Modern Bible Interpretation

[Elder Sister]

@TP - I thought Ser Greguh did an excellent example of just that in post #341. He is basically saying that my beliefs are superstitions. There is no way I can take what he says personally. He's simply expressing his opinion about what I believe.

@Eponine - I think we already covered that you were snarky. You already said that you weren't really trying to be civil. I seriously don't have a personal ax to grind with you. I used your post to answer the thread because it was most pertinent to me, that's all. I understand what you're saying about either taking all of the Bible, or taking none of it. I get that. I really do. And I actually agree with you about Evangelicals and gays and women. They have done a horrific disservice to both groups.

ETA - I think part of what bothers me about this whole thread is that some of the people that I believe are the sharpest minds on this board are the very ones that are so dismissive of what I believe. And what harm is it doing to you if I believe as I do? I'm not an Evangelical who is feeding my family at the Chick-fil-A watching FOX news 24/7. I believe in gay marriage and women's rights. Why do you want to convince me that I'm wrong?

[TerraPrime]

I would say that the Evangelicals have every right to exercise their religious freedom, and I as a liberal Christian have no interest in, nor feel any responsibility that I must, convincing them to abandon their Evangelical ways.

I'd agree.

Liberal Christians are no more the keepers of their more conservative brethren than vice versa. If an individual Christian feels the urge to speak out and fight the conservative agenda, then that's his/her call, but I wouldn't put that expectation on them. Unless, of course, they are from the same congregation. Then, in that case, yes, they are responsible, too.

[MisterOJ]

But that is the entire point why is that a good thing? I grew up in a very Christian family and was in the position of the cyber evanglist on this board for many years. It was only after I became a non-beliver that I realized the push in my family to win souls for Christ said alot more about our own Insecurity then the validity of our position when compared to all the other religions.

That's not the entire point. A lot of Evangelicals (I believe) think there is some big magical toteboard that reflects how many souls they have helped save. That kind of Evangelicalism is wrong. But you know, the Evangelical message seems to work well for some folks that are down and out. The dregs of society, if you will. And sometimes, getting involved with an Evangelical church can help bring those folks to know Christ, but also to get their lives on a better path. I think the rigidness of the Evangelicals can give some of these folks some structure that they need. That's not always a bad thing. Now, when that structure becomes stifling, then yes, it is bad.

But I'm not one to think that my particular flavor of Christianity is best for everyone.

[Eponine]

@Eponine - I think we already covered that you were snarky. You already said that you weren't really trying to be civil.

Why do you want to convince me that I'm wrong?

Your complaint was that people weren't being respectful toward Christians. I was being snarky about logical fallacies. Otherwise, I want to just talk about modern Bible interpretation. And a big part of modern Bible interpretation is that many modern Christians find reasons to disregard portions that don't fit with modern sensibilities. Some justifications make more sense than others.

[Elder Sister]

Your complaint was that people weren't being respectful toward Christians. I was being snarky about logical fallacies. Otherwise, I want to just talk about modern Bible interpretation. And a big part of modern Bible interpretation is that many modern Christians find reasons to disregard portions that don't fit with modern sensibilities. Some justifications make more sense than others.

Again, I think we've covered the fact that many people on this board and in this very thread are not respectful toward Christians. Also, you were snarky to me. I think we covered that too. It's no biggie. I am the Queen of Snark when I'm in a snit.

If you want to have a respectful discussion, I'm game. I understand what you are saying about logical fallacies. I'm not as intelligent as you and TP, but I read my Bible...I know that there are some big gaps there. I know some of it makes no sense. I guarantee you that most if not all of the questions and problems that you see, I have seen myself. If you seriously are curious about why I believe the way I do, I will seriously answer you to the best of my ability, I promise. And I don't speak for anyone other than me...and I have no problem with you telling me that my beliefs are foolish...maybe they are. But if they are, what has it hurt? If I'm wrong, it's given me comfort and solace. If I'm right, then I have a wonderful reward waiting for me.

Seriously. I'll answer your questions if I can. If I don't know, I'll tell you. I see no reason why we can't talk about this stuff if we are respectful of one another. Just pretend that I'm your next door neighbor, not some faceless person on the internet. Because I'm very real. At least I was when last I checked... :)

[Ser Greguh]

ETA - I think part of what bothers me about this whole thread is that some of the people that I believe are the sharpest minds on this board are the very ones that are so dismissive of what I believe. And what harm is it doing to you if I believe as I do? I'm not an Evangelical who is feeding my family at the Chick-fil-A watching FOX news 24/7. I believe in gay marriage and women's rights. Why do you want to convince me that I'm wrong?

