Do you literally believe in God though? Or is he just a metaphor?

How do you decide which bits to take literally and which bits not? Cherry-picking?

EvF

(May 4, 2010 at 10:24 am)AngelThMan Wrote:

(May 4, 2010 at 8:47 am)Zen Badger Wrote:

(May 3, 2010 at 3:14 pm)Watson Wrote: I've not read very much of the Bible, thank you very much. And I don't think I know everything, I recognize quite wholly I know very little compared to what's out there. But I don't presume that I even can know everything.

Well since it's the book you are supposed to be basing your life on maybe you should actually read it.

Though I've noticed that very few christians ever do read the damned thing.

And, quite often when they do they turn atheist.

I've read the whole bible from beginning to end, and I'm not an atheist. That's because unlike you I don't take the whole book literally. A lot of it is a series of allegorical passages meant to teach values. If I took the bible completely literally, I would probably be an atheist.

Instead we cherry pick and rationalize til it fits whatever preconceived notion we started out with. Good job on that one.

(May 4, 2010 at 10:29 am)EvidenceVsFaith Wrote: Do you literally believe in God though? Or is he just a metaphor?

How do you decide which bits to take literally and which bits not? Cherry-picking?

EvF

It's not really cherry picking because everything in the bible has its purpose. But the bible itself says that a lot of it is symbolic. Before Martin Luther, the bible was taught and studied symbolically. I do believe in God literally. But I believe that the bible was inspired by God, and written by man. So obviously a lot of cultural ideas made their way into the scriptures. The majority of Christians acknowledge this. I think it's fine for believers to decide, based on their individual convictions, which parts of the bible are symbolic, and which parts are more literal. That's why many different religions exist, and it's all okay. Think about it, if God meant for a lot of the bible to be symbolic, then obviously he wouldn't expect every single person to get everything in the exact same way.

So 'His' book is pretty fucking ambiguous, yeah. Many many different interpretations of it. Hmmm.... most non-holy books happen to be a lot more straight forward. Funny that. But of course, if you read the Bible more literally then it's a lot less messy and people can agree a lot easier...

But whatever your mix of literalism and metaphors - it's not valid evidence for God.

EvF

(May 4, 2010 at 10:54 am)AngelThMan Wrote:

(May 4, 2010 at 10:29 am)EvidenceVsFaith Wrote: Do you literally believe in God though? Or is he just a metaphor?

How do you decide which bits to take literally and which bits not? Cherry-picking?

EvF

It's not really cherry picking because everything in the bible has its purpose. But the bible itself says that a lot of it is symbolic. Before Martin Luther, the bible was taught and studied symbolically. I do believe in God literally. But I believe that the bible was inspired by God, and written by man. So obviously a lot of cultural ideas made their way into the scriptures. The majority of Christians acknowledge this. I think it's fine for believers to decide, based on their individual convictions, which parts of the bible are symbolic, and which parts are more literal. That's why many different religions exist, and it's all okay. Think about it, if God meant for a lot of the bible to be symbolic, then obviously he wouldn't expect every single person to get everything in the exact same way.

Were the Gospels that spoke of Jesus symbolic or literal? How do you know?

Do you realize that to "decide, based on their individual convictions, which parts of the bible are symbolic, and which parts are more literal" is cherry picking what they WANT to believe, and has absolutely no bearing on whether those beliefs are based in truth or not?

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(May 4, 2010 at 10:59 am)EvidenceVsFaith Wrote: So 'His' book is pretty fucking ambiguous, yeah. Many many different interpretations of it. Hmmm.... most non-holy books happen to be a lot more straight forward. Funny that. But of course, if you read the Bible more literally then it's a lot less messy and people can agree a lot easier...

But whatever your mix of literalism and metaphors - it's not valid evidence for God.

EvF

The Bible is in the semi-non-fiction section of the bookstore. 8

Angel, if it's literal then you need evidence of the truth of that claim. If it's metaphor then I wonder why it's been cherry-picked as such in that case - perhaps because it's something that would be rather embarrassing to a theist such as yourself if you took it literally?

EvF

(May 4, 2010 at 10:54 am)AngelThMan Wrote: It's not really cherry picking because everything in the bible has its purpose. But the bible itself says that a lot of it is symbolic. Before Martin Luther, the bible was taught and studied symbolically. I do believe in God literally. But I believe that the bible was inspired by God, and written by man. So obviously a lot of cultural ideas made their way into the scriptures. The majority of Christians acknowledge this. I think it's fine for believers to decide, based on their individual convictions, which parts of the bible are symbolic, and which parts are more literal. That's why many different religions exist, and it's all okay. Think about it, if God meant for a lot of the bible to be symbolic, then obviously he wouldn't expect every single person to get everything in the exact same way.

So the Bible is partly metaphor, and partly literal truth. Unfortunately, it isn't at all clear which bits are which, and the meaning of the metaphors can always be disputed, so different people come to radically different conclusions about what is true and how they should lead their lives. Arguments about what the Bible means have, since at least the time of the Monophysite controversy (5th century AD), led to different groups of Christians killing each other over matters of doctrine.

Now you'd think that with the Bible being so important and all, God would've made sure that its meaning was nice and clear. Especially since, being omniscient, he could forsee all of the trouble that the lack of clarity would cause. But no. Its a mass (or maybe mess?) of ambiguity. As a way of communicating the truth of the True Faith its a fuck-up.

So maybe God is just naturally fuzzy-minded. Maybe he's been caning the celestial ganja for millenia and really can't think straight enough to put out a clear message. Or maybe he's just a callous fucker who doesn't care what trouble he causes. Or maybe he doesn't exist.

I think I'll go for the last option.

(May 4, 2010 at 10:29 am)EvidenceVsFaith Wrote: Do you literally believe in God though? Or is he just a metaphor?

How do you decide which bits to take literally and which bits not? Cherry-picking?

EvF

Why can't He be both?

Because that's a contradiction.

That's like pointing to a rock and saying it's both literally a rock and not literally a rock but in fact just a metaphor for a train station in Germany and not anything literally at all other than a metaphorical concept.

EvF

I just spilt milk all over my computer desk, oh no! Hey, look at that splash; it looks like a train station in Germany and I'll take it as such, but it's literally just a big puddle of milk.

God exists sort of in that sense. In a metaphor for Himself and literally as the ways in which He is manifested. He's God, and you must admit that if He exists, He can be anything at all.