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RE: Gallup Again - The Bible
July 10, 2022 at 7:51 am
(July 10, 2022 at 4:38 am)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote: All of which is perfectly true and correct, but none of which will matter to the 20%. It isn't how certain bits of the Bible are meant to be understood, but how they are understood that causes all the trouble.
Boru
Exactly! My original post was celebrating a move away from the literal and, frankly, away from any reliance on the book at all. As I had said, it's teh 20% that concern me. I mean, they built a fucking ark full of dinosaurs in Kentucky.
Besides that, if we are willing to accept that theologians, up to and including Jesus himself, were viewing biblical content as allegory - that just makes the 20% look even more bugnutty.
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RE: Gallup Again - The Bible
July 10, 2022 at 8:02 am
(This post was last modified: July 10, 2022 at 8:04 am by Belacqua.)
(July 10, 2022 at 7:51 am)TheJefe817 Wrote: (July 10, 2022 at 4:38 am)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote: All of which is perfectly true and correct, but none of which will matter to the 20%. It isn't how certain bits of the Bible are meant to be understood, but how they are understood that causes all the trouble.
Boru
Exactly! My original post was celebrating a move away from the literal and, frankly, away from any reliance on the book at all. As I had said, it's teh 20% that concern me. I mean, they built a fucking ark full of dinosaurs in Kentucky.
Besides that, if we are willing to accept that theologians, up to and including Jesus himself, were viewing biblical content as allegory - that just makes the 20% look even more bugnutty.
I understand that many people here want to focus on the uninformed Christians who are making trouble in the US today. I also oppose their political goals.
I do not see this as a reason to type false things about history. For example, it's just not true that sacred writings were originally meant and interpreted as literal truth, and only later came to be read as allegory. And it's just wildly false to believe that a person in the 16th century would be burned at the stake for agreeing with Anselm, Augustine, Aquinas, Ficino, and many others, that much of the Bible should be read in non-literal ways.
Believing and typing falsehoods about history do not help defend good political goals against modern Christians. It's not enough to be anti-religion; we should also be pro-truth.
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RE: Gallup Again - The Bible
July 10, 2022 at 8:09 am
They built that parking garage more to grift off the state than because they believe in a literal reading - although they do coincidentally believe in a literal reading.
I am the Infantry. I am my country’s strength in war, her deterrent in peace. I am the heart of the fight… wherever, whenever. I carry America’s faith and honor against her enemies. I am the Queen of Battle. I am what my country expects me to be, the best trained Soldier in the world. In the race for victory, I am swift, determined, and courageous, armed with a fierce will to win. Never will I fail my country’s trust. Always I fight on…through the foe, to the objective, to triumph overall. If necessary, I will fight to my death. By my steadfast courage, I have won more than 200 years of freedom. I yield not to weakness, to hunger, to cowardice, to fatigue, to superior odds, For I am mentally tough, physically strong, and morally straight. I forsake not, my country, my mission, my comrades, my sacred duty. I am relentless. I am always there, now and forever. I AM THE INFANTRY! FOLLOW ME!
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RE: Gallup Again - The Bible
July 10, 2022 at 8:25 am
(July 10, 2022 at 8:02 am)Belacqua Wrote: (July 10, 2022 at 7:51 am)TheJefe817 Wrote: Exactly! My original post was celebrating a move away from the literal and, frankly, away from any reliance on the book at all. As I had said, it's teh 20% that concern me. I mean, they built a fucking ark full of dinosaurs in Kentucky.
Besides that, if we are willing to accept that theologians, up to and including Jesus himself, were viewing biblical content as allegory - that just makes the 20% look even more bugnutty.
I understand that many people here want to focus on the uninformed Christians who are making trouble in the US today. I also oppose their political goals.
I do not see this as a reason to type false things about history. For example, it's just not true that sacred writings were originally meant and interpreted as literal truth, and only later came to be read as allegory. And it's just wildly false to believe that a person in the 16th century would be burned at the stake for agreeing with Anselm, Augustine, Aquinas, Ficino, and many others, that much of the Bible should be read in non-literal ways.
Believing and typing falsehoods about history do not help defend good political goals against modern Christians. It's not enough to be anti-religion; we should also be pro-truth.
