Theism, Religion and Lack thereof

[Autumn]

Re: STUPID, BIGOTED EVANGELICAL FATHER!

many other religions also have talk of a big flood. This is to say, the flood story got altered in other cultures and tribes.

many cultures and tribes have creation myths. does that mean we can accept it as factual history that humankind was created?

 

[Tarvos]

Re: STUPID, BIGOTED EVANGELICAL FATHER!

i don't interpret it as being guilty of sin but rather being all too well capable of it.

yes but that's not what the story, even allegorically, asserts, or even that being curious is a bad thing. if it's supposed to be taken allegorically, then for what? I don't think it's a good metaphor for sin at all to be curious, I would consider the exact opposite to be correct

and I wish you wouldn't squabble about the fruit/apple thing, i think it's obvious In Absentia is doing it on purpose :|a

who gives a fuck, next time I'll call it a nectarine

 

[Zuu]

Re: STUPID, BIGOTED EVANGELICAL FATHER!

yes but that's not what the story, even allegorically, asserts, or even that being curious is a bad thing. if it's supposed to be taken allegorically, then for what? I don't think it's a good metaphor for sin at all to be curious, I would consider the exact opposite to be correct

well ... how so? i guess i don't follow. obviously curiosity in itself isn't a bad thing. i'd never assert that. however it can very easily lead to bad things.
and what do you mean "for what?" it's just a story?

who gives a fuck, next time I'll call it a nectarine

i don't give a fuck but you're just trying to make him mad.

apparently i've been misinterpreted; by no means am i trying to advocate sin as a real and inheritable entity.

 

[Tarvos]

Something is an allegory for something. And if it's just a story, then it's not a particularly good one.

The Garden of Eden story may be symbolical and allegorical, but it's an allegory for something entirely shitty. It's a badly constructed story.

 

[Zuu]

Something is an allegory for something. And if it's just a story, then it's not a particularly good one.

i tried to explain some ideas that i had for possible symbolisms in an earlier post, if that's ... what you're saying.

and that is mostly an opinion, so okay.

 

[Tarvos]

I'm trying to point out that taking the Bible symbolically is a useless endeavour. You can't derive anything useful from it. Not morals, not satisfaction, not the reading of a well-constructed story. It's just a B-grade horror movie set in ancient times. If someone could make a slasher movie out of the Bible, or something like that, it might work. Even as literature, it's fairly contradictory and self-defeating. Sure, parts of it are nice. But they can't be taken symbolically to mean anything more than any other book on this planet. It would be stupid to claim the Bible is more literate than anything else on this planet.

And as has been said about 10000x before, the Bible being used as symbolism for morality is not a very good idea. The OT is atrocious and the NT... is a lot better, but still not something I'd wrestle my girlfriend and parents over to claim morality.

 

[Zuu]

I'm trying to point out that taking the Bible symbolically is a useless endeavour. You can't derive anything useful from it. Not morals, not satisfaction, not the reading of a well-constructed story. It's just a B-grade horror movie set in ancient times. If someone could make a slasher movie out of the Bible, or something like that, it might work.

okay, and i accept that criticism. for the most part, you're entirely right, which is why i encouraged the abandonment of most of it by contemporary Christians.

basically i was trying to say "people need to stop taking needless shits on the Bible for being historically inaccurate and making no sense scientifically and what have you and instead make useful criticisms concerning the actual important parts, that being the examination of the human psyche and a guideline for morality".

i sort of lost sight of that but that's mostly what i was trying to do.

 

[Tarvos]

I don't know of one reputable scholar that takes the Bible as history seriously. It's only creationists who put that forward.

 

[Pwnemon]

The entirety of Christianity and Judaism is founded upon the bible. saying to give that up is like telling america to stop caring about the constitution. (Or any of its history for that matter)

 

[Autumn]

The entirety of Christianity and Judaism is founded upon the bible. saying to give that up is like telling america to stop caring about the constitution. (Or any of its history for that matter)

the constitution is just a piece of paper. it's entirely ignorable.

