Religion IV: Deus vult!

[Gears of the Beast]

That you miss the point surprises me not at all. The point of the story with the rich man is not that everyone needed to sell all they had and take up their cross the point of the story was that "through God all things are possible".

How do you know that's the point of the story instead of the point of the story being that rich people can't get into heaven? And how does it then follow that the explicit pronouncements of god contained in the story are to be ignored? I can see how something like the garden of eden has the capacity to be an allegorical story but there is a clear difference between biblical myths and explicit pronouncements that god supposedly makes. Give me a methodology of how you analyse these texts in order to determine what is true and what can just be ignored. Because it looks a whole lot like cherry picking - you like certain parts and assert that they are the point and ignore the stuff that is less appealing. And as I said before; if I truly believed that is was the word of god I would approach with a bit more intellectual integrity than that.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

GotB,

Did I claim to be offering a scientific analysis or literary criticism? I'm telling you what I have been told that the early church fathers taught about this passage. Is extreme aceticism the path for some, sure, but not all.

I'm not claimimg to have a corner on the truth. I'm saying your literalist criticism doesn't work for faiths that say these passages need to be understood in a wider context. Enjoy your nitpicking.

[Sci-2]

Raymond Tallis - The Strange Idea that What Happens Has to be Made to Happen

'The talk will examine an embarrassment shared by both theological and scientific approaches to the intelligibility of the world and highlighted for theologians by Special Divine Action (SDA).

I will suggest that a serious, perhaps the central, problem presented by SDA is that of understanding a local event being brought about by an agency or force that is, by definition, absolutely general. The commonly expressed worry that SDA requires of God that he should violate His own laws reflects only the most obvious manifestation of what is a deeper difficulty; namely, finding an adequate explanation of the local, and actual, in the general.

The scientific endeavour to make the universe entirely intelligible - culminating in a putative Theory of Everything – encounters similar problems. I shall examine the Principle of Precedence in its various guises (inertia, laws of nature, probability) and different approaches to causation. They all prove profoundly unsatisfactory for different reasons. The difficulty common to various naturalistic responses to ‘Why’ is that of establishing an adequate connection between the explanandum and the explanation given that the former inevitably sets out general possibilities and the latter is composed of singular actualities.

The goal, or regulative idea, of science – namely finding a sufficient reason for singular events in the general properties of the universe to which they belong - is analogous to the theological aim of making sense of SDA by connecting and reconciling such action with fundamental characteristics of God. I shall argue that theists and atheists both need to look critically at the very idea that things happen because they are made to happen, typically by what has preceded it characterised in most general terms; at the notion of ‘becausation’.

In the final, and most speculative and least-developed, part of the paper, I shall ask whether the search for an explanation of events in something that makes them happen is prompted by a felt need to reconnect items of an intrinsically seamless universe pulled apart into distinct elements by the irruption of self-consciousness into Being. This last idea is offered up tentatively for dissection.'

[Gears of the Beast]

Did I claim to be offering a scientific analysis or literary criticism? I'm telling you what I have been told that the early church fathers taught about this passage. Is extreme aceticism the path for some, sure, but not all.

To be able to assert what the point of the story is I assumed you had some method whereby you could analyse the story in order to get there. but now you say that's the point of the story because someone told you...mmmkay....I'm not nitpicking anything at all, you're actually the one nitpicking.

I'm not claimimg to have a corner on the truth.

-Do you think that your beliefs are true?

-If yes; how have you arrived to this position - what is your basis for believing them?

-If no; why the fuck would you believe something if you don't think it's true?

And stop acting like I'm advocating for some kind of literalist reading, I just said the garden of eden could be considered allegory; I personally happen to believe it's a bunch of antiquated inane ramblings. I'm just curious as to how one goes about picking what to believe from the bible, if there is any kind of internal consistency to this system or if it's just a 'pick the stuff you like, discard the rest' kind of a deal. You seem to fall into the latter.

[Wise Fool]

How do you know that's the point of the story instead of the point of the story being that rich people can't get into heaven? And how does it then follow that the explicit pronouncements of god contained in the story are to be ignored? I can see how something like the garden of eden has the capacity to be an allegorical story but there is a clear difference between biblical myths and explicit pronouncements that god supposedly makes. Give me a methodology of how you analyse these texts in order to determine what is true and what can just be ignored. Because it looks a whole lot like cherry picking - you like certain parts and assert that they are the point and ignore the stuff that is less appealing. And as I said before; if I truly believed that is was the word of god I would approach with a bit more intellectual integrity than that.

