If one believes a holy text to be the literal word of a benevolent and infallible God, then Truth is laid out before them in the holy texts.
If one believes a holy text to be open to the interpretation of the individual, then God's meaning becomes mutable and, in fact, capable of meaning completely opposite things to different people depending on who reads it.
If a holy text is to be taken literally, how does one reconcile things written that seem to conflict with the world around them or with other things in the same set of texts which are literally true? How does one deal with the problem of trying to determine what is literally meant when the language used is ambiguous in meaning?
If holy texts are open to interpretation, and thus a person sees in them whatever they wish, in what sense are they special or reflective of some sort of Ultimate Truth? Does God show a person the meaning He wishes for them to see? If this is so, why would He want different people reading conflicting things as Truth?
If one believes in interpretation of holy texts, how do they recognize whether or not their interpretation is correct? How does one distinguish a correct interpretation from an incorrect one? Are all interpretations correct? What about contradictory interpretations?
What are your thoughts on Literalism vs. Interpretation of holy texts?
(Also, welcome to the Religion sub-forum! :halo:)
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"For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love." --Carl Sagan
If one believes a holy text to be the literal word of a benevolent and infallible God,
Then they're wrong.
It's just that simple.
If one believes in interpretation of holy texts, how do they recognize whether or not their interpretation is correct? How does one distinguish a correct interpretation from an incorrect one? Are all interpretations correct? What about contradictory interpretations?
Does God show a person the meaning He wishes for them to see? If this is so, why would He want different people reading conflicting things as Truth?
Why is it only with holy texts that this great confusion comes up? In news, in literature, in science, in academic study, in art, in every other pursuit of the truth that we experience on a constant basis, this confusion doesn't come up nearly as much. What makes one interpretation of anything at anytime ever superior to another?
The fact of the human condition is that we live in an objective world that we understand through our subjective experience. We only understand things through interpretation.
If holy texts are open to interpretation, and thus a person sees in them whatever they wish, in what sense are they special or reflective of some sort of Ultimate Truth?
Because they are texts written by people who sought the same truth.
Why is Isaac Newton still a respected figure in a post-Einstein world?
First of all, Highroller, I recognize that you don't have a conventional theology and I'm not quite sure what your position is on how much/what type of divine influence there is on holy texts. Do you believe God had a hand in inspiring all the books of The Bible? What about the Qur'an? What about The Vedas or the teachings of the Buddha, were those divinely inspired? Did these all come from the same God?
(I'm asking these so that I can better understand your position on the matter. I'm not trying to "trip you up" or anything.)
Why is it only with holy texts that this great confusion comes up? In news, in literature, in science, in academic study, in art, in every other pursuit of the truth that we experience on a constant basis, this confusion doesn't come up nearly as much. What makes one interpretation of anything at anytime ever superior to another?
The fact of the human condition is that we live in an objective world that we understand through our subjective experience. We only understand things through interpretation.
The difference is that news, literature, science, etc. are recognized to have come from fallible humans. Holy texts are generally supposed to have come from a perfect being capable of producing a perfect product. It seems odd that a perfect being would produce a product knowing that imperfect creatures would usually misunderstand its perfect message. Furthermore, I would expect this being to be capable of designing its most beloved creatures in a way that they would be able to clearly understand important messages from it.
Example: If you knew that a child of yours would have the potential to misunderstand the instruction from you: "Take out the dog" to mean "Kill the dog" instead of "Go outside with the dog so it can urinate" and you had the capacity to make it crystal clear to the child what you meant, you wouldn't leave it to chance that the child might think you meant "Kill the dog". You would make it crystal clear what you mean.
This is my issue, Highroller: God leaving us in the dark about what is really meant if one subscribes to Interpretation.
Because they are texts written by people who sought the same truth.
That doesn't seem much different than people who have all written self-help books by seeking truths of how to improve one's life. This seems to make the holy texts seem very ordinary in that regard. (Again, you may well think of them this way. I'm not clear on this aspect of your theology).
Why is Isaac Newton still a respected figure in a post-Einstein world?
His laws of motion do an excellent job approximating physical systems under almost all conditions that humans are concerned with. In areas where they are poor approximations, his laws are not respected, but are discarded in favor of the more accurate approximations that Einstein discovered.
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"For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love." --Carl Sagan
My issue with the literalism of Holy works is that it becomes a bit like a game of telephone. Things get misunderstood, things get twisted, and worst of all... political figures dip their hands into things and make certain ideas more popular than others to create fear and maintain their power.
People say "God wouldn't allow His word to be altered." Who's to say that He wouldn't have allowed it to happen to test his people?
This being said, I tend to have a bigger respect for those folks who are "all in" and follow the Bible as literally as possible. They aren't half assing it, and they are doing certain things that most "regular" Christians ignore because "times have changed." They want to know WHY theya re Christians instead of just kind of "going along with what grandma wanted me to do."
This being said, I tend to have a bigger respect for those folks who are "all in" and follow the Bible as literally as possible. They aren't half assing it, and they are doing certain things that most "regular" Christians ignore because "times have changed." They want to know WHY theya re Christians instead of just kind of "going along with what grandma wanted me to do."
Generally the people with a clear conviction that they are doing the right thing will accomplish big things or cause big disasters. People with doubts are more prone to compromise.