I can't speak for others but my intent is never to evangelize as a primary goal. When I point out items of faith that I view as contradictory, such as the dilemma that started some of this mess in this thread (the reconciliation of a loving religion with the common dogma of Hell), I'm honestly, truly interested in how people reconcile those viewpoints. If people's faith is important to them, I would like to think they were secure in its robustness. And one doesn't test the robustness of a thing by gazing upon it. Though it might be unpleasant, we poke and prod. If we find it's strong, it's strong. If we find it collapses, we rebuild. I like people that way. I like people questioning things. I find that religion, even in its more benevolent forms, puts shackles on one's ability to do so.

If my statements get people to reconsider things they've taken for granted and abandon their faith, I think that's great. It's not the goal, but it's great. I think that the absence of faith is beautiful. It is the tool with which I view the universe freed from the intellectual shackles of the notion of god, which I view as a pernicious non-answer to mysteries that robs one of the joy of the three most fun words of the English language: I don't know.

[Elder Sister]

@Ser Greguh - I hear you on the 'I don't know' thing. There is a lot that I don't know, but it hasn't robbed me of my faith yet.

Personally, I believe that hell is simply the absence of God. The Bible is not clear about what happens to us after death, either. Also, there are something like 20+ different descriptions of hell in the Bible, so that also adds to the confusion.

I don't know, either.

[Castel]

A 'true' religious experience would be of such intensity that, in order to accept the possibility of it being an illusion, one must truly, on an instinctual level, accept the fallibility and irrationally of one's own mind. It would be as difficult as disbelieving aliens while on an alien spaceship. (I do not know that such intense religious experiences exist, but their existence best fits my observations. Obviously there are less intense ones as well.)

<snipped>But yes, this was my original point, not some nature/nurture thing. Atheists are well aware of how fucking wrong the human mind can be. AS I said no one is claiming infallibility.

Here, again, you're losing the individual perspective and making this about blanket statements. At no point is anyone here making a case for 'atheism being unjustifiable'. The case is that a given individual at a given time may find that atheism does not rationally follow from their observation of the world. It's really very simple: if the existence of God is undeniable - like, for instance, if you are God - then to be an atheist would be irrational. If you are not in possession of any evidence for God whatsoever, then to not be an atheist would be irrational. Some people find that denying the existence of God would be a greater stretch of their perceptions than believing would be.

I don't see your point. A subjective,gut belief in God is not rational under any definition I can see. If you truly believe that deeply then you're irrational. Or rational based on an irrational premise. Is there a difference? That individual is at his./her heart acting irrationally.

Occam's Razor isn't a natural law, it's a shortcut. If you use it, you give up on being 'right' in favor of being 'right enough'. Which, you know, we all do, all the time. Like, for instance, choosing the most prevalent religion in one's subjective experience when faced with a need to choose a religion - that's Occam's Razor at work, on the side of 'irrationality'. The easiest-to-accept explanation is that one's parents, who are very nice people, are not liars or deluded. (ETA: Yes, this is a slightly less rationalist version of the Razor.)

Easy is not simple.What is easy matters only when it intersects with what is the simplest, completely justifiable answer. And the simplest explanation is that your parents are deluded and that you were too. That example is not correct imo.

[Scion of Valyria]

Elder SIster, or anyone I guess,

If the teachings of Jesus are the core of your beliefs, how do you go about the reject some, accept some route? The whole "it was a different time" thing doesn't hold up here, at least not for me, because as someone who was constantly in direct communication with God himself, the teachings of Christ should be 100% applicable because he pretty much said what Dad wanted him to say. Or is that not the common train of thought? Is Jesus as the Son of God fallible?

The wishes of God and the salvation of mankind as proscribed by an omnipotent Creator shouldn't be bogged down by something as simple as how a society thinks at the time, right?

[Sci-2]

I don't see your point. A subjective,gut belief in God is not rational under any definition I can see. If you truly believe that deeply then you're irrational. Or rational based on an irrational premise. Is there a difference? That individual is at his./her heart acting irrationally.

I think point is the experience is something incommunicable, but makes disbelief impossible. Now, the very incommunicable nature of this Truth is why secularism is necessary for government but that's another thread...that I may someday make.

This is why I tend to think of religious faith as more akin to a physical experience than knowing in the sense of "I know that rationals are infinitely dense on the number line".

As OJ said, it's like knowing [you love your wife]. your wife loves you.

eta: There might be more than one made up word in there. Sorry, been reading Hal Duncan and China Mieville.