You know, I've never understood why "cherry picking" has such negative connotations. Aren't cherries good? Should we not pick them? Are we supposed to just lop off swathes of cherry tree and cram it all down our throats, wood and leaf and all, because otherwise we're not being consistent and that's bad?

I can't speak for Scot, but for myself, I came to religion(s) after a belief in what I'd call God. So naturally, I reject those parts of religion that do not make sense to me, and accept the ones that do, using a lens of personal understanding and subjective meaning. Everybody does this. You do this, Gears, only it just happens that none of it makes sense to you and so you reject basically all of it. I pick cherries, you just take pictures of the cherry tree and talk about what terrible cherries it produces and how people who eat those cherries lack intellectual integrity.

[sologdin]

goodness. everyone cherrypicks scripture.

[Liffguard]

You know, I've never understood why "cherry picking" has such negative connotations. Aren't cherries good? Should we not pick them? Are we supposed to just lop off swathes of cherry tree and cram it all down our throats, wood and leaf and all, because otherwise we're not being consistent and that's bad?

I can't speak for Scot, but for myself, I came to religion(s) after a belief in what I'd call God. So naturally, I reject those parts of religion that do not make sense to me, and accept the ones that do, using a lens of personal understanding and subjective meaning. Everybody does this. You do this, Gears, only it just happens that none of it makes sense to you and so you reject basically all of it. I pick cherries, you just take pictures of the cherry tree and talk about what terrible cherries it produces and how people who eat those cherries lack intellectual integrity.

I think the point is that if we use already existing moral criteria to pick which parts of scripture to follow and which to discard, then why not do away with scripture and just use those criteria as they stand? Cut out the middle man. If we select which parts of scripture make sense to us and discard the rest then we've already developed morality from somewhere else. At which point, what's the purpose of scripture?

[Sci-2]

goodness. everyone cherrypicks scripture.

Seems to me everyone cherry picks after a point, given the metaphysical nature of things like time, intentionality, subjectivity, causality, moral values, and so on remain in contention. (Think of nihilists as the Tharizdun of metaphysics, and Mysterians about one thing or another the Slaad Lords...)

Or perhaps stated another way, people construct worlds in which something or other has to be taken as brute fact.

[Wise Fool]

I think the point is that if we use already existing moral criteria to pick which parts of scripture to follow and which to discard, then why not do away with scripture and just use those criteria as they stand? Cut out the middle man. If we select which parts of scripture make sense to us and discard the rest then we've already developed morality from somewhere else. At which point, what's the purpose of scripture?

What's the purpose of literature in general? Or philosophy?

What does it mean to "do away with scripture?" Destroy it, ban it? Or merely do not read it? If the latter, that's what people do already; more commonly is the reading and 'cherry picking' an understanding of it according to their own preconceptions and beliefs. So what middle man is there to cut?

I think it's simplistic to understand religious texts through moral connotations only, and thus I don't think the purpose of scripture is to create or 'develop' a sense of morality. Of course, plenty of people disagree with me there too.

[Liffguard]

What's the purpose of literature in general? Or philosophy?

What does it mean to "do away with scripture?" Destroy it, ban it? Or merely do not read it? If the latter, that's what people do already; more commonly is the reading and 'cherry picking' an understanding of it according to their own preconceptions and beliefs. So what middle man is there to cut?

I think it's simplistic to understand religious texts through moral connotations only, and thus I don't think the purpose of scripture is to create or 'develop' a sense of morality. Of course, plenty of people disagree with me there too.

Do away with it as a source of moral authority. If someone chooses to follow passage X because they think it's good and relevant but ignore passage Y because it's outdated or inapplicable (or allegorical) then clearly they've already derived their morals from an alternative source.

[Wise Fool]

Do away with it as a source of moral authority. If someone chooses to follow passage X because they think it's good and relevant but ignore passage Y because it's outdated or inapplicable (or allegorical) then clearly they've already derived their morals from an alternative source.

