If you think Mormonism is retarded, why you think the Bible is any different?

[merithyn]

Maybe. Or back then masses were much, much more illiterate, and to gain and maintain control over them (and to TEACH them!) you could/had to feed them bullshit.

There's no maybe about it. Historians have said repeatedly that this is the case.

The Bible was not written to be taken literally, the people that wrote the texts did not understand it literally, and the people that read and used them contemporaneously and for very long thereafter did not understand them in a purely literal sense.  The Bible does not "state" it is not to be taken literally because the modern concept of a timeless, "literal" reading of a text was completely foreign to the people who wrote it, and the people who read and interpreted it for many centuries.   

The notion of a literal reading as adopted and promoted by so-called "fundamentalist" movements is in fact novel and highly radical.  It is a product of the 19th century, conservative reaction against liberal theology and the "Higher Criticism" which applied literary critical methods of the Bible to reveal the contribution of multiple authors and editors across time.  As a 19th century religious phenomena arising in an increasing skeptical and scientistic age, fundamentalist literalism and Mormonism are two sides of the same coin.

Yes, this is what I mean. The Age of Enlightenment in the 19th century altered the way that people think of the written word, as well as how they determine what to believe.

[Valmy]

Yes.  But do you believe in him being the son of God and the whole sin-redeeming stuff. If yes, why you do not believe in the water-walking part. It was written in the same book. If you do not, I am sorry, but you are not a real Christian!

Strange you consider yourself both an Atheist and yet strangely bound by the pronouncements of Church councils.

[garbon]

But really you also struggle because you're talking with a group of people who don't necessarily believe Jesus did said thing.

Yes.  But do you believe in him being the son of God and the whole sin-redeeming stuff. If yes, why you do not believe in the water-walking part. It was written in the same book. If you do not, I am sorry, but you are not a real Christian!

I don't call myself a Christian though.

Anyway your bit doesn't make sense as you've identified some key essential items of Christianity and then lumped it with a non-essential item.

[Viking]

Meri that puts an other twist on the thread

If atheism is a religion, then not collecting stamps is a hobby.

Or not thinking that I am Napoleon is a form of insanity.

Since no one knows the "truth", Agnostics are the only non-religion. Others have made a decision and hold to it rather tightly.

Agnosticism is a statement about the state of one's knowledge. An agnostic does not know. A gnostic knows or has knowledge.
Atheism is a statement about the state of one's belief in a deity. An atheist does not have such a belief. A theist has such a belief.

An Agnostic Atheist does not know if a god exists and does not believe a god exists.
A Gnostic Atheist knows if a god exists and does not believe a god exists.
An Agnostic Theist does not know if a god exists and believes a god exists.
A Gnostic Theist knows if a god exists and believes a god exists.

some of the boxes here are pretty bizarre, but agnosticism is NOT the half-way point between theism and atheism.

[garbon]

YOU are missing MY point. Where is it stated in the Bible that it is not to be taken literally? Nowhere right? Sure, the smarter Christian folks realized that it must be a load of BS, but liked the general message and couldn't want to ruin their own livelihood anyways, so they come up with convinient explanations of why a bunch of backward tribals wrote backward tribal superstitions, and why the life of Jesus was "enchanced" by various stuff stolen from other religious myths in what probably was the biggest marketing battle of history.

Where does it say in the Bible that it should be taken literally? And I didn't say it was BS. I said that it's a guide. It's primarily allegorical, imo. That's not BS anymore than fables or legends are. The stories are told to make a point, not to try to give a prime directive to life.

With that argument you have just dismantled christianity itself. That is what Tamas is getting at. He like me has found it hard to reconcile two contradictory facts

one - the claim that some of the bible is allegorical and thus not factual without giving us some means of figuring out which bits are fiction and which bits are fact

two - that the christian faith says something concrete about life, the universe and everything

Ultimately this means that the faith says nothing concrete, which means it says nothing, which means it has no content, which means it has no point. You yourself, meri, have amply demonstrated how without actual content religion becomes a hermaneutical game of three card monty playing hide the god of the gaps. All assertions have to be couched with caveats like "maybe" and "possibly" about undefined experiences like "understanding" and "experience" which are made significant with nebulous undefinable adjectives like "deep" and "profound".