[Elder Sister]

@Scion:

This has puzzled me as well. In regard to how it effects me directly, I have particularly looked at his stance on women in the time period that he was alive on earth. My opinion is this: Jesus operated within the dictates of the society he was in. He advised slaves to be obey their masters. He advised paying taxes by 'rendering unto Caesar what is Caesar's'. He was tempted for 40 days in the desert. He died a human death with great suffering. He certainly didn't 'have' to do any of these things. He was God in human flesh. I think he did this so that I could look at his experience and gain strength from it. His was more of a civilized social change. He taught through example as well as parables. He spent time talking one on one with a Samaritan woman, which was unheard of in his day.

At least, that's my take on it.

[Wun Drop]

Elder SIster, or anyone I guess,

If the teachings of Jesus are the core of your beliefs, how do you go about the reject some, accept some route? The whole "it was a different time" thing doesn't hold up here, at least not for me, because as someone who was constantly in direct communication with God himself, the teachings of Christ should be 100% applicable because he pretty much said what Dad wanted him to say. Or is that not the common train of thought? Is Jesus as the Son of God fallible?

The wishes of God and the salvation of mankind as proscribed by an omnipotent Creator shouldn't be bogged down by something as simple as how a society thinks at the time, right?

None of us know what Jesus actually said. The best we have is an English translation of a Roman translation of some mutually-contradictory documents written a generation after his death. With that in mind, we draw on 2,000 years of tradition and practice, the writing of many learned theologians, the clergy of the church, and of course our own ability to "cherry pick" (if you want to phrase it that way) which of the teachings resonate with our own hearts.

There is also the possibility to consider that God does not want people to get divorced, does not want men and women to be equal in every way, does not support same-sex marriage, etc. These are not politically correct notions in 2012, but they are certainly possible interpretations of the Bible, and I respect people's freedom to believe that way, so long as they do not infringe on my own freedoms.

[Scion of Valyria]

@Scion:

This has puzzled me as well. In regard to how it effects me directly, I have particularly looked at his stance on women in the time period that he was alive on earth. My opinion is this: Jesus operated within the dictates of the society he was in. He advised slaves to be obey their masters. He advised paying taxes by 'rendering unto Caesar what is Caesar's'. He was tempted for 40 days in the desert. He died a human death with great suffering. He certainly didn't 'have' to do any of these things. He was God in human flesh. I think he did this so that I could look at his experience and gain strength from it. His was more of a civilized social change. He taught through example as well as parables. He spent time talking one on one with a Samaritan woman, which was unheard of in his day.

At least, that's my take on it.

With the bolded part, I'm assuming you're referring to his death on the cross, yes? if so, I don't think you really answered my question. I understand the view that Jesus endorsed slavery and subservient women because it was how his society worked, but shouldn't Jesus, as God in human flesh, be above those constraints? He upended a lot of conventional beliefs of the time, why not tell these people they have it all wrong, we shouldn't have slaves, and women shouldn't be subservient? I mean, what would they have done? Killed him?

[emberling]

rational based on an irrational premise.

You...can't do that. That's not a thing. A premise can be false, but not irrational. Rational behavior based on false data is rational behavior. Determining what data is false (as with e.g. mental illness) is essentially a product of consensus, and the consensus does not show that God is a delusion.

Why is the simplest explanation to the scenario "I am experiencing vivid delusions and my parents are similarly deluded, as well as all the people I grew up with" rather than "Those people who claim it's all wrong haven't felt what I've felt - just like I didn't believe until I felt it"? One of those does not require a reasonably large population to be mentally ill.

[Scion of Valyria]

None of us know what Jesus actually said. The best we have is an English translation of a Roman translation of some mutually-contradictory documents written a generation after his death. With that in mind, we draw on 2,000 years of tradition and practice, the writing of many learned theologians, the clergy of the church, and of course our own ability to "cherry pick" (if you want to phrase it that way) which of the teachings resonate with our own hearts.

There is also the possibility to consider that God does not want people to get divorced, does not want men and women to be equal in every way, does not support same-sex marriage, etc. These are not politically correct notions in 2012, but they are certainly possible interpretations of the Bible, and I respect people's freedom to believe that way, so long as they do not infringe on my own freedoms.

I thought the common consensus was that the Gospels were written with the divine influence of the Holy Spirit? Shouldn't that be fact-checking enough? I mean, you can't really be sure of Jesus' existence either, and I understand thats where faith and all that comes in, but these are the only texts we have of Jesus saying anything and the only thing you can use for what Jesus' teachings are. Yes?

[Fragile Bird]

QFT

This is your post in the Do Evangelicals Do More Harm Than Good for Christianity thread.

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.

This is what I said this morning under that quote of yours.

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,

Here is your answer:

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.

Yes, a "subset" that appears to be 25% to 39 30% of the US population. Not exactly a small subset.