My personal theology is based on the concept of 'free will' so unquestioning belief in the dictates of a holy text are pretty much anathema to me.
If one believes a holy text to be the literal word of a benevolent and infallible God, then Truth is laid out before them in the holy texts.
Truth as we conceive it today is something akin to Plato's forms reinterpreted through Kant's tautology. A chair is a flat thing with legs under it, and a back, around yay big.
Holy texts lay out something higher than mere truth; they lay out the word of the Divine Creator. Devotees of a religion hold such messages to a higher standard than truth; even if it doesn't "make sense" to them, they still memorize it and believe it, whereas truth must "make sense."
If a holy text is to be taken literally, how does one reconcile things written that seem to conflict with the world around them or with other things in the same set of texts which are literally true?
One does not always afford the privilege of logical reconciliation of religious texts. Logic isn't the most important thing to a lot of folks.
You could also change the language to compensate for such contradiction.
If holy texts are open to interpretation, and thus a person sees in them whatever they wish, in what sense are they special or reflective of some sort of Ultimate Truth?
I suppose they could still serve as a mirror for one's desires, something for one to project his or her aspirations & insecurities onto, to avoid projecting them onto his or her peers.
What are your thoughts on Literalism vs. Interpretation of holy texts?
In addition to the Talmud, the Bible, and the Qur'an, there are other texts such as the Code of Hammurabi, Leviathan, magna carta, the Sudebnik, the declaration of independence & the constitution, and the communist manifesto. Plenty of times have societies amalgamated their outlook on the world and their respective purposes in it.
Overemphasis on literal meanings of such heady scripts is missing the point a little bit; for, the message beneath the words is what matters, and it might matter only for a short while, to a small group of folks.
I would agree with the exception of the last sentence. Even many more liberal Christians know why they're Christians.
Harkius
Maybe so, but quite a few people are just happy going to church twice a year (if that, and only if it's for a wedding), faking it when it counts, and celebrating all the holidays "because they are Christian." In actuality they are simply following traditions that their family set up years prior and not thinking that they may very well not actually BE Christian by the definition of things.
To me, I think it's perfectly fine to believe in a divine power, but when you have people equating being an American with being a Christian... then think that every other religion is some kind of evil trick yet haven't actually read the Bible or been to church in many years and couldn't tell you the difference between a Protestant and a Catholic... then maybe they should do some research first.
First of all, Highroller, I recognize that you don't have a conventional theology and I'm not quite sure what your position is on how much/what type of divine influence there is on holy texts. Do you believe God had a hand in inspiring all the books of The Bible?
Of course I do. But we need to clarify what exactly it means when I say God inspired something.
Put it this way: There is this illusion that the Bible is some sort of immutable text. That it somehow always existed in the nice, neat codex we have it in. That this book of texts that we have in the order that it is arranged somehow always existed in this form and in this way, as though God Himself wrote the texts of the Bible, or that human beings scribed what God's voice said and took dictation from it.
This idea is wrong.
Are you supposed to look at the Bible and take everything that it's supposed to say right straight immediately as it is worded? No, of course not. The Jewish people have traditions of interpreting the Law that go back as far as anyone can remember.
The idea that the text of the Bible is immutable and some sort of body that has existed forever is just factually false. And this ridiculous tradition that you either have to accept the Bible as is or reject it entirely is a false dichotomy.
What about the Qur'an?
I believe it was written by people who were very pious in their religion and wanted to write down things that they felt were important enough about their faith to be preserved.
What about The Vedas or the teachings of the Buddha,
Same as above.
were those divinely inspired?
Again, clarify what you mean by "divinely inspired". I believe people have sought divine truth and have written down what they believed and thought and saw and deemed important.
Did these all come from the same God?
There's one God. I believe that all religious texts come from man's pursuit of truth and of the divine.
Did God Himself dictate any of these works? No. There are quotes that are said to come from God, I can't speak as to the validity of these claims, but were the books we read in the Bible written by God? No, they were written by human beings.
(I'm asking these so that I can better understand your position on the matter. I'm not trying to "trip you up" or anything.)
No it's cool, ask away.
The difference is that news, literature, science, etc. are recognized to have come from fallible humans.
So too are these texts.
Holy texts are generally supposed to have come from a perfect being capable of producing a perfect product.
On what grounds do you say this?
It seems odd that a perfect being would produce a product knowing that imperfect creatures would usually misunderstand its perfect message. Furthermore, I would expect this being to be capable of designing its most beloved creatures in a way that they would be able to clearly understand important messages from it.
If you're talking about The Bible being written by God, then yes, it seems odd because the idea is odd. And by odd I mean factually and historically incorrect.
The Bible is composed primarily of writings which are based on numerous, numerous different traditions that have evolved and have been changed and have been redacted and have been combined to form what we have now. The idea that there is somehow one Bible or one version of each text in the Bible that would later become the one version of the Bible is false. Any historical knowledge of the Bible will demonstrate this.
This is my issue, Highroller: God leaving us in the dark about what is really meant if one subscribes to Interpretation.
I don't see what you're talking about here.
That doesn't seem much different than people who have all written self-help books by seeking truths of how to improve one's life.
The fact that that we regard them by different names and put them in different places in the library reinforces that there's clearly many differences between religious texts and self-help books.
This seems to make the holy texts seem very ordinary in that regard.
Why, because one doesn't have the false idea that God Himself wrote them? Because we identify that human beings wrote them in their search for the divine?
