Modern Bible Interpretation

[Matrim Fox Cauthon]

To get back to the topic:

To me, the existence of Hell as a central dogma to Christianity seems logically contradictory to the sociological assertion that Christianity is a religion of peace and love, as it seems to have a place in the dogma only as a means through which believers may feel morally justified in going to great lengths to convert people to the religion. Sociologically, how do you reconcile these positions?

Not really, though I certainly see where you are coming from. Hell can serve as the impetus for conversion for Christians, but it was typically not damnation so much as it was the promise of salvation through the resurrection. It's part of the apocalyptic tension: love and do peace, and refrain from wickedness, because here are the eschatological benefits for doing good and here are the drawbacks for doing evil. You can still 'love your neighbor' and advocate peace while still wanting to see the evil be brought to some form of justice. Paul's letters certainly advocate peace, love, fellowship, community, etc. for the various Christian congregations for their daily life as part of their faithful living, regardless of the existence of Hell, as the salvific return of Christ and the coming of the Kingdom of Heaven were the main points stressed.

[Ser Greguh]

Not really, though I certainly see where you are coming from. Hell can serve as the impetus for conversion for Christians, but it was typically not damnation so much as it was the promise of salvation through the resurrection. It's part of the apocalyptic tension: love and do peace, and refrain from wickedness, because here are the eschatological benefits for doing good and here are the drawbacks for doing evil. You can still 'love your neighbor' and advocate peace while still wanting to see the evil be brought to some form of justice. Paul's letters certainly advocate peace, love, fellowship, community, etc. for the various Christian congregations for their daily life as part of their faithful living, regardless of the existence of Hell, as the salvific return of Christ and the coming of the Kingdom of Heaven were the main points stressed.

It's not as if I'm arguing that there isn't a metaphysical carrot that's used as well; all my argument seems to require, from my vantage point, is the consistent presence of the metaphysical stick, not that it was the first bullet point in the historical proselytizing powerpoint.

[Matrim Fox Cauthon]

It's not as if I'm arguing that there isn't a metaphysical carrot that's used as well; all my argument seems to require, from my vantage point, is the consistent presence of the metaphysical stick, not that it was the first bullet point in the historical proselytizing powerpoint.

The metaphysical stick of Hell may exist, but the religion itself cannot hit you with a metaphysical stick. So the existence or non-existence of Hell does not seem to inherently say anything about Christian ethics.

[The Anti-Targ]

An internet forum is exactly the wrong place to resolve interpretational issues in the Holy texts of any religion.

If you want to collect almost as many opinions as there are people who post in the discussion thread, then you're in the right place.

In my view, using the Bible as the source of guidance for how society should be today is like trying to use a high school science text book for teaching university postgraduate physics. The high school science textbook is perfect for teaching high school students. But that's as far as it goes.

[Eponine]

I'm just amazed that the thread got to 15 pages so fast. I saw it earlier today and expected it to be on maybe page 3 in the evening.

Based on something said earlier, I wanted to ask Minaku and the board - many people say the Bible isn't the sole or literal authority on Christianity. And it's fair enough to point out that tradition or non-literal readings are also a part of religion. But it seems that most of these same people who are quick to discount the parts where genocide, sexism, gays as abomination, etc. as having a different meaning than what the words say literally also believe in Jesus as savior or perfect example or best moral teacher, etc. If not for the Bible, would anything now be known about Jesus? What?

Second, if parts of the Bible are discountable, why hold up Jesus (a person who said the aforementioned about women and divorce, as well as things about hell, and other teachings that many modern Christians would like to ignore) as the center of the religion? This is NOT the same question as "if every part of the Bible isn't literal, why believe any of it is". It's the observation that the teachings about Jesus' resurrection and the coming of the kingdom of heaven are some of the MOST FANTASTICAL parts of the Bible. If one is going to disregard other parts that seem non-literal, why not the resurrection? Just wistful thinking? And if the resurrection is non-literal and Jesus is not god or not perfect or no more than a human teacher, what in particular makes him or his teachings any better than any other fallible teacher who says many good things and some sexist and crazy things?