More likely they've 'derived' their morals from a very likely unexamined set of sources, including the very one they're talking about. But in any case, in the US at least, the Bible is not really that authoritative. Sure, many people claim and will continue to claim it is, but these are the same sorts of people who have such a difficult time understanding the concept of metaphor, or history or law for that matter. A book is only as authoritative as people are. So I'm still unclear what you mean, as far as actions go, when you suggest doing away with it. What changes would be made if we did indeed go about doing away with it.

[Liffguard]

I simply think that the Bible (or Torah, Quran or whatever) should be looked at in a similar way to how we look at, say, the Iliad. As some interesting mythology, as a possible primary source for the time it was written (though here the comparison breaks down slightly since the Bible was written by many people in many time periods) etc.

[TerraPrime]

I simply think that the Bible (or Torah, Quran or whatever) should be looked at in a similar way to how we look at, say, the Iliad. As some interesting mythology, as a possible primary source for the time it was written (though here the comparison breaks down slightly since the Bible was written by many people in many time periods) etc.

That would work, except that (1) the book claims to be the sole source of morality and (2) some people believe part 1.

[Wise Fool]

I simply think that the Bible (or Torah, Quran or whatever) should be looked at in a similar way to how we look at, say, the Iliad. As some interesting mythology, as a possible primary source for the time it was written (though here the comparison breaks down slightly since the Bible was written by many people in many time periods) etc.

Well, obviously a Christian is going to look at the Bible differently from reading the Illiad. Asking them to interpret it as merely interesting reading material is a bit unfair, almost as much as asking a nonbeliever to interpret it as the literal letter and word of God.

[Liffguard]

Well, obviously a Christian is going to look at the Bible differently from reading the Illiad. Asking them to interpret it as merely interesting reading material is a bit unfair, almost as much as asking a nonbeliever to interpret it as the literal letter and word of God.

Ok, but if a Christian is going to use the Bible as an authoritative source, whether for morality or the nature of reality, then we get to ask what criteria they're using to determine which passages to accept and which to discard.

[Gears of the Beast]

I can't speak for Scot, but for myself, I came to religion(s) after a belief in what I'd call God. So naturally, I reject those parts of religion that do not make sense to me, and accept the ones that do, using a lens of personal understanding and subjective meaning. Everybody does this. You do this, Gears, only it just happens that none of it makes sense to you and so you reject basically all of it. I pick cherries, you just take pictures of the cherry tree and talk about what terrible cherries it produces and how people who eat those cherries lack intellectual integrity.

No I actually don't do that at all. If I were a Christian and therefore believed that the bible was the most sacred, important and authoritative piece of divine revelation that there is I would need a solid method of interpreting what the truth is. We're not talking about individual subjective truth. christianity asserts objective truth; the word of god. If you believe it's the word of god how could you simply say "na I don't really like how god said that we must do that, let's just ignore it". And you've also completely missed the point of why one would not accept the bible, it's not as if I've read through and just none of it worked for me and none of the moral pronouncements fit into my worldview. It's that there is absolutely no reason to take this as the word of an infallible being. If I did actually believe it was the teachings of a god then I wouldn't just cherry pick what I liked - because fucking god said that stuff, if god supposedly says you must do a thing in order to get to heaven I wouldn't just say "na, that bit just isn't really for me". I would need an actual way of deciphering which is the truth and which can just be ignored because how could you risk disobeying god?

[Istakhr]

Raymond Tallis - The Strange Idea that What Happens Has to be Made to Happen

What physicists do is build mathematical models to explain the results of observations and predict other observations. Whether you think this is explaining the reason things happen or about why or how things happen, or even if these are imaginary or not is a matter of your belief.

His whole point seems to be a special case for the same pointless philosophical debate about whether everything observed is explainable by mathematical models or not. What physicists actually did from the start of modern physics and still do is ignore the incessant bickering of philosophers and build mathematical models and test them for any observations.

And just as an example about his personal hangup of start of universe a quantum theory for creation of space time from vacuum can be remarkably similar to creation of matter from vacuum.

And worst than anything else is that this guy either doesn't really understand physics jargon or dishonestly jumps between them and his own definitions of these words: event, local, locality, general, causality, event, etc

[Galactus]

That would work, except that (1) the book claims to be the sole source of morality and (2) some people believe part 1.

