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03/07/2008
And the women, dancing with their timbrels, were, like, totally high.
Was Moses High On Psychedelic Drugs?
I'm linking to the version of the article about solely because of the awesometacular graphic.
Benny Shanon, a professor at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, thinks that Moses' visions (i.e. the burning bush) were the result of ingesting psychoactive plant material. He drew this conclusion by ingesting psychoactive plant material. Excellent.
"As far as Moses on Mount Sinai is concerned, it was either a supernatural cosmic event, which I don't believe, or a legend, which I don't believe either, or finally, and this is very probable, an event that joined Moses and the people of Israel under the effects of narcotics," he told Israel Radio in an interview Tuesday.
I believe this is very silly pseudoscience/pseudohistory.
NB: I've met some extraordinarily intelligent Israeli professors with real critical thinking abilities and am 99% sure that this dude is not representative of Israeli professors.
10:25 Permalink | Comments (1) | Email this | Tags: hilarity, pseudohistory
Comments
In the last few years it was discovered that the Oracle at Delphi was built on a geological fault from which gases leaked, gases that, when inhaled over a prolonged period of exposure, would induce a state of mind quite similar to that induced by some narcotics. Hence the Oracle's visions.
Of course, this is all a rationalist argument that fundamentally rejects inexplicable miracles and interventions by deities.
I haven't read this professor's argument, but I find it hard to believe that he means that Moses deliberately got wasted. The Oracles at Delphi didn't know, I'd assume, that they were sitting over a fault leaking gases.
Since I haven't read this guy's argument, I could be way off, and advertising mind-altered states that one was in while one constructed an argument is definitely a self-undercutting move.
Posted by: Trey | 03/07/2008
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