[Matrim Fox Cauthon]

Some doctrines are more core than others.

[Fragile Bird]

Are you saying that you repudiate the Christian dogma as to the existence of Hell?

I don't believe in hell, no.

I have never made a statement to this effect and would never categorize all members of any demographic with such sweeping language. Only an idiot would do so. I have had personally unpleasant experiences with Christianity, yes. I have had some harsh things to say from time to time about Christianity as a general philosophy and political institution, but have never once in my life extended such judgments on all believers. I have never and would never say that all Christians are bigoted. I have never and would never say that all Christians are hateful. I have never and would never say that all Christians are morons. I have never and would never say that no Christians are worth respecting. The statements you are making about me are lies, plain and simple, something your philosophy espouses to despise.

See, you are so into semantic games you quote me and then insert words that are not in the quote. There is no "all" in the quote from me, yet you have used it 4 times to put sweeping statements in my mouth. You have however said:

Posted 11 August 2012 - 10:00 AM

As far as I've been able to tell, Evangelism is the intersection of religion and mental illness.

That's one of those sweeping statements you say you never make, isn't it? And I said I wasn't going to go off hunting quotes from you, I would just try to remember things you said. So instead of morons, you said mental illness. And you've said religious beliefs are fairy tales, and disbelieving God isn't fundamentally different from disbelieving Santa Claus. You also often call religion a con game. So I was wrong in saying you said Christians are bigots, you just think they are criminals. It is 2.00 am and I need to go to bed, but I think if I searched some more I could find you calling Christians hateful too. However, in another quote from you, religion is a confidence scam that undermines human progress and is used as a tool for oppression and a justification for violence. Pretty damn hateful, no? Again, you use a semantic game by claiming you are not saying Christians do this, it's organized religion. It's pretty hard to seperate the people who follow the organized religion and the religion.

You don't know me. All you know is that I am disrespectful toward something that you hold dear, which you use as a launching board as to a great many of very personal attacks toward me that have no basis in reality. I can't say that I'm not hurt by that, but I also can't say that I'm surprised.

What are you talking about? Please list the "great many personal attacks" I've made against you. The first time you and I ever exchanged posts was in my thread about planning your life, in which you talked about being a poker player, and I think I said something like, oh, wow, neat. Then in Sciborg2's Morality thread you insulted Sci about 5 or 6 different ways, asking him if he believed in unicorns and told him his courses in philosphy were obviously wasted on him. I asked if the two of you could stop your pissing match long enough to answer the OP, how did you develop your morality. You eventually went on to say this:

I find it personally obvious that there is no God, at the very least beyond the sort of deist/pantheist sort of god such as someone like Einstein would speak of (and don't find the notion of such a deity particularly useful) and that organized religion is a laughably transparent confidence scam. I see no meaningful difference between the stories of religion and fairy tales. I recognize that others may disagree with me without being idiots and don't begrudge anyone their personal faith. I do, however, begrudge the many (many, many, many) ways in which religion presents itself as existential blackmail, in which it undermines science and human progress, which it is used as a tool of oppression and justification for violence, and in which it treats any that don't belong to their clique as a dangerous "other" that is to be distrusted and feared. I don't know whether or not that fits your caricature of me, but I'm not out to convert so much as explain my stance, and if that's convincing to people, then fine. As the sort of idiocy that sciborg brings up highlights, persecution and double-standards are something an outed atheist faces day-in, day-out, and if pointing out that that's not right makes me an "evangelical", then fucking hallelujah.

Then you go on to compare the evolution of morality to the evolution of ants, and mock the ten commandments as something some religious group falsely claimed to invent for it's own reasons.

You say you would never say all Christians are hateful. Again, you claim it's the philosphy. How do you seperate the 'philosophy' from the beliefs of Christians?

