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

[Tamas]

I am not asserting that the bible is itself revealed. It is an inspired compilation and restatement of the experience of the witnesses of that revelation. Jesus' preaching is the revelation and the bible is the report of that good news. It is still the primary source. There is no other in orthodox (note, uncapitalized) Christianity.

Missed this.
It is the primary written source.
But the gospel at its base is an oral report, transmitted orally.  Every Christian knows that the written gospels in the NT were written down decades after the fact.  The written form is useful because it fixes the text and protects it against intentional or unintentional tampering.  But the primary source is the spoken, not the written word of the good news.

[The Minsky Moment]

You know, I tried to point this out...

It's actually understated.
If Viking is right, we also can't have knowledge about any historical fact at all, since any such knowledge is derived from the reading and contested interpretation of texts.

[Viking]

I am saying that if it were true then it wouldn't need interpretation; I'm also saying that the fact that it needs interpretation means that it has no meaning other than what the reader brings to it.

The same could be said against the entire corpus of Western philosophy.

No. If anything the constant primary theme of Western Philosophy is to find the pre-modern font of knowledge on which aristotles logic could be applied to. Until Bacon asserts that we don't need it and Descartes asserts that the only thing you can really be sure of is your own existence. At that point the enlightenment starts and the entire process goes into reverse with outcomes being analyzed to reverse engineer the causes.

Christianity asserts that it has the truth, if that were the case interpretation wouldn't be needed. Western Philosophy seeks the truth rather than asserting it. That is what makes Western Philosophy special.

[Viking]

You know, I tried to point this out...

It's actually understated.
If Viking is right, we also can't have knowledge about any historical fact at all, since any such knowledge is derived from the reading and contested interpretation of texts.

No. Well, first of all, there is no capital "T" truth. But, before I decent into post-modern relativism... There are lower case "t" truths out there. These truths are testable and verified by other independent sources. Lower case "t" truths have consequences and can be tested for veracity.

[The Minsky Moment]

No. If anything the constant primary theme of Western Philosophy is to find the pre-modern font of knowledge on which aristotles logic could be applied to. Until Bacon asserts that we don't need it and Descartes asserts that the only thing you can really be sure of is your own existence. At that point the enlightenment starts and the entire process goes into reverse with outcomes being analyzed to reverse engineer the causes.

Christianity asserts that it has the truth, if that were the case interpretation wouldn't be needed. Western Philosophy seeks the truth rather than asserting it. That is what makes Western Philosophy special.

That's a very narrow and Whiggish reading of history and breadth of Western thought.  You're missing about 97%.

[The Minsky Moment]

No. Well, first of all, there is no capital "T" truth. But, before I decent into post-modern relativism... There are lower case "t" truths out there. These truths are testable and verified by other independent sources. Lower case "t" truths have consequences and can be tested for veracity.

Historical facts are not testable - there is no way to go back in time to verify.  We are stuck with texts - archaeology can help a little bit but only rarely can it be conclusive.  Mostly historians are stuck reading and interepreting texts, and your criticism of that methodology applies with equal force.

Concretely, the task of understanding facts about the life and deeds of Jesus is no different than understanding the facts about the life and deeds of say, Clovis I.   Pretty much everything we think we know about Clovis' life derives from a single narrative, written down decades after Clovis' death by a religious leader who is generally assumed to have written with a very particular agenda.  Comparatively speaking, the sourcing for Jesus is far more robust because at least there we have multiple accounts from multiple authors to compare.  So why should we treat statements about Jesus as mere superstitious mythology while statements about Clovis' life are considered legitimate historical inquiry?

[crazy canuck]

So why should we treat statements about Jesus as mere superstitious mythology while statements about Clovis' life are considered legitimate historical inquiry?

One difference is nobody claimed Clovis is God.

[The Minsky Moment]

One difference is nobody claimed Clovis is God.

Actually it is quite likely that somebody made such a claim or something like it since pre-Christian kings and warlords often made claims of divine powers or provenance.  Indeed, one of the early chronicles claims that Clovis's great-grandfather was a sea divinity (or alteratively some kind of aquatic dragon).

Of course we have no way of knowing what others said about Clovis or what he said about himself unless Gregory of Tours chose to write it down.

[Malthus]

One difference is nobody claimed Clovis is God.

Actually it is quite likely that somebody made such a claim or something like it since pre-Christian kings and warlords often made claims of divine powers or provenance.  Indeed, one of the early chronicles claims that Clovis's great-grandfather was a sea divinity (or alteratively some kind of aquatic dragon).

Of course we have no way of knowing what others said about Clovis or what he said about himself unless Gregory of Tours chose to write it down.

Indeed, in a tourist shop at the Tower of London I saw a *modern* geneological chart of the English monarchy which straight-forwardly listed the ultimate ancestor of the Saxon kings as "Wotan" - who is thus the ultimate ancestor of the current monarchy (albeit somewhat tenuously). 

[Zanza]

One difference is nobody claimed Clovis is God.

Aren't the original sources, i.e. the Bible, pretty ambiguous about it and the concept that Jesus is God only became the orthodox religious dogma about 300 years after his death? The Council of Nicaea is a well-established historical episode.

[Berkut]

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.

I don't think I buy any of that.

Sounds like very special pleading to me - there are plenty of examples of theological debate over how literlaly the bible should be taken. Just look at the Protestant reformation era - they were going hammer and tongs at biblical literalism.

[Martinus]

Where is it stated in the Bible that it is not to be taken literally? Nowhere right?

Well it I wanted to be nitpickish, I would point out that hardly any work of fiction expressly states somewhere in it that it is not to be taken literally.

[Martinus]

Anyway, I'm with people who thought the OP was addressed to atheists and agnostics. As one I do indeed consider the claims in the Bible to be equally ridiculous as the claims in the Book of Mormon. But for religious people, it's different, as they are insane, so hardly ever consistent in their lunacy.

[Berkut]

I don't even think that the observation in the OP is that interesting.

There are thousands of religious claims out there - obviously they all vary in their level of ridiculousness, from downright batty to just mildly odd.

Why is it that surprising that Mormonism happens to be a bit more nutty than mainstream Christianity, but slightly less nutty than some other versions?

I guess I don't see why the general observation is interesting one way or the other.

[Valmy]

I don't even think that the observation in the OP is that interesting.

There are thousands of religious claims out there - obviously they all vary in their level of ridiculousness, from downright batty to just mildly odd.

Why is it that surprising that Mormonism happens to be a bit more nutty than mainstream Christianity, but slightly less nutty than some other versions?

I guess I don't see why the general observation is interesting one way or the other.

Yeah I guess the idea is you must have extreme beliefs.  Anything that is reflective or nuanced is a sign of...inconsistency or convenience or weakness of some sort.