I'm not the one who initially argued whether or not historical folks viewed it as allegory or were punished for such, so I won't expand too much on that. I think there seems to be evidence on both sides. Frankly, I don't really care. I care far more about the current state and more recent views, chopped in half percentage-wise in the last 40 years or so according to the poll. Also, I frankly do not find it all that comforting that most view it is allegory. That just opens up the whole world of interpretation on which parts are allegorical vs. literal and what the allegorical meaning is - a whole new world of confirmation bias and motivated reasoning in many cases.
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RE: Gallup Again - The Bible
July 10, 2022 at 8:48 am
(July 10, 2022 at 8:02 am)Belacqua Wrote: And it's just wildly false to believe that a person in the 16th century would be burned at the stake for agreeing with Anselm, Augustine, Aquinas, Ficino, and many others, that much of the Bible should be read in non-literal ways.
Believing and typing falsehoods about history do not help defend good political goals against modern Christians. It's not enough to be anti-religion; we should also be pro-truth.
That's NOT what I stated. One would be burned alive in the 16th-century for declaring that Holy Writ had errors in the original manuscripts; here are some examples:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_...s_heretics
Did Jesus of Nazareth exist as a historical person, and during his lifetime, did he miraculously walk on liquid water under STP conditions? Prior to 1700, virtually everyone in Western Europe would answer an unequivocal "Yes" to such a question, and if you publicly disagreed, you would be imprisoned, or in earlier times, be publicly burned at the stake.
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RE: Gallup Again - The Bible
July 10, 2022 at 8:49 am
(July 10, 2022 at 8:25 am)TheJefe817 Wrote: confirmation bias and motivated reasoning
These things are bad, and that's why I speak up when atheists do them.
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RE: Gallup Again - The Bible
July 10, 2022 at 9:05 am
(This post was last modified: July 10, 2022 at 9:08 am by The Grand Nudger.)
Coincides with the rise of political christianity, and the weaponizing of literalist and fundamentalist belief as a political loyalty check with attached legislation. All making one thing clear - on balance, allegorical understandings of magic book are superior to literalist and fundamentalist understandings insomuch as they fail to produce those outcomes.
Their co-religionists have about the same view as the most critical atheist - but that get's over ridden by intersectionality in politics. End of the4 day, all christians share some literalist interpretations -and being a religion of pure and unadultered loyalty checks...I think this was bound to happen again and again (and has happened again and again, historically).
I am the Infantry. I am my country’s strength in war, her deterrent in peace. I am the heart of the fight… wherever, whenever. I carry America’s faith and honor against her enemies. I am the Queen of Battle. I am what my country expects me to be, the best trained Soldier in the world. In the race for victory, I am swift, determined, and courageous, armed with a fierce will to win. Never will I fail my country’s trust. Always I fight on…through the foe, to the objective, to triumph overall. If necessary, I will fight to my death. By my steadfast courage, I have won more than 200 years of freedom. I yield not to weakness, to hunger, to cowardice, to fatigue, to superior odds, For I am mentally tough, physically strong, and morally straight. I forsake not, my country, my mission, my comrades, my sacred duty. I am relentless. I am always there, now and forever. I AM THE INFANTRY! FOLLOW ME!
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RE: Gallup Again - The Bible
July 10, 2022 at 9:48 am
(July 10, 2022 at 8:49 am)Belacqua Wrote: (July 10, 2022 at 8:25 am)TheJefe817 Wrote: confirmation bias and motivated reasoning
These things are bad, and that's why I speak up when atheists do them.
Where did such occur? Please be specific.
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RE: Gallup Again - The Bible
July 10, 2022 at 10:01 am
(July 10, 2022 at 8:49 am)Belacqua Wrote: (July 10, 2022 at 8:25 am)TheJefe817 Wrote: confirmation bias and motivated reasoning
These things are bad, and that's why I speak up when atheists do them.
Thank goodness....whatever would we do without your profound wisdom?
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RE: Gallup Again - The Bible
July 10, 2022 at 10:02 am
(July 10, 2022 at 8:02 am)Belacqua Wrote: I do not see this as a reason to type false things about history. For example, it's just not true that sacred writings were originally meant and interpreted as literal truth, and only later came to be read as allegory. And it's just wildly false to believe that a person in the 16th century would be burned at the stake for agreeing with Anselm, Augustine, Aquinas, Ficino, and many others, that much of the Bible should be read in non-literal ways.
Let's take Augustine. According to him the sin of Adam and Eve was passed down the male line, transmitted in the semen - so how is that not taking the Bible literally?
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
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