I don't respect the philosophy. I regard large chunks of it as hate cleverly disguised as love. I regard it as false, not worthy of serious discussion as fact and not worthy of serious consideration as meaningful allegory. Lies. A confidence scam. I've used the phrase "Fairy Tales". All of these things are accusations that I have made. And all of these accusations are directed at the organization; the political entity; the stories; the dogma; the institutions. You may think you know what that means about my opinion of believers, but you do not. We're on a message board discussing books of fantasy. I know better than most the power of fairy tales. I also know better than most the strength that is required in our society to stand up to the institutions that I condemn, and I do not begrudge others for not taking the path that I have taken.

What you consider as my rudeness, my being an asshole, whatever words you use to describe me in your head or to justify your attacks on me, I consider to be my honesty regarding what unbelief actually implies.

I didn't say a word about rudeness, or being an asshole - those words are in your head Ser Greguh. I also didn't attack you, I repeated your espoused opinions.

And I have already mentioned my last exchange in a thread with you, where I told you I couldn't imagine going through the things you did in high school. After that, in that thread, you went on to attack belief in God in your usual manner, which I tried to respond to, not with insults or personal attacks, but with reason that was unacceptable to you. I have no animosity towards you, I simply recognize the fact that you utterly despise religion. Please do not personalize the fact you and I disagree on this topic with some kind of attack on you, okay?

ETA: Oh, and in re-reading the above after putting it together, you said you would never say that no Christians are worth respecting, but in the quote above you state the philsophy is not worthy of serious discussion as fact and not worthy of serious consideration as allegory. Again, how do you seperate the belief from the believer? You are in fact saying Christians are not worthy of respect.

[Antonius Pius]

If not for the Bible, would anything now be known about Jesus? What?

IIRC, not a whole lot. Outside of the bible and Jesus' followers, there's only a line in Tacitus saying "and in Judaea, under the governorship of Pontius Pilate, a rebel claiming to be a messiah was executed".

It's the observation that the teachings about Jesus' resurrection and the coming of the kingdom of heaven are some of the MOST FANTASTICAL parts of the Bible.

Very important point up front: we don't really know a lot about specific incidents, events etc. from these times. We can speculate and theorise, but that's about it.

Because most of the NT is propaganda, and is written as a means to gain immediate following (in that way quite distinct from the OT). After Jesus' death, his followers probably made some kind of plan how best to achieve this. There was dissent, evidenced by the dispute between Peter and Paul. Subsequently, most of the NT as we have it, was written around the seventies, when Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans. Jesus' followers were forced to disperse, making the movement spread wider, but also needing to cling to a winning story more strongly, because they were outside the traditional milieu of Jerusalem (hotbed of messianistic movements in those days).

If one is going to disregard other parts that seem non-literal, why not the resurrection? Just wistful thinking? And if the resurrection is non-literal and Jesus is not god or not perfect or no more than a human teacher, what in particular makes him or his teachings any better than any other fallible teacher who says many good things and some sexist and crazy things?

Nothing. If you get down to it, the resurrection is simply Jesus' last miracle. They were all put in there to make the movement (after Jesus' death) more attractive to potential new followers. You could argue that due to the destruction of Jerusalem and the work of Jesus' followers and apostles after their dispersal, Christianity was simply more succesful in winning new converts and became something of a cult. From there it grew into what we know. The rise of new cults in itself was nothing new to the ancient Mediterranean.

The rest is just down the flavour of the believer.

[Crazydog7]

Is this a board record for making it to 300 posts?

[Ser Greguh]

See, you are so into semantic games you quote me and then insert words that are not in the quote. There is no "all" in the quote from me, yet you have used it 4 times to put sweeping statements in my mouth. You have however said:

Distinguishing between the traits of an organization and the traits of its followers is not anything like a "semantic game".

That's one of those sweeping statements you say you never make, isn't it?

No. It's not a sweeping statement. In the quote you bring up I'm discussing Evangelism, a small subset of Christianity, and the subset most directly involved with the political actions you claim to disavow, and that I think in general show characteristics of mental illness that are specifically excluded from most religious people in general by the very fact that I bring it up as a "subset". I didn't say "I think religious people are mentally ill," I said that Evangelicals seem to consist of religious people who also happen to be mentally ill.