In the end you end up sounding like Deepak Chopra.

Christianity is more than just the Bible.

[merithyn]

With that argument you have just dismantled christianity itself. That is what Tamas is getting at. He like me has found it hard to reconcile two contradictory facts

one - the claim that some of the bible is allegorical and thus not factual without giving us some means of figuring out which bits are fiction and which bits are fact

two - that the christian faith says something concrete about life, the universe and everything

Ultimately this means that the faith says nothing concrete, which means it says nothing, which means it has no content, which means it has no point. You yourself, meri, have amply demonstrated how without actual content religion becomes a hermaneutical game of three card monty playing hide the god of the gaps. All assertions have to be couched with caveats like "maybe" and "possibly" about undefined experiences like "understanding" and "experience" which are made significant with nebulous undefinable adjectives like "deep" and "profound".

In the end you end up sounding like Deepak Chopra.

That's only true if you worry about "facts" to the exclusion of all else. You worry about that, but most people recognize that there is more to life than bare facts. Opinions matter, as do beauty, strengths, weaknesses, etc. And in that, I believe that religion does offer something toward life, the universe and everything. Is it concrete? I guess that depends on what you consider "concrete".

[garbon]

Meri that puts an other twist on the thread

If atheism is a religion, then not collecting stamps is a hobby.

Or not thinking that I am Napoleon is a form of insanity.

Since no one knows the "truth", Agnostics are the only non-religion. Others have made a decision and hold to it rather tightly.

Agnosticism is a statement about the state of one's knowledge. An agnostic does not know. A gnostic knows or has knowledge.
Atheism is a statement about the state of one's belief in a deity. An atheist does not have such a belief. A theist has such a belief.

An Agnostic Atheist does not know if a god exists and does not believe a god exists.
A Gnostic Atheist knows if a god exists and does not believe a god exists.
An Agnostic Theist does not know if a god exists and believes a god exists.
A Gnostic Theist knows if a god exists and believes a god exists.

some of the boxes here are pretty bizarre, but agnosticism is NOT the half-way point between theism and atheism.

And what happens if you are ambivalent on whether God exists?

[Razgovory]

Maybe. Or back then masses were much, much more illiterate, and to gain and maintain control over them (and to TEACH them!) you could/had to feed them bullshit.

This is completely ahistorical garbage.  Please show me these ancient leaders who considered religion bullshit.

Not only that, but religions predate states.  So if leaders created religions to control those stupid masses they had to go back in time to do it.

[The Minsky Moment]

With that argument you have just dismantled christianity itself. That is what Tamas is getting at. He like me has found it hard to reconcile two contradictory facts

one - the claim that some of the bible is allegorical and thus not factual without giving us some means of figuring out which bits are fiction and which bits are fact

two - that the christian faith says something concrete about life, the universe and everything

This is a very confused post.  Because you are confusing a particular text (the New Testament) with a particular manifestation of ordered belief (Christianity) and confusing both with relgious-based belief and faith.

Christian doctrine has lots of concrete things to say about life, the universe and everything, but while those things are influenced by the words in the Biblical text, there is not a direct one-to-one correspondence, not close.  Modern fundamentalists aside, Christians don't read the Bible as a User's Manual to God, which is sensible thing, because it is incredibly obvious that the Bible is no such thing.

Also - the claim that the Bible needs to be understand allegorically is not a claim that the Bible consists partially of facts which are literally true and others which are false but must be understood allegorically.  It is a claim that the entire Bible contains truths but to understand these truths fully and properly, the entire text must be read and understood in its allegorical as well as literal sense.