His laws of motion do an excellent job approximating physical systems under almost all conditions that humans are concerned with. In areas where they are poor approximations, his laws are not respected, but are discarded in favor of the more accurate approximations that Einstein discovered.
The point is that he's a person who sought the truth and wrote it down, in doing so creating an entire field, possibly two if you credit him with the invention of calculus, necessary to understand the world. His work is absolutely scientifically vital and respected because he made incredible contributions to the field, even though his works are considered to be inaccurate after modern physics came to be.
In answer to your question, you are forgetting (perhaps) that science, literature, news, academic study, and all other pursuits, they are not replacing an "ought" with an "is". In essence, those other places are saying, "This is what would be prudent to do." Holy Texts are saying, "This is what you are required to do." This is the clear and present difference that causes the question to arise so often.
My point is that we have numerous different examples of texts where one can look at the text and say "I accept this part of the text to be true but not this," or "I agree with this part but not this part." The idea of analyzing and scrutinizing the text at all in any way seems natural to us.
It is only in the case of religious texts that we get the ridiculous false dichotomy between either accepting the text as it is written without any question, thought, scrutiny or analysis; or dismissing it entirely.
It's an absurd false dichotomy and were it any other kind of text, like a newspaper, anyone who makes either extreme conclusion would naturally not be taken seriously. Yet somehow, a text being religious makes it automatically polarized time and time again.
The ironic humor comes from the fact that literalists and detractors of the Bible alike make the same fallacious argument. Literalists will argue it's all or nothing, an argument that has ZERO basis whatsoever. Detractors of the Bible will, and you see it on a lot of these forum debates, for some odd reason actually agree with them and say, "yes, you're correct, it's all or nothing". Which leaves me going "Are the atheists now fundamentalists? What's going on here?"
To me, I think it's perfectly fine to believe in a divine power, but when you have people equating being an American with being a Christian... then think that every other religion is some kind of evil trick yet haven't actually read the Bible or been to church in many years and couldn't tell you the difference between a Protestant and a Catholic... then maybe they should do some research first.
Do you actually think that the people who believe the Bible is to be taken on a literal basis have any rational reason for thinking this other than this is a Christian tradition that they have learned?
I mean, it's one thing to have faith, but faith that is not also tempered with reason, dedication to learning, and self-scrutiny runs the risk of great harm.
Of course I do. But we need to clarify what exactly it means when I say God inspired something.
Put it this way: There is this illusion that the Bible is some sort of immutable text. That it somehow always existed in the nice, neat codex we have it in. That this book of texts that we have in the order that it is arranged somehow always existed in this form and in this way, as though God Himself wrote the texts of the Bible, or that human beings scribed what God's voice said and took dictation from it.
As was mentionned, the Bible and other holy texts are different from other documents as they are not guidelines or suggestions. They are what you must do, what your priest/preacher/imam/etc... is telling you to do to gain eternal salvation. So people want to know that they are following God's Will, not the guess of an old scholar. The human ego will accept no less.
This is why I can respect people who believe the Bible literally, as they have something to base their faith on, as opposed to most people who just pick and choose what they want to believe, as if the Bible is just a moral menu, and then convinces themselves that's exactly what God wanted.
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It is always easy to be tolerant and understanding...Until someone presents an opinion completely opposite to your own.
This is why I can respect people who believe the Bible literally, as they have something to base their faith on, as opposed to most people who just pick and choose what they want to believe, as if the Bible is just a moral menu, and then convinces themselves that's exactly what God wanted.
Frankly I really do not see much difference between these groups. Both pick a convenient set of beliefs and then call it 'divinely inspired' so they do not have to question it or adjust it.
I reject both Literalism and Interpretation as they start from the assumption that if one can figure out what God's message is, one should follow it. I see holy texts as a set of suggestions and it is really up to the individual human being to judge if they are the right thing to follow or not.
Frankly I really do not see much difference between these groups. Both pick a convenient set of beliefs and then call it 'divinely inspired' so they do not have to question it or adjust it.
I reject both Literalism and Interpretation as they start from the assumption that if one can figure out what God's message is, one should follow it. I see holy texts as a set of suggestions and it is really up to the individual human being to judge if they are the right thing to follow or not.
I'm not saying I approve either way either, I"m still an atheist after all. I just think the literalist has more credibility.
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It is always easy to be tolerant and understanding...Until someone presents an opinion completely opposite to your own.
Again, this whole thread is based upon a fallacy in which either everything in the Bible is automatically true and should be taken at face value exactly as it is just because, or all of it is null.
It's a fallacious and completely baseless argument, and were this any other work of literature, this would be obvious. It's still obvious, but for some reason since it's a religious work, confusion sets in and everyone somehow becomes fundamentalist, even the people who profess not to believe in the existence of God.
Someone please explain to me why any argument that one should accept an entire body of texts that have been composed over thousands of years by a multitude of different sources, communities, and traditions that were then written down by multiple editors who placed in their own biases and interpretations and theological opinions into the work, and then placed together into a single codex, the contents of which have been debated since about 140 AD, when they weren't intended to be; please explain to me how the argument that the entire contents of the Bible needs to be taken at face value or not at all and explain how that could POSSIBLY make sense.