While the Illiad never had the kind of scriptural status as the JCI religions, it *was' considered an important work not just culturally, but religiously. (as one of the major works describing the greek gods)

No I actually don't do that at all. If I were a Christian and therefore believed that the bible was the most sacred, important and authoritative piece of divine revelation that there is I would need a solid method of interpreting what the truth is. We're not talking about individual subjective truth. christianity asserts objective truth; the word of god. If you believe it's the word of god how could you simply say "na I don't really like how god said that we must do that, let's just ignore it". And you've also completely missed the point of why one would not accept the bible, it's not as if I've read through and just none of it worked for me and none of the moral pronouncements fit into my worldview. It's that there is absolutely no reason to take this as the word of an infallible being. If I did actually believe it was the teachings of a god then I wouldn't just cherry pick what I liked - because fucking god said that stuff, if god supposedly says you must do a thing in order to get to heaven I wouldn't just say "na, that bit just isn't really for me". I would need an actual way of deciphering which is the truth and which can just be ignored because how could you risk disobeying god?

The Bible is (to catholics and the orthodox, IE: The majority of christians, and this bears repeating) the inerrant word of god as the source for faith and morals. (note that catholics have a very particular definition of "innerrancy") But part of that is that the Bible is only a part of a greater Tradition of Christian Lore: (that in turn was the source of the Bible, not the other way around) that includes all sorts of things (writings of Church Fathers, decisions by church councils, in the case of catholics, papal pronouncements, the revelations of saints and mystics, etc.) Now, in the view of catholics this tradition is itself divinely guided (and in a sense, nicely self-fulfilling: God would obviously not guide his Church wrong...)

[Edd Tollett]

Scripture is God-breathed, inspired. It is not a rulebook or source of morals. The Holy Spirit convicts us of sin. (John 16:10)

Read where God took away the sabbaths and feast days because they became empty rituals (Hosea).

>We're not talking about individual subjective truth.

Your relation to God is individual. God does not reveal Himself to all people at all times in exactly the same way. Salvation is directional, not positional. See how Christ revealed different expectations for divorce and adultery compared to Mosaic law.

Ethical Christians who are simply rule-following without a circumcision of the heart are missing the point of the Gospel... in the same way the Pharisees missed the point.

Right actions are evidence of an appreciation for our salvation. Perfection is through Christ.

"If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us."
--1 John 1:10

> I would need an actual way of deciphering which is the truth and which can just be ignored because how could you risk disobeying god?

Even those of us who profess to be Christians need the right intention and the inward witness of the Lord's Spirit to approach understanding.

[Wise Fool]

Ok, but if a Christian is going to use the Bible as an authoritative source, whether for morality or the nature of reality, then we get to ask what criteria they're using to determine which passages to accept and which to discard.

I get this, I do. But the thing is people do not have some sort of criteria (for much of anything, concerning belief and thought and opinion) that could be easily described like a computer program. It's all fuzzy and inherently subjective, because people are fuzzy and inherently subjective. Some more or less fuzzy than others, of course.

For me the criteria is vaguely based on personal experience and intuition. 'That seems true to me.' Subject to change! And it's not about discarding passages entirely, but having ones that are more important/meaningful than others, understanding ones to be more accurate representations of truth/God's will/etc than others. And it depends on context: how willing or able one is to see a passage as 'literally, universally true'; or 'only metaphorically true'; or 'true for the people to whom it was revealed'; or 'possibly true at one point or another but not particularly important either way'; 'unknown at this time, let's get back to it.'

I mean there are people who believe the Bible was literally written by God. As in he used his literal hand to scribble onto paper. That's one interpretation, I guess, but IMO a kind of dumb one. What would God need with a human hand? (These are the same kind of people who made Stephen King's The Stand miniseries ending so horrible. (With a big, glowy Hand of God descending to nuke the people of Las Vegas.) Because that's a generally poor way of analyzing literature, so it results in kind of cringe-worthy beliefs.)

But most of us can still talk about the hand of God with the understanding that we're not talking about a giant glowing hand. It's just that if the Bible happened to describe God's hand having a hairy knuckle, we would just say that's probably a bit of strangely specific descriptive flourish on the part of one author, and focus on bits that have more relevance.