[Valmy]

Ultimately this means that the faith says nothing concrete, which means it says nothing

Ah yes the tired old, unless you are a fundamentalist nutball you are worthless position by Viking

All assertions have to be couched with caveats like "maybe" and "possibly" about undefined experiences like "understanding" and "experience" which are made significant with nebulous undefinable adjectives like "deep" and "profound".

In the end you end up sounding like Deepak Chopra.

Yeah well welcome to religion.  Even the Fundies spend most of their time engaging in this sort of thing not figuring out how many donkies maybe have personally known Jesus according to the Gospel of John.  But you seem to think the donkey numbering is what is valuable here...which puzzles me.

[Barrister]

My point was, a sort of honest question on how can you accept the lunatic "allegoric" fairytales of your religion, but rule out the possible truth of other religions' fairytales.
Like that quote about "I argue that we are both atheists, I just believe in one less God than you do. If you can explain why you do not believe in the other religions, you will understand why I don't believe in yours".

Wasn't that already answered? Many individuals don't feel that way. Some do because they feel that a conflicting religion doesn't mesh with their religion and they can't hold both to be true.  And then there's also what was said about the fact that Joseph Smith supposedly did all these miraculous things in the 19th century, which is well within the time-frame of solidly recorded history and seems completely outlandish.

I don't want to re-start this, but I don't see how it was more feasible to walk on water around 30AD or whatever.

Well people are much fatter now than in 30AD, so obviously it was easier to walk on water back then. 

[Viking]

Christianity is more than just the Bible.

My northern sola scriptura roots are yearning to disagree there... but yes, it is more than the bible. Without it, however, it reduces to pontification (see the clever pun?) on nothing and pure subjective opinion.

How do we know that Jesus died for our sins and for us to be granted eternal life we must believe in him if not getting it from the bible? If John 3:16

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

is not a true fact then the religion has no purpose. How can you tell me that is not allegory and if it is allegory how is the bible any more a guide to good behavior than Huckleberry Finn?

[Viking]

That's only true if you worry about "facts" to the exclusion of all else. You worry about that, but most people recognize that there is more to life than bare facts. Opinions matter, as do beauty, strengths, weaknesses, etc. And in that, I believe that religion does offer something toward life, the universe and everything. Is it concrete? I guess that depends on what you consider "concrete".

As I said, Deepak Chopra.

[garbon]

Ultimately this means that the faith says nothing concrete, which means it says nothing

Ah yes the tired old, unless you are a fundamentalist nutball you are worthless position by Viking

All assertions have to be couched with caveats like "maybe" and "possibly" about undefined experiences like "understanding" and "experience" which are made significant with nebulous undefinable adjectives like "deep" and "profound".

In the end you end up sounding like Deepak Chopra.

Yeah well welcome to religion.  Even the Fundies spend most of their time engaging in this sort of thing not figuring out how many donkies maybe have personally known Jesus according to the Gospel of John.  But you seem to think the donkey numbering is what is valuable here...which puzzles me.

I take the list of genealogies in Genesis as the most important part of the Christian faith. All of those years are exact.

[Viking]

Meri that puts an other twist on the thread

If atheism is a religion, then not collecting stamps is a hobby.

Or not thinking that I am Napoleon is a form of insanity.

Since no one knows the "truth", Agnostics are the only non-religion. Others have made a decision and hold to it rather tightly.

Agnosticism is a statement about the state of one's knowledge. An agnostic does not know. A gnostic knows or has knowledge.
Atheism is a statement about the state of one's belief in a deity. An atheist does not have such a belief. A theist has such a belief.

An Agnostic Atheist does not know if a god exists and does not believe a god exists.
A Gnostic Atheist knows if a god exists and does not believe a god exists.
An Agnostic Theist does not know if a god exists and believes a god exists.
A Gnostic Theist knows if a god exists and believes a god exists.

some of the boxes here are pretty bizarre, but agnosticism is NOT the half-way point between theism and atheism.

And what happens if you are ambivalent on whether God exists?

The word usually used (jokingly) is Apatheist.