As was mentionned, the Bible and other holy texts are different from other documents as they are not guidelines or suggestions. They are what you must do, what your priest/preacher/imam/etc... is telling you to do to gain eternal salvation. So people want to know that they are following God's Will, not the guess of an old scholar. The human ego will accept no less.
This is why I can respect people who believe the Bible literally,
You respect people who make factual and historical errors through their fanaticism by believing a tradition about a text they were told to believe without any basis when all evidence contradicts this?
as they have something to base their faith on, as opposed to most people who just pick and choose what they want to believe, as if the Bible is just a moral menu, and then convinces themselves that's exactly what God wanted.
So the people who don't believe in evolution. Respect there?
I'm not saying I approve either way either, I"m still an atheist after all. I just think the literalist has more credibility.
Because they accept a tradition as a belief because they were told to when all factual evidence, scrutiny, sensible criticism, and the Bible contradicts it?
So you respect people who arbitrarily say that all things they hear, or at least all things they hear from this particular source, or automatically true because they are, but the people who apply scrutiny and logical criticism and any amount of analysis to anything are bad? How does this make any sense?
I don't fully understand how one can maintain a Literalist stance towards a holy text. Do they not understand that the Bible didn't always exist, that it has been translated multiple times, to the point where words and phrases may have different meanings? (From The Case for God is where I draw this knowledge, as the Bible went from Sanskrit Hebrew to Latin to English, as I gathered. It showed how original sanskrit hebrew words may have lost connotations from translation)
If a holy text was strictly an objective list of rules or commandments without any prose, then I would see a case for literal intepretation. But the bible is a story! It is written in prose, in a frame of time. There are definite episodes. When God gave the commandments, that was in a frame of time, to a certain people. How can all those things apply exactly as they were to today's circumstances? How do they know that God wants that for us today?
When you read an account of something that happened, prose in the past tense, you interpet the prose. That's it. There is no meaning derived if you don't interpret the text, you can't apply it without first interpreting it. When one reads a novel, one interprets it to gain meaning from it. I see it as the same for the Bible, or any other holy text.
That's my take on it. One must interpret prose, so one interpets the Bible, therefore I don't see a case for a view of the Bible that is 'free of interpretation.'
This is coming from a Pagan (Druid) that approaches philosophy and religious discussion from an agnostic viewpoint (if that makes sense.) I take meaning from the Bible, the celtic and norse legends, and from everyday novel.
I don't fully understand how one can maintain a Literalist stance towards a holy text. Do they not understand that the Bible didn't always exist, that it has been translated multiple times, to the point where words and phrases may have different meanings? (From The Case for God is where I draw this knowledge, as the Bible went from Sanskrit to Latin to English, as I gathered. It showed how original sanskrit words may have lost connotations from translation)
Sanskrit? That's the classical language of India; it would be very surprising if any of the Bible were written in that language. In fact, the Old Testament was written in Hebrew, the New Testament in Greek. Most English translations read today were translated directly from these languages, including the epochal King James Bible. The real issue isn't translation; it's transcription.
If a holy text was strictly an objective list of rules or commandments without any prose, then I would see a case for literal intepretation. But the bible is a story! It is written in prose, in a frame of time.
Read Exodus, Leviticus, or Deuteronomy. There's... quite a lot of listing.
Sanskrit? That's the classical language of India; it would be very surprising if any of the Bible were written in that language. In fact, the Old Testament was written in Hebrew, the New Testament in Greek. Most English translations read today were translated directly from these languages, including the epochal King James Bible.
Right, I confused sanskrit for hebrew. Good job Talore. Note that the lost-in-translation nature of some words still apply. The book also talked about how the storys of the bible (old testament) came to be written, apparently there were many different versions floating around the region.
I think the confusion with sanskrit was because the book also talked about Brahman(sp?).
Read Exodus, Leviticus, or Deuteronomy. There's... quite a lot of listing.
But even then, those lists were in a context, were they not? I don't have a perfect memory of them, but were they not set within the time periods of the books?
Quote from exodus »
12:1. And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt:
12:2. This month shall be to you the beginning of months; it shall be the first in the months of the year.
12:3. Speak ye to the whole assembly of the children of Israel, and say to them: On the tenth day of this month let every man take a lamb by their families and houses.
12:4. But if the number be less than may suffice to eat the lamb, he shall take unto him his neighbour that joineth to his house, according to the number of souls which may be enough to eat the lamb.
That's a bad example that I just grabbed from skimming through an online rendition of Exodus, but the key is the bolded. God speaks to individuals or groups, but not objectively to every human in every time.
Which book? There is no reason to believe that the Hebrews had any contact with the Indians.
Harkius
By book, I meant The Case for God by Karen Armstrong, which I referenced in my first post (but I forgot the author's name at the time.) It really is a fascinating read.
Literalism would be less annoying if the literalists actually knew their damn bibles. Like just the other day I heard some people talking about the devil in a way that clearly was influenced more by John Milton than the Bible.
My reasoning for literalism and how it compares with interpretation is that it has been assured to me every Christian I've talked to in person that there is an objective truth to this universe. That there is an absolute truth that we can discover through study of our bibles. This is where I would say the problem between these two options arises.