And you've said religious beliefs are fairy tales, and disbelieving God isn't fundamentally different from disbelieving Santa Claus. You also often call religion a con game. So I was wrong in saying you said Christians are bigots, you just think they are criminals.

The leaders of Christianity, not the followers. The followers would be the victims.

It is 2.00 am and I need to go to bed, but I think if I searched some more I could find you calling Christians hateful too.

Individual Christians, maybe, but certainly not as a demographic. I've never said or implied anything that could even remotely be interpreted as saying that Christians are, as a whole, hateful. This is you lying.

However, in another quote from you, religion is a confidence scam that undermines human progress and is used as a tool for oppression and a justification for violence. Pretty damn hateful, no?

No, not at all. I think that the role of religion and general, and Christianity specifically, is pretty obvious in the context of World History. The fact that religion has been used as a tool of oppression throughout history is pretty inarguable. We can quibble as to the degree to which the people responsible for that oppression have been "Real Christians" but that certainly can't reasonably be construed as a statement of hate toward Christian followers in general.

Again, you use a semantic game by claiming you are not saying Christians do this, it's organized religion. It's pretty hard to seperate the people who follow the organized religion and the religion.

Not at all. The notion that you, or anyone, would dismiss such a fundamental distinction as a "semantic game" is alarming. That's essentially the whole point of describing it as a confidence scam. I think you drastically misinterpret what I mean when I make this accusation.

What are you talking about? Please list the "great many personal attacks" I've made against you.

You said that I believed, and I quote, "Christians are bigoted, hateful, fairy tale believing morons who aren't worth respecting." I have never said anything of the sort and I consider this statement to be multiple personal attacks rolled into one. To believe those things, one would have to be an unbelievable hateful person, and an idiot. I do not take such accusations lightly and do not see any way to interpret this statement other than as an attack on my character.

Then in Sciborg2's Morality thread you insulted Sci about 5 or 6 different ways, asking him if he believed in unicorns and told him his courses in philosphy were obviously wasted on him. I asked if the two of you could stop your pissing match long enough to answer the OP, how did you develop your morality. You eventually went on to say this:

While you may find the comparison between belief in a deity and belief in a unicorn to be ipsa facto offensive, such comparisons are fairly standard when it comes to an epistemolgical examination of the nature of faith and the intent of such a comparison is not to offend. It may be obvious to you what the difference is between belief in God and belief in a unicorn, but it is most certainly not obvious to me. As to my interaction with sciborg, I generally respect him as a poster and hope the feeling is mutual (he seems to "Like" a not infrequent number of my posts), I simply felt that his handling of that particular argument was exceptionally poor. The statement you quote was a somewhat frustrated response to what I felt was a continual misrepresentation of what my atheism does and does not mean. As I said in the excerpt that you quote (and consider probably the most important words in that statement to be), I begrudge nobody their personal faith. In that statement I go out of my way to deny that my feelings as to the factual merits of specific religious stories, or of the effects of religious organizations as political historic entities, should stand as an indictment of anybody's personal faith, and yet you interpret them as such anyway. I don't know how to react to such an interpretation if not as a personal attack. You accuse me of things that I have not only not said, but that I have gone out of my way to exclude when discussing religion.

Maybe to you this comes off as some "semantic game" but I very much do not see it that way.

Then you go on to compare the evolution of morality to the evolution of ants

The evolution of moral behavior in ant colonies is very relevant to biological discussion as to the evolution of moral social behavior in other social creatures, including humans. Ants are freaking awesome. They show all kinds of behavior that we might describe as altruistic, community-centric, and that in general provide insights as to how morality may have evolved in humans. Here's a book that might provide some insight. This was very much not intended as mockery.

, and mock the ten commandments as something some religious group falsely claimed to invent for it's own reasons.