 

[Pwnemon]

okay, and i accept that criticism. for the most part, you're entirely right, which is why i encouraged the abandonment of most of it by contemporary Christians.

ohaidere cabbagemerchant

 

[Zuu]

ohaidere cabbagemerchant

the point isn't how good of a work of literature it is, the point is that how i am free to interpret it as i wish because it is literature.

 

[Pwnemon]

the point I was making is that it destroys christianity to treat it as a work of literature. It's like not just putting the cart before the horse, but then killing the horse and expecting the cart to move.

 

[Zuu]

the point I was making is that it destroys christianity to treat it as a work of literature. It's like not just putting the cart before the horse, but then killing the horse and expecting the cart to move.

i completely disagree. Christianity and the ideal of Christian love is completely propelled by humanity and not by a book.

 

[Crazy Linoone]

@Zoltea, on whether the Biblical stories really happened: I'm pretty sure this has been brought up at least once in this thread before, but just because the Bible contains some facts doesn't make it all facts. A lot of fictional novels have some bases in reality. For example, Harry Potter has a lot of mentions to regular Britain and London and such. In fact, the series is set in Britain. However, just because Britain happened to be a real place does not make Harry Potter any more real. In the same way, just because the Garden of Eden may be a real place doesn't make the the stories in the Bible real.

@Dezzu, on how to interpret the Bible: The problem is that people take their morals from the Bible. Yes, you can treat the Bible as a piece of fiction. The problem is that if you allow for completely free interpretation, then you can argue for anything. You can say that the seven days is an allegory for the few billion years of evolution. You can say that snake!Satan is an allegory for curiosity, or temptation, or drugs, or basically anything you want. I'm not saying that you can't interpret (because it's what people do to literature), but you can't argue for the rest of the world based on your own interpretations. You can argue that your interpretations are valid, but only until you have proven that your interpretations are valid can you use it as evidence.

@Abandoning the Bible: The problem is that it's not going to happen anytime soon. Yes, it would be nice, but it would also be nice if world hunger suddenly disappears overnight and global warming stops and all evil dictators drop dead of a heart attack.

 

[Ether's Bane]

Interestingly enough, the location of the Garden of Eden is within this crescent. Here's an image showing the approximate location of the Garden of Eden:

Coincidence? You tell me.

...and where exactly in the Bible does it say that the Garden of Eden was at the intersection of Iraq, Kuwait, and Iran?

(also that area's mostly desert - well done)

 

[Tarvos]

Rejecting your interpretation of the bible is not the same as telling everyone else to do it too.! Forgettable Graphemes here can interpret the bible is a work with purely literary merit that is not actually a history nor a guide to holier living, (ex: no more cosmically significant than a Vonnegut novel) and I don't get why Pwnemon or Altmer have issues with this!

I don't have issues with using the Bible as literature. Unfortunately my interpretation of the Bible as literature is that it's inferior to better mythological legends. I'd take the Iliad or the Edda over that shit anyday.

 

[Eloi]

I don't have issues with using the Bible as literature. Unfortunately my interpretation of the Bible as literature is that it's inferior to better mythological legends. I'd take the Iliad or the Edda over that shit anyday.

Iliad sucks, but the Eddas are less dry than the Bible for sure. The Iliad did get that neat fanfic, Aeneid, but it became deadfic due to author existence failure, which is sad.

 

[Tarvos]

I actually like the Iliad. Can you believe that?

Odysseia is pretty good too, I'm told.

 

[Phantom]

Some questions for those creationists.

Why do you believe your god made only one breeding pair (Adam and Eve), instead of many? With only one breeding pair, fathers are forced to have sex with daughters, brothers with sisters, and sons with mothers, in order to propagate the species. Is this a divine endorsement for incest?

If all civilisations resulted from Adam and Eve, and oral traditions about the god that created them were passed down from generation to generation, why are there so many other creation stories in the world? Why didn't all civilisations keep their 'true' religion?

Why is the fossil record arranged in such a way as to suggest evolution?

For the poster of the image of the location of the Garden of Eden, why are the continents shaped like they were once together, and have similar geology on what would be the common edges? How would this fare in the location of said Garden?

Is it just to punish all humans, including those who weren't born yet, for the sins of one? Would you punish your own younger children for the wrongs of the oldest which occurred before the others were born?