If you take the bible as offering you the objective truth, there must be one correct interpretation in the bible. Considering that nothing within the bible says what is to be taken as story and what as history and the true story of God/Jesus, people are free to interpret it how they want to support their own personal agenda (which is pretty much the exact opposite of objective truth). How can a person say "God is a being beyond our understanding, but I can look at the works inspired by Him and know exactly what he's trying to say to me." That just reeks of arrogance to me. Well, either that or thinking that objective means everyone should believe your subjective interpretation.
It comes down to the summation that makes me (and I'm sure others) confused. How can you pick and choose throughout your bible, with, what can be found through in-depth discussion to be an almost unique interpretation compared to anyone else, yet still say "Obviously this is factual and this is not."
This reminds me of a small example. I was arguing this same debate with an ex-Christian friend and they stated that there are many parts that are clearly just meant as art within and not to be taken with any grain of truth. Next day, we watch a DVD on God/Creationism and 10 minutes in I feel my rebuttal to her was vindicated when the movie tried to support itself scripturally with the exact section she used as an example of what is obviously not to be taken literally.
How can we talk about "Literalism vs. Interpretation"? Every "Holy Text" is so anachronic that it's just impossible to believe it literally. No matter what religion it's made for.
Each of them were made by and for specific population, by HUMANS. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, not even one, single piece of something that we could say is written/made directly by God/Almighty Power/Great Designer/Etc.
Here is interesting video about bible rules: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5MkpzMAOZM
So you respect people who arbitrarily say that all things they hear, or at least all things they hear from this particular source, or automatically true because they are, but the people who apply scrutiny and logical criticism and any amount of analysis to anything are bad? How does this make any sense?
I never thought I'd be saying this but yes. It's called Faith. Faith that the Bible is the real deal.
As it so happens, logical criticism and faith don't work well together. It's just that the literalist has a source to quote, a flawed horribly edited source, but a source nonetheless.
Interpretation means making up your own religion and convincing yourself you still belong to a particular church. And who can say otherwise really?
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It is always easy to be tolerant and understanding...Until someone presents an opinion completely opposite to your own.
I never thought I'd be saying this but yes. It's called Faith. Faith that the Bible is the real deal.
What does that even mean?
"The real deal". So they're superior for going against historical evidence and basic human understanding in order to believe a misconception about the Bible?
As it so happens, logical criticism and faith don't work well together.
Why not?
It's just that the literalist has a source to quote, a flawed horribly edited source, but a source nonetheless.
So a person who draws a conclusion with all evidence pointing to the contrary is good, but a person who draws a conclusion with all evidence pointing to his conclusion is bad?
Interpretation means making up your own religion
Eh?
and convincing yourself you still belong to a particular church.
So what you're saying is that the only two logical approaches we have to a given text are two either believe every single thing written is true on an as-is basis without looking into context, or that we can simply interpret it however we feel like?
"Interpretation makes your own religion"
Probably the strongest point of his post (in my opinion) and you write it of with an 'eh?'.
You are arguably correct in saying that historical context needs to be taken into account with regards to any historical/scriptural piece of documentation. However, that is not something we can ever have more than educated guesses towards. The biblical literalists (in a sense) have a constant between them in what is the correct way to be and so forth. However, especially knowing that you prescribe to a type of Christianity very different than many other mainstream groupings, you should be able to see that when you try to apply this subjective context, everyone who makes their interpretation is making their own religion. While there may be some constants between these interpretations, how far are you willing to stretch these similarities to gloss over the differences.
Now, to the important part from this. Having subjective interpretations of the bible is definitely something I have no qualms with. Not in the least in fact. However, a majority of people making these interpretative claims then go as far to say there view is the only correct truth and that everyone else is wrong.
The argument I have and I assume others do, is how can you create an objective truth and believe it as such for everyone, knowing that your biases coloured it from the start?
"The real deal". So they're superior for going against historical evidence and basic human understanding in order to believe a misconception about the Bible?
Evidently, you don't understand what Faith is.
Why not?
Because they mostly opposite.
So a person who draws a conclusion with all evidence pointing to the contrary is good, but a person who draws a conclusion with all evidence pointing to his conclusion is bad?
That is...completely not what I said. You seem to have the odd idea that I said the Bible is infalible. I said no such thing. I would suggest you re-read my posts to understand my point instead of arguing with strawmen.
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It is always easy to be tolerant and understanding...Until someone presents an opinion completely opposite to your own.
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If one believes a holy text to be open to the interpretation of the individual, then God's meaning becomes mutable and, in fact, capable of meaning completely opposite things to different people depending on who reads it.
If a holy text is to be taken literally, how does one reconcile things written that seem to conflict with the world around them or with other things in the same set of texts which are literally true? How does one deal with the problem of trying to determine what is literally meant when the language used is ambiguous in meaning?
If holy texts are open to interpretation, and thus a person sees in them whatever they wish, in what sense are they special or reflective of some sort of Ultimate Truth? Does God show a person the meaning He wishes for them to see? If this is so, why would He want different people reading conflicting things as Truth?
If one believes in interpretation of holy texts, how do they recognize whether or not their interpretation is correct? How does one distinguish a correct interpretation from an incorrect one? Are all interpretations correct? What about contradictory interpretations?
What are your thoughts on Literalism vs. Interpretation of holy texts?
(Also, welcome to the Religion sub-forum! :halo:)
Then they're wrong.
It's just that simple.
Why is it only with holy texts that this great confusion comes up? In news, in literature, in science, in academic study, in art, in every other pursuit of the truth that we experience on a constant basis, this confusion doesn't come up nearly as much. What makes one interpretation of anything at anytime ever superior to another?