Well, from an anthropological perspective, the notion that the Hebrews that were presented with the 10 Commandments "invented" all of those moral codes is flatly absurd. Civilization had existed for thousands of years before Moses ever came down from the mountain as described by legend, and certainly could not have survived or thrived without rules against things like murder and theft. It's not "mockery" to point out simple historical fact. Most knowledgeable Christians acknowledge that various aspects of the Christian moral code, borrow liberally from the many religions that were present in the geographical region and that several of the Ten Commandments were not the first time those concepts entered into the collective human psyche. I would hope that one could point out these things without being accused of "mockery." It's very basic historical fact.

You say you would never say all Christians are hateful. Again, you claim it's the philosphy. How do you seperate the 'philosophy' from the beliefs of Christians?

Very easily. I don't see Christianity as any one single monolithic entity, and I think that the vast majority of Christians pick and choose what they want to believe from the canon and what they want to ignore, as other Christians have acknowledged is their process in this very thread. I think this is a much better recipe for individual moral behavior than following the teachings of some religious leader, religious organization, or religious text blindly. However, insofar as the teachings religious leaders and religious organizations do influence individual faith, I often find those teachings laced with toxicity and politically self-serving motives. This is a big part of why I judge evangelicals more harshly than most everyday religious folk: a defining characteristic of evangelical belief is the blind adherence to a rigid dogmatic worldview that makes a mockery of even basic notions of critical thought (such as believing that the world is only some 6,000 years old) and an extremely harsh, almost screeching hatred professed toward not just unbelievers, but anyone else less overt in their faith.

I didn't say a word about rudeness, or being an asshole - those words are in your head Ser Greguh. I also didn't attack you, I repeated your espoused opinions.

No, you grotesquely misrepresented my espoused positions, crudely characterizing them in such a way that one could only support such positions if one was an enormous asshole.

And I have already mentioned my last exchange in a thread with you, where I told you I couldn't imagine going through the things you did in high school. After that, in that thread, you went on to attack belief in God in your usual manner, which I tried to respond to, not with insults or personal attacks, but with reason that was unacceptable to you. I have no animosity towards you, I simply recognize the fact that you utterly despise religion. Please do not personalize the fact you and I disagree on this topic with some kind of attack on you, okay?

You have not demonstrated that you understand my position at all. Even your characterization that I "utterly despise" religion is never, ever anything I would say. I have very strong critiques of Christianity from both a philosophical and political standpoint, but to "utterly despise" something is simply not in my lexicon. That is the language of a fanatic.

ETA: Oh, and in re-reading the above after putting it together, you said you would never say that no Christians are worth respecting, but in the quote above you state the philsophy is not worthy of serious discussion as fact and not worthy of serious consideration as allegory. Again, how do you seperate the belief from the believer? You are in fact saying Christians are not worthy of respect.

I am not saying that. Not even remotely. Not by implication, inference, not with a wink and not with a nudge. The notion that I am doing so is so egregious that I find the accusation offensive. I don't know how many different ways I can make that point. I believe that there is much more to a person than their religion. As I have stated repeatedly, if asked to describe myself in simple adjectives in order of priority, "atheist" would be very low on the list. If I'm judging whether someone is worthy of my respect or not, the sort of questions I ask of their character have nothing to do with religion. I don't particularly judge people for believing in other things I think are pretty silly and not particularly factual, like astrology, holistic medicine, or faulty probabilistic concepts like a particular result being "due", even though I have the same epistemological criticisms of those beliefs that I have with the specific stories of Christianity. If I'm judging whether or not someone is worthy of my respect, the sort of things I look at are, do they treat others well? Do they treat their family well? Do they take advantage of others? Are they generally kind, or are they venomous? Ultimately it comes down, I think, to whether or not they are a positive force in society at large. Would you not agree that these are more reasonable metrics with which to judge a person than their religion? Because I certainly do.

I'm sorry for polluting the thread with a topic that's gotten specific, but I can't let these charges go unanswered, emphatically and publicly. I'll make this whole post my sig if I have to.

[dalThor]

Is this a board record for making it to 300 posts?

I may be wrong but I think the record for fastest thread was the champagne thread. It opened and closed overnight, Europe-time.