I answered this way:

Well, no it's one statement, one summary of what I think you convey to the Christians on the forum. You think you haven't said anything of the sort, except for the fairy tale and mentally retarded part, and we've discussed the bigoted and hateful part, and when you repeatedly make statements like, how badly calibrated are people's bullshit detectors that they can't tell that both a talking snake and someone rising from the dead are unbelievable, I don't detect a whole lot of respect to the individual Christian, not just the organized religion.

I hadn't noticed that I used "retarded" instead of illness, and I apologize for that and will edit it back to illness, which I quoted you correctly on in twice in my first post.

You then went on to accuse Elder Sister of saying the above, which you apologized for, without bothering to mention that you did actually say Evangelism is the intersection of religion and mental illness.

]Your saying that I felt Christians were "mentally retarded" is about as far from "respectful" as I can imagine. Apologies for the mix-up.

ETA: Proofread upon returning from dinner

[The Frostfangs]

and I respect people's freedom to believe that way, so long as they do not infringe on my own freedoms.

But it does and thats the point. People vote against same sex marriage and relationships, even though it does not affect them at all, two Gay men/women getting married will not change someone elses life. So how can people decide ( based on religious doctrines) what two consenting adults cant do.

[TerraPrime]

I thought the common consensus was that the Gospels were written with the divine influence of the Holy Spirit? Shouldn't that be fact-checking enough? I mean, you can't really be sure of Jesus' existence either, and I understand thats where faith and all that comes in, but these are the only texts we have of Jesus saying anything and the only thing you can use for what Jesus' teachings are. Yes?

I think Wun Drop was speaking of the consensus amongst Biblical scholars, and you're speaking of the consensus of believers. Historically, we have evidence to show that written Bible is a collected anthology of various accounts, some of them oral. For instance, iirc, we now think that the gospel of Matthews has two sources, and obviously, one of them is not the disciple Matthew. I think that's what Wun Drop was alluding to.

In the minds of the believers, on the other hand, the Bible is indeed written by men inspired by the divine, and the primary guide (and in some denominations maybe even the only guide) to understand God.

Re: Wun Drop

There is also the possibility to consider that God does not want people to get divorced, does not want men and women to be equal in every way, does not support same-sex marriage, etc. These are not politically correct notions in 2012, but they are certainly possible interpretations of the Bible, and I respect people's freedom to believe that way, so long as they do not infringe on my own freedoms.

I'd agree, and go one step further: the only way to interpret the Biblical message to be anything other than anti-woman and anti-gay is to engage in retrofitting modern sensibilities onto the text. As written, the book is, imo, incontrovertibly sexist and anti-gay. I'm glad, of course, that not every Christian choose to see it that way, that so many of you find ways to reconcile this text with a modernized view of equality and fairness. But as a non-believer, it is hard for me to see the book in any other light. I actually quite sympathize with the conservatively religious folks, because I do think that they got their religion right. It's just sad that their religion is not compatible with modernity. Kind of like a large swath of Islam.

[Castel]

But it does and thats the point. People vote against same sex marriage and relationships, even though it does not affect them at all, two Gay men/women getting married will not change someone elses life. So how can people decide ( based on religious doctrines) what two consenting adults cant do.

Because God told them to. That overrides nonsensical liberal concerns about people's free will no? And of course it affects their lives. An acceptance of gay marriage may lead (in their mind) to their children coming out and going to hell. The more repressive the society, the more likely that those people hide and get married to members of the opposite sex and try to avoid their sins. At least that's what I think the logic is.

Why is the simplest explanation to the scenario "I am experiencing vivid delusions and my parents are similarly deluded, as well as all the people I grew up with" rather than "Those people who claim it's all wrong haven't felt what I've felt - just like I didn't believe until I felt it"? One of those does not require a reasonably large population to be mentally ill.

Because we have an understanding of our residual caveman impulses and those are far more likely to be the culprit that an omniscient entity that doesn't fit into the current successful model of physics or that humans suddenly developed an magical power to glean understanding of the universe from nothing.

To find their idea correct you need to start adding things, like a creator and above mentioned magical powers that are unexplainable. That's why it doesn't fit Occam's Razor, those additions don't have evidence in their favor. It'd be like adding green genies working behind the scenes to an explanation of how fridges work.

[Mlle. Zabzie]

Slight derailment, but this thread got me thinking. Forget about dogma and doctrine for a moment. I don't know that I believe a lot of it. However, I do believe, deeply and fiercely, in faith. Faith itself is an extremely powerful force (no matter what inspires it). So, I have faith in, am deeply respectful of, am awed by, and am sometimes very (rationally) frightened by true faith. (Not something I really have btw).