The fact of the human condition is that we live in an objective world that we understand through our subjective experience. We only understand things through interpretation.
Because they are texts written by people who sought the same truth.
Why is Isaac Newton still a respected figure in a post-Einstein world?
Golf claps. This was a good idea.
(I'm asking these so that I can better understand your position on the matter. I'm not trying to "trip you up" or anything.)
The difference is that news, literature, science, etc. are recognized to have come from fallible humans. Holy texts are generally supposed to have come from a perfect being capable of producing a perfect product. It seems odd that a perfect being would produce a product knowing that imperfect creatures would usually misunderstand its perfect message. Furthermore, I would expect this being to be capable of designing its most beloved creatures in a way that they would be able to clearly understand important messages from it.
Example: If you knew that a child of yours would have the potential to misunderstand the instruction from you: "Take out the dog" to mean "Kill the dog" instead of "Go outside with the dog so it can urinate" and you had the capacity to make it crystal clear to the child what you meant, you wouldn't leave it to chance that the child might think you meant "Kill the dog". You would make it crystal clear what you mean.
This is my issue, Highroller: God leaving us in the dark about what is really meant if one subscribes to Interpretation.
That doesn't seem much different than people who have all written self-help books by seeking truths of how to improve one's life. This seems to make the holy texts seem very ordinary in that regard. (Again, you may well think of them this way. I'm not clear on this aspect of your theology).
His laws of motion do an excellent job approximating physical systems under almost all conditions that humans are concerned with. In areas where they are poor approximations, his laws are not respected, but are discarded in favor of the more accurate approximations that Einstein discovered.
People say "God wouldn't allow His word to be altered." Who's to say that He wouldn't have allowed it to happen to test his people?
This being said, I tend to have a bigger respect for those folks who are "all in" and follow the Bible as literally as possible. They aren't half assing it, and they are doing certain things that most "regular" Christians ignore because "times have changed." They want to know WHY theya re Christians instead of just kind of "going along with what grandma wanted me to do."
Generally the people with a clear conviction that they are doing the right thing will accomplish big things or cause big disasters. People with doubts are more prone to compromise.
My personal theology is based on the concept of 'free will' so unquestioning belief in the dictates of a holy text are pretty much anathema to me.
Truth as we conceive it today is something akin to Plato's forms reinterpreted through Kant's tautology. A chair is a flat thing with legs under it, and a back, around yay big.
Holy texts lay out something higher than mere truth; they lay out the word of the Divine Creator. Devotees of a religion hold such messages to a higher standard than truth; even if it doesn't "make sense" to them, they still memorize it and believe it, whereas truth must "make sense."
One does not always afford the privilege of logical reconciliation of religious texts. Logic isn't the most important thing to a lot of folks.
You could also change the language to compensate for such contradiction.
A third route would be to amend the text itself.
One deals with ambiguity in literal meaning through prayer, reflection, conversation with others, or, at the extreme, rejection of literacy.
I suppose they could still serve as a mirror for one's desires, something for one to project his or her aspirations & insecurities onto, to avoid projecting them onto his or her peers.
Maybe *** is not bound by reason?
Perhaps it will impart meaning for them or for others. It's rarely possible to always gain immediate certainty on such matters.
The problem here is, if I know how to distinguish correctness from incorrectness, why am I reading a holy text?
In addition to the Talmud, the Bible, and the Qur'an, there are other texts such as the Code of Hammurabi, Leviathan, magna carta, the Sudebnik, the declaration of independence & the constitution, and the communist manifesto. Plenty of times have societies amalgamated their outlook on the world and their respective purposes in it.
Overemphasis on literal meanings of such heady scripts is missing the point a little bit; for, the message beneath the words is what matters, and it might matter only for a short while, to a small group of folks.
Maybe so, but quite a few people are just happy going to church twice a year (if that, and only if it's for a wedding), faking it when it counts, and celebrating all the holidays "because they are Christian." In actuality they are simply following traditions that their family set up years prior and not thinking that they may very well not actually BE Christian by the definition of things.
To me, I think it's perfectly fine to believe in a divine power, but when you have people equating being an American with being a Christian... then think that every other religion is some kind of evil trick yet haven't actually read the Bible or been to church in many years and couldn't tell you the difference between a Protestant and a Catholic... then maybe they should do some research first.
Of course I do. But we need to clarify what exactly it means when I say God inspired something.
Put it this way: There is this illusion that the Bible is some sort of immutable text. That it somehow always existed in the nice, neat codex we have it in. That this book of texts that we have in the order that it is arranged somehow always existed in this form and in this way, as though God Himself wrote the texts of the Bible, or that human beings scribed what God's voice said and took dictation from it.
This idea is wrong.
Are you supposed to look at the Bible and take everything that it's supposed to say right straight immediately as it is worded? No, of course not. The Jewish people have traditions of interpreting the Law that go back as far as anyone can remember.
The idea that the text of the Bible is immutable and some sort of body that has existed forever is just factually false. And this ridiculous tradition that you either have to accept the Bible as is or reject it entirely is a false dichotomy.
I believe it was written by people who were very pious in their religion and wanted to write down things that they felt were important enough about their faith to be preserved.
Same as above.
