifying him. This is in fact expressed in Isaiah 2 where on the "day of the Lord" God appears in "terror" and "majestic glory" (paḥad YHWH ve-hadar geʾono) a pair of concepts which can now be better understood on the basis of the Mesopotamian parallels.

The correspondence of pulhu-melammu to kavod-yirʾah may be discerned in some other biblical descriptions. The Mesopotamian god imparts his melammu to the king who is the god's representative and thus endows him with divine power. When the god rejects the king and deprives him of the melammu, the king no longer continues to reign by divine grace. Reflections of these beliefs may also be discerned in biblical literature. Though the Priestly document describes only Moses as being endowed with the divine radiance, biblical wisdom and psalmodic literature describe man in general, in contexts in which he is likened to a king, as being endowed with the divine kavod and splendor: "Thou hast made him little less than God, and dost crown him with kavod and splendor" (Ps. 8:6). If man becomes unworthy then God deprives him of the divine kavod: "He has stripped me of my kavod and taken the crown from my head" (Job 19:9).

Ezekiel in his divine chariot vision describes the divine animals as endowed with terror (yirʾah; 1:18). The passage appears to employ the term in the sense of a dazzling and aweinspiring covering or dress of heavenly and divine beings as does its Akkadian counterpart in Babylonian and Assyrian literature (see Oppenheim, in bibl.). The obscure expression in the Song of the Sea noraʾ tehillot (Ex. 15:11a) is also best rendered in this sense. The word tehillot in this verse does not mean "praises" but "radiance" (cf. Job 29:3; 31:26, 41:10) as it does in Habakkuk 3:3: "His splendor covered the heavens and the earth was full of his tehillah." The tehillah of God fills the universe as does His kavod (cf. Num. 14:21; Isa. 6:3). The terms yirʾah and kavod, then, are used synonymously in biblical literature as are their Akkadian counterparts pulhu and melammu in Babylonian literature."

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The Evolution of Morality

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Marc D. Hauser is an evolutionary biologist who teaches at the Psychology Department at Harvard University.

Bio . Lab .

Ignorant Creationist Tactics

One of the most beloved of all creationist fallacies is argumentum ad ignorantiam, also called the argument from ignorance. Creationists very often are ignorant of the theories that they are attacking in strawman arguments. Many American high schools have avoided teaching evolutionary theory, and matters are made worse by the deliberate misinformation on websites such as those run by the misnamed Discovery Institute and Answers in Genesis.

However, argumentum ad ignorantiam is not about ignorance of the facts, per se. Instead it refers to the false dichotomy that is created by ignoring, or being ignorant of, the actual alternatives.

Strictly, the term proof applies only to mathematics and specially constructed logical syllogisms. However, since disproof is a legitimate term, I shall use proof – with air-quotes implied.

A proposition, or premise, is either true or false. Needless to say, there can be many more false propositions than true propositions.

A false premise can be either disproven, not yet disproven, or logically impossible to disprove.

A true premise can be either proven, not yet proven, or technically impossible to prove.

The argumentum ad ignorantiam erroneously assumes that failure of disproof indicates that a claim is true, or that failure of proof indicates that a claim is false. These combinations are included in the possibilities, but they are not the only possibilities.

The argumentum ad ignorantiam is frequently implied, rather than being explicitly stated, in common, fallacious strategies used by creationists.

Even though the underlying assumptions are not stated, creationist attacks on cosmology, abiogenesis, and biological evolution are all motivated by the deep-seated, theistic belief that only two alternatives obtain – namely current scientific understanding OR a creator.

I have most frequently encountered theistic demands that atheists must prove biological evolution. The fallacious implication is that failure to do so will prove creationism, and hence prove God’s existence. Since there is an enormous amount of evidence for evolution, this is a preposterous challenge – particularly in view of YouTube’s 500 character limit, and despite the possibility of uploading video after video after video.

There is no point in attempting to fulfill a patently ridiculous request, particularly when creationists will dismiss all explanations out of hand. Better, I think, to call the creationist on the fallacy and to refer him (possibly her) to particular videos on the science channels, to a museum, or to books, such as Dawkins’ latest.

The flip side of this challenge is the creationist assumption that denying or ridiculing evidence for evolution is equivalent to disproof of evolution, and hence proof of creationism, and thus of God’s existence. In making this assumption, the creationist reveals the depth of his or her ignorance of scientific method. Disproof of any scientific hypothesis entails experimental falsification. Ridicule does not count, although it is undoubtedly emotionally satisfying to those whose ignorance renders them unaware of the futility of the tactic.

Another fallacious challenge is that atheists must prove that god does not exist. The assumption is that failure to disprove god is equivalent to proving god.

Not so fast! First, this demand is shifting the burden of proof onto those who merely do not accept the positive claim for God’s existence.

Second, it is logically impossible to prove that something that does not exist does not, in fact, exist. I’ll make that simpler. It is logically impossible to prove a non-existence. It is for this reason that modern western courts assume innocence unless guilt can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.

To prove the non-existence of the purported deity would require the scouring of every inch of the entire universe and beyond. As such, the all-too-familiar religionist taunt is utterly illogical.

Don’t take the bait! There are ample other reasons for doubting the existence of a creator deity. The most obvious is the fact that something powerful enough to create an entire universe should have left evidence that cannot be explained in any other way. It is the very lack of evidence that has caused more scientists, particularly eminent scientists, to be atheistic than any other group.

Every time that a creationist or religionist uses any of these arguments, or evokes an apologetic argument -- and all are refuted -- they are effectively admitting that they have no evidence for the existence of their mythical creator.