[Dr. Tachyon]

Obsession with the bible is a modern phenomenon that started in the 16th century with the reformation. In the Roman Catholic tradition whatever the church teaches is the truth, period. As for which parts of the bible matter more than others, as far as I know only the Pauline Epistles matter because that's where the rules are set. The rest of the bible is about Christianity's Jewish origins but the religion was mostly shaped by Roman and Greek tradition, not Jewish. Thus Christians do eat pork, have Sunday as their holiday and have pictures in their churches.

[Ser Greguh]

Obsession with the bible is a modern phenomenon that started in the 16th century with the reformation. In the Roman Catholic tradition whatever the church teaches is the truth, period. As for which parts of the bible matter more than others, as far as I know only the Pauline Epistles matter because that's where the rules are set.

A large part of this is probably due to the fact that prior to the Reformation, literacy was somewhat rare and often a trait specifically held by the clergy. The Catholic tradition of basically saying "Don't worry about trying to read the Bible, we'll tell you what it says" wasn't just a power grab (though it was that too), it was also pragmatism. While the Reformation was fueled by specific complaints about the abuses and corruption within the Catholic Church, it was also enabled by the growing trend toward literacy. The invention of the printing press was also a very important thing to the movement.

[Xray the Enforcer]

I may be wrong but I think the record for fastest thread was the champagne thread. It opened and closed overnight, Europe-time.

That's because champagne is srs bsns.

[Mr. E]

The fact that I signed off yesterday at 5:00 pm with this thread at 3 pages, and came in at 8:30 am to find it at 16 is either very encouraging or discouraging, although I'm leaning towards the latter.

[Castel]

Yet is it the worst offender, as in does the religion consist of a majority of followers whose beliefs fall under "hatred and oppression"?

Because it seems one cannot condemn Christianity without using the same criteria to, at minimum, say Islam is worse. (I'm not sure about Hinduism b/c it's too diverse and Buddhism seems pretty diverse as well)

Of course not? You seem to be channeling Sam Harris a bit. No one (or most people I know don't anyway) lets other religions off, it's just that this particular religion looms larger in their eyes.

I'm rather puzzled by the implied suggestion that people who are odious under a religion would not be odious under some other groupthink, that people who have a need to hate would not find some way to justify it, that those who are overly impressed with the rightness of their own ideas would not attempt to jam those ideas into others' throats, just by the specific form of those ideas changing to some other tradition (nationalism, if not some other religion).

I'm rather puzzled by the implication that some people are born intolerant rather than made by their particular organization. I don't think that I can't take a blank baby from a repressive, jingoistic, exclusionary household and make him more accepting of other countries and people.

[Mr. E]

I'm rather puzzled by the implication that some people are born intolerant rather than made by their particular organization. I don't think that I can't take a blank baby from a repressive, jingoistic, exclusionary household and make him more accepting of other countries and people.

Can't speak for the OP, but I think her point was more that said "particular organization" could be anything, progressive, conservative, religious, agnostic, atheist, deist, humanist, or not.

[Castel]

Can't speak for the OP, but I think her point was more that said "particular organization" could be anything, progressive, conservative, religious, agnostic, atheist, deist, humanist, or not.

I get that. Unless there's some sort of scientific evidence that people are genetically destined to become intolerant in one way or another in the manner we're talking about, it's a bit weird to claim that people will always be odious. For a lot of people it was their upbringing that made them that sort of person. That's the weirder part imo;pretending that those people were not made intolerant and that they always had a problem.

[Minaku]

Well, what is tolerance then? It's very easy for humans to fall into tribalist behavior. The notion of tolerance, of accepting others even if their beliefs differ or counter yours, seems to be a more recent development in human history. We want to belong to something, and then we want to affirm that the group to which we belong is the right group, has the right ideas, is correct in its way of life. This would naturally run to intolerance towards other groups by certain personalities within the tribe.

In other news, I saw that Missouri Republicans are once again hiding under the banner of Christianity and "religious freedom" in order to make women pay for their own contraception. I fail to see how this is a Christian act.

[Minaku]

I feel really freakin' sorry for Eve unless Adam pulled a Craster.