(November 28, 2022 at 6:29 pm)Anomalocaris Wrote: How does original intent, essentially unknowable except through dubious deduction, matter more than how it is manifestly, customarily, practically and Influentially applied? Especially when how it has been practically applied carries great momentum and governs to a far greater extent how it will continue to be applied than the dubious “original intent”?
I'm sorry, I don't really understand what you're saying. If you're saying that there are far reaching consequences from the views that have built up around those original texts, some allegorical, some not... basically all the different schisms of Christianity and all their negative affects on the world... then I don't dispute that and in that sense agree with you and Belacqua that that is indeed important, practically if nothing else. I just meant that what's most important to me to evaluate as a claim to truth, for the sake of my own beliefs, is only the author's original intent.