Again, clarify what you mean by "divinely inspired". I believe people have sought divine truth and have written down what they believed and thought and saw and deemed important.
There's one God. I believe that all religious texts come from man's pursuit of truth and of the divine.
Did God Himself dictate any of these works? No. There are quotes that are said to come from God, I can't speak as to the validity of these claims, but were the books we read in the Bible written by God? No, they were written by human beings.
No it's cool, ask away.
So too are these texts.
On what grounds do you say this?
If you're talking about The Bible being written by God, then yes, it seems odd because the idea is odd. And by odd I mean factually and historically incorrect.
The Bible is composed primarily of writings which are based on numerous, numerous different traditions that have evolved and have been changed and have been redacted and have been combined to form what we have now. The idea that there is somehow one Bible or one version of each text in the Bible that would later become the one version of the Bible is false. Any historical knowledge of the Bible will demonstrate this.
I don't see what you're talking about here.
The fact that that we regard them by different names and put them in different places in the library reinforces that there's clearly many differences between religious texts and self-help books.
Why, because one doesn't have the false idea that God Himself wrote them? Because we identify that human beings wrote them in their search for the divine?
Is this work very ordinary to you?
The point is that he's a person who sought the truth and wrote it down, in doing so creating an entire field, possibly two if you credit him with the invention of calculus, necessary to understand the world. His work is absolutely scientifically vital and respected because he made incredible contributions to the field, even though his works are considered to be inaccurate after modern physics came to be.
My point is that we have numerous different examples of texts where one can look at the text and say "I accept this part of the text to be true but not this," or "I agree with this part but not this part." The idea of analyzing and scrutinizing the text at all in any way seems natural to us.
It is only in the case of religious texts that we get the ridiculous false dichotomy between either accepting the text as it is written without any question, thought, scrutiny or analysis; or dismissing it entirely.
It's an absurd false dichotomy and were it any other kind of text, like a newspaper, anyone who makes either extreme conclusion would naturally not be taken seriously. Yet somehow, a text being religious makes it automatically polarized time and time again.
The ironic humor comes from the fact that literalists and detractors of the Bible alike make the same fallacious argument. Literalists will argue it's all or nothing, an argument that has ZERO basis whatsoever. Detractors of the Bible will, and you see it on a lot of these forum debates, for some odd reason actually agree with them and say, "yes, you're correct, it's all or nothing". Which leaves me going "Are the atheists now fundamentalists? What's going on here?"
Why? You say this:
Do you actually think that the people who believe the Bible is to be taken on a literal basis have any rational reason for thinking this other than this is a Christian tradition that they have learned?
I mean, it's one thing to have faith, but faith that is not also tempered with reason, dedication to learning, and self-scrutiny runs the risk of great harm.
As was mentionned, the Bible and other holy texts are different from other documents as they are not guidelines or suggestions. They are what you must do, what your priest/preacher/imam/etc... is telling you to do to gain eternal salvation. So people want to know that they are following God's Will, not the guess of an old scholar. The human ego will accept no less.
This is why I can respect people who believe the Bible literally, as they have something to base their faith on, as opposed to most people who just pick and choose what they want to believe, as if the Bible is just a moral menu, and then convinces themselves that's exactly what God wanted.
Frankly I really do not see much difference between these groups. Both pick a convenient set of beliefs and then call it 'divinely inspired' so they do not have to question it or adjust it.
I reject both Literalism and Interpretation as they start from the assumption that if one can figure out what God's message is, one should follow it. I see holy texts as a set of suggestions and it is really up to the individual human being to judge if they are the right thing to follow or not.
I'm not saying I approve either way either, I"m still an atheist after all. I just think the literalist has more credibility.
It's a fallacious and completely baseless argument, and were this any other work of literature, this would be obvious. It's still obvious, but for some reason since it's a religious work, confusion sets in and everyone somehow becomes fundamentalist, even the people who profess not to believe in the existence of God.
Someone please explain to me why any argument that one should accept an entire body of texts that have been composed over thousands of years by a multitude of different sources, communities, and traditions that were then written down by multiple editors who placed in their own biases and interpretations and theological opinions into the work, and then placed together into a single codex, the contents of which have been debated since about 140 AD, when they weren't intended to be; please explain to me how the argument that the entire contents of the Bible needs to be taken at face value or not at all and explain how that could POSSIBLY make sense.
You respect people who make factual and historical errors through their fanaticism by believing a tradition about a text they were told to believe without any basis when all evidence contradicts this?
So the people who don't believe in evolution. Respect there?
Because they accept a tradition as a belief because they were told to when all factual evidence, scrutiny, sensible criticism, and the Bible contradicts it?
So you respect people who arbitrarily say that all things they hear, or at least all things they hear from this particular source, or automatically true because they are, but the people who apply scrutiny and logical criticism and any amount of analysis to anything are bad? How does this make any sense?
SanskritHebrew to Latin to English, as I gathered. It showed how originalsanskrithebrew words may have lost connotations from translation)If a holy text was strictly an objective list of rules or commandments without any prose, then I would see a case for literal intepretation. But the bible is a story! It is written in prose, in a frame of time. There are definite episodes. When God gave the commandments, that was in a frame of time, to a certain people. How can all those things apply exactly as they were to today's circumstances? How do they know that God wants that for us today?
