(August 24, 2022 at 1:31 pm)Vicki Q Wrote: Xianity was a split from Judaism, which happened because those closest to Jesus had an immensely powerful set of experiences that convinced them that the Jewish Messiah had inaugurated the Kingdom of God.. That is far and away the best explanation of the beliefs of the Early Xians.

(August 24, 2022 at 2:06 pm)The Grand Nudger Wrote: Well..there's certainly a hell of alot of content that the author of daniel used those sorts of narratives to tell us.

(August 24, 2022 at 2:48 pm)John 6IX Breezy Wrote:

(August 24, 2022 at 2:06 pm)The Grand Nudger Wrote: Well..there's certainly a hell of alot of content that the author of daniel used those sorts of narratives to tell us.

Well, Daniel is arguably the most important book in Adventism. The entire denomination is built upon it's interpretation, so I'm aware there's a lot of meaning embedded in it. However, the difference here is that what is being interpreted by Adventists is the message that is being told to Daniel in the story.

Whereas your interpretation seems more meta: Daniel is a character in a different author's story, and that author is constructing this first-person narrative to embed a more abstract and symbolic story. Is that right?

(August 24, 2022 at 12:34 pm)John 6IX Breezy Wrote:

(August 23, 2022 at 10:26 pm)Neo-Scholastic Wrote: Yes, indeed, I have a more esoteric perspective in part because growing up congregationalist we were not committed to a literal reading of Scripture the way say Southern Baptists were. That was the 70's though and it seemed like the more fundamentalist people started forming this wierd Christian sub-culture. Anyway.

I may fall more under the literal category, though I think fundamentalism has more to do with behavior. I think the Bible should be read the way any other piece of writing should—to understand what the author is attempting to communicate. What's interesting about the Bible is that the thing many authors are attempting to communicate is often a vision or divine experience.

(August 24, 2022 at 4:53 pm)Angrboda Wrote: How do you know this?

• "In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple" (ESV, Isaiah 6:1).
  

• "In the third year of the reign of King Belshazzar a vision appeared to me, Daniel, after that which appeared to me at the first" (ESV, Daniel 8:1)
  

(August 24, 2022 at 2:48 pm)John 6IX Breezy Wrote: Well, Daniel is arguably the most important book in Adventism. The entire denomination is built upon it's interpretation, so I'm aware there's a lot of meaning embedded in it. However, the difference here is that what is being interpreted by Adventists is the message that is being told to Daniel in the story.

Whereas your interpretation seems more meta: Daniel is a character in a different author's story, and that author is constructing this first-person narrative to embed a more abstract and symbolic story. Is that right?

(August 24, 2022 at 5:13 pm)John 6IX Breezy Wrote:

(August 24, 2022 at 4:53 pm)Angrboda Wrote: How do you know this?

You mean, how do I know they are attempting to communicate a vision or divine experience? Usually because that is how many chapters are introduced:

• "In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple" (ESV, Isaiah 6:1).
  

• "In the third year of the reign of King Belshazzar a vision appeared to me, Daniel, after that which appeared to me at the first" (ESV, Daniel 8:1)
  

Quote:Now Hera of the golden throne stood on the peak of Olympus, and saw with her eyes, and anon knew him that was her brother and her lord's going to and fro through the glorious fight, and she rejoiced in her heart. And she beheld Zeus sitting on the topmost crest of many-fountained Ida, and to her heart he was hateful. Then she took thought, the ox-eyed lady Hera, how she might beguile the mind of aegis-bearing Zeus. And this seemed to her in her heart to be the best counsel, namely to fare to Ida, when she had well adorned herself, if perchance a sweet sleep and a kindly she could pour on his eye lids and his crafty wits. And she set forth to her bower, that her dear son Hephaistos had fashioned, and therein had made fast strong doors on the pillars, with a secret bolt, that no other god might open. There did she enter in and closed the shining doors. With ambrosia first did she cleanse every stain from her winsome body, and anointed her with olive oil, ambrosial, soft, and of a sweet savour; if it were but shaken, in the bronze-floored mansion of Zeus, the savour thereof went right forth to earth and heaven. Therewith she anointed her fair body, and combed her hair, and with her hands plaited her shining tresses, fair and ambrosial, flowing from her immortal head. Then she clad her in her fragrant robe that Athene wrought delicately for her, and therein set many things beautifully made, and fastened it over her breast with clasps of gold. And she girdled it with a girdle arrayed with a hundred tassels, and she set earrings in her pierced ears, earrings of three drops, and glistering, therefrom shone grace abundantly. And with a veil over all the peerless goddess veiled herself, a fair new veil, bright as the sun, and beneath her shining feet she bound goodly sandals. But when she had adorned her body with all her array, she went forth from her bower, and called Aphrodite apart from the other gods, and spake to her, saying: "Wilt thou obey me, dear child, in that which I shall tell thee? or wilt thou refuse, with a grudge in thy heart, because I succour the Danaans, and thou the Trojans?"

Then Aphrodite the daughter of Zeus answered her: "Hera, goddess queen, daughter of mighty Kronos, say the thing that is in thy mind, my heart bids me fulfil it, if fulfil it I may, and if it may be accomplished." (The Iliad, Book 13)

(August 23, 2022 at 2:45 pm)Neo-Scholastic Wrote:

(August 22, 2022 at 11:52 am)Mister Agenda Wrote: So something can't be perfect unless it's omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent? Ordinarily, perfect means 'without flaws'. I wouldn't say not being all-powerful is a flaw.

Edit: Sorry for the double post.

I am using the word perfect the same way scholastics and some classical pagan philosophers would have....in the absolute sense that only applies to the All, or One. Barbasol may be the 'perfect' for its intended purpose as an inexpensive
and effective shaving cream but that is not the sense theologically.

(August 25, 2022 at 9:15 am)Mister Agenda Wrote: they're wondering why he couldn't or didn't create beings perfectly fit for their purpose.

(August 25, 2022 at 9:22 am)Belacqua Wrote:

(August 25, 2022 at 9:15 am)Mister Agenda Wrote: they're wondering why he couldn't or didn't create beings perfectly fit for their purpose.

I guess the obvious question is: what is the purpose of human beings? What would it be like for us to be fit for this purpose? 

How do you know we are not perfectly fit for our purpose?