When you read an account of something that happened, prose in the past tense, you interpet the prose. That's it. There is no meaning derived if you don't interpret the text, you can't apply it without first interpreting it. When one reads a novel, one interprets it to gain meaning from it. I see it as the same for the Bible, or any other holy text.
That's my take on it. One must interpret prose, so one interpets the Bible, therefore I don't see a case for a view of the Bible that is 'free of interpretation.'
This is coming from a Pagan (Druid) that approaches philosophy and religious discussion from an agnostic viewpoint (if that makes sense.) I take meaning from the Bible, the celtic and norse legends, and from everyday novel.
Sanskrit? That's the classical language of India; it would be very surprising if any of the Bible were written in that language. In fact, the Old Testament was written in Hebrew, the New Testament in Greek. Most English translations read today were translated directly from these languages, including the epochal King James Bible. The real issue isn't translation; it's transcription.
Read Exodus, Leviticus, or Deuteronomy. There's... quite a lot of listing.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
Right, I confused sanskrit for hebrew. Good job Talore. Note that the lost-in-translation nature of some words still apply. The book also talked about how the storys of the bible (old testament) came to be written, apparently there were many different versions floating around the region.
I think the confusion with sanskrit was because the book also talked about Brahman(sp?).
But even then, those lists were in a context, were they not? I don't have a perfect memory of them, but were they not set within the time periods of the books?
That's a bad example that I just grabbed from skimming through an online rendition of Exodus, but the key is the bolded. God speaks to individuals or groups, but not objectively to every human in every time.
By book, I meant The Case for God by Karen Armstrong, which I referenced in my first post (but I forgot the author's name at the time.) It really is a fascinating read.
If you take the bible as offering you the objective truth, there must be one correct interpretation in the bible. Considering that nothing within the bible says what is to be taken as story and what as history and the true story of God/Jesus, people are free to interpret it how they want to support their own personal agenda (which is pretty much the exact opposite of objective truth). How can a person say "God is a being beyond our understanding, but I can look at the works inspired by Him and know exactly what he's trying to say to me." That just reeks of arrogance to me. Well, either that or thinking that objective means everyone should believe your subjective interpretation.
It comes down to the summation that makes me (and I'm sure others) confused. How can you pick and choose throughout your bible, with, what can be found through in-depth discussion to be an almost unique interpretation compared to anyone else, yet still say "Obviously this is factual and this is not."
This reminds me of a small example. I was arguing this same debate with an ex-Christian friend and they stated that there are many parts that are clearly just meant as art within and not to be taken with any grain of truth. Next day, we watch a DVD on God/Creationism and 10 minutes in I feel my rebuttal to her was vindicated when the movie tried to support itself scripturally with the exact section she used as an example of what is obviously not to be taken literally.
Every "Holy Text" is so anachronic that it's just impossible to believe it literally. No matter what religion it's made for.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_text
Each of them were made by and for specific population, by HUMANS. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, not even one, single piece of something that we could say is written/made directly by God/Almighty Power/Great Designer/Etc.
Here is interesting video about bible rules:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5MkpzMAOZM
I think that everyone should watch this also:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeSSwKffj9o&feature=player_embedded#at=00
It's atheis comic, but his words are interesting (of course they are funny too).
Decks:
EDH: :symbw::symuw::symub:Merieke Ri Berit:symbw::symuw::symub:
Archenemy EDH: Reaper king
(")(")
GONZO
Genius, fast, and long eared.
More accurately a collection of stories, history, catalogs, songs, prophecies, letters, and gospels.
I never thought I'd be saying this but yes. It's called Faith. Faith that the Bible is the real deal.
As it so happens, logical criticism and faith don't work well together. It's just that the literalist has a source to quote, a flawed horribly edited source, but a source nonetheless.
Interpretation means making up your own religion and convincing yourself you still belong to a particular church. And who can say otherwise really?
What does that even mean?
"The real deal". So they're superior for going against historical evidence and basic human understanding in order to believe a misconception about the Bible?
Why not?
So a person who draws a conclusion with all evidence pointing to the contrary is good, but a person who draws a conclusion with all evidence pointing to his conclusion is bad?
Eh?
So what you're saying is that the only two logical approaches we have to a given text are two either believe every single thing written is true on an as-is basis without looking into context, or that we can simply interpret it however we feel like?
Probably the strongest point of his post (in my opinion) and you write it of with an 'eh?'.
You are arguably correct in saying that historical context needs to be taken into account with regards to any historical/scriptural piece of documentation. However, that is not something we can ever have more than educated guesses towards. The biblical literalists (in a sense) have a constant between them in what is the correct way to be and so forth. However, especially knowing that you prescribe to a type of Christianity very different than many other mainstream groupings, you should be able to see that when you try to apply this subjective context, everyone who makes their interpretation is making their own religion. While there may be some constants between these interpretations, how far are you willing to stretch these similarities to gloss over the differences.
Now, to the important part from this. Having subjective interpretations of the bible is definitely something I have no qualms with. Not in the least in fact. However, a majority of people making these interpretative claims then go as far to say there view is the only correct truth and that everyone else is wrong.
The argument I have and I assume others do, is how can you create an objective truth and believe it as such for everyone, knowing that your biases coloured it from the start?
Because they mostly opposite.
That is...completely not what I said. You seem to have the odd idea that I said the Bible is infalible. I said no such thing. I would suggest you re-read my posts to understand my point instead of arguing with strawmen.