[Serious] Literal and Not Literal

[Acrobat]

A teacher who intentionally keeps his disciples confused is an ass imho. Particularly when he is the reincarnation of a god. Whats the purpose of an (omni)benevolent deity being an ass?

The meaning of those things that confused the disciples, was understand through Christ's death and resurrection. Nothing the teacher could have said would have resolved this confusion, only an act beyond words and instructions held the meaning to be conveyed.

How do you know what your god wants? How do you know what kind of god your god is?

I know what he isn't. The sort booking the Apollo for a grand magic tricks. Because no such booking is taking place. Or the sort of God unfaithful to the life in front of us, some sort of Dewey eyed benign Santa in the sky. Because no such life exists that would have formed by such a being. If there is a God, he's one faithful to both the monstrosity and beautify of existence.

Life is not a stage show. Its more serious than that. I am actually shocked you are comparing the struggle of all humans in our history, particularly all the hardships and suffering to a magic show. But otoh its a cornerstone of your religion to have contempt for fellow human beings and pretend it to be compassion. Thats the part where religion has poisoned your mind.

You're right, life is no stage show, it's far more serious than that. God whose nothing but a grand stage show performer, is an answer to nothing, a jester to a joke of life.

A serious God wouldn't be about magic, but the struggles and suffering of human existence , a God who makes sense of senselessness. If any such reality, if any such being exists, it's only this that's worthy of being called God. A God who turns the brutalized murder of an innocent man, into the reality of hope and redemption.

But the seriousness of these things, are not reducible to language problems, the horrors of the holocaust, of the lynching tree, are not failures of articulation, if we only knew the right words to say, how to express ourselves clearly, could we avoided them . But a failure to recognize the brokenness of the human condition, a reflection of sin, the great tragedy that lays at the very heart of life. And if weren't for the reality of hope, redemption, transformation, all that would be left is despair, a lynching victim left to hang on a tree for an eternity.

[Fake Messiah]

I think what this shows is that you’re a product of a particular cultural phenomenon, in which you see truth as reducible to a series of scientific and historical facts, a component and artifact of the scientific age, even further eroded by disintegration of communities, and relationships in people’s lives.

This is a perfect example of projecting: for you are the one, as a religious liberal, who is a product of, as you say, a "particular cultural phenomenon" because over the whole history much of the Bible has been seen literally.

For instance, 70 years ago Pope Pius XII affirmed monogenism in his encyclical Humani Generis. Insisting that a historical Adam committed a sin passed on to his offspring—as if sin were a gene that never gets lost—and those sinful offspring grew into all of humanity.

Not to mention Thomas Aquinas, whose theology OP constantly pushes here, believed in the instantaneous creation of species and of Adam and Eve as humanity’s ancestors, as well as in a young Earth (less than six thousand years old) and the literal existence of Noah and his great flood.

Indeed, if you want to read much of the Bible as allegory, you must overturn the history of theology, rewriting it to conform to your liberal, science-friendly faith. Besides pretending that you’re following in the tradition of ancient theologians, you must also explain the way you can discern truth amid the metaphors. What is allegory and what is real? How do you tell the difference? This is particularly difficult for Christians, because the historical evidence for Jesus - that is, for a real person around whom the myth accreted - is thin. And evidence for Jesus as the son of God is unconvincing, resting solely on the assertions of the Bible and interpretations of people writing decades after the events described in the Gospels.

[Deesse23]

A teacher who intentionally keeps his disciples confused is an ass imho. Particularly when he is the reincarnation of a god. Whats the purpose of an (omni)benevolent deity being an ass?

The meaning of those things that confused the disciples, was understand through Christ's death and resurrection. Nothing the teacher could have said would have resolved this confusion, only an act beyond words and instructions held the meaning to be conveyed.

The disciples were confused. If the teacher is a god, how is he unable to get his original message across (other than having himself crucified*)....oh, wait, your original argument was he didnt want to. So which one is it? He wouldnt or he couldnt?

*why couldnt god make his point without an additional crucifiction. Its not like there werent enough case studies around.

How do you know what your god wants? How do you know what kind of god your god is?

I know what he isn't.

I didnt ask what you think he is/isnt, but how do you know?

Life is not a stage show. Its more serious than that. I am actually shocked you are comparing the struggle of all humans in our history, particularly all the hardships and suffering to a magic show. But otoh its a cornerstone of your religion to have contempt for fellow human beings and pretend it to be compassion. Thats the part where religion has poisoned your mind.

A serious God wouldn't be about magic, but the struggles and suffering of human existence , a God who makes sense of senselessness. If any such reality, if any such being exists, it's only this that's worthy of being called God. A God who turns the brutalized murder of an innocent man, into the reality of hope and redemption.

Grandiose sounding words, but what are you actually trying to say? A god is what mekes sense out of senselessness? Thats your criteria for believing in and worshipping an entity? How does this adress my objection, at.all.?
Your original argument was that god (like a magician) is not obliged to explain to the audience all his tricks, only to show them (paraphrasing). I objected to that, saying that is asshol-ish, particularly when the show was about teaching the audience.

But a failure to recognize the brokenness of the human condition, a reflection of sin, the great tragedy that lays at the very heart of life. And if weren't for the reality of hope, redemption, transformation, all that would be left is despair, a lynching victim left to hang on a tree for an eternity.

Humans are broken, a reflection of sin. Yes, your contempt for your fellow human beings is clearly visible, and i somewhat have to thank you for your honesty. Thank you for confirming my claim, but somehow i still dont feel very good about this situation    The religious poison can be very treacherous.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Then there's no point in reading the so-called 'holy' texts, is there?

Boru

If someone asked what is red, I can say it's the color of rubies, of blood, and strawberries, and he can understand what red means. But this understanding isn't transferable to a blind man, whose never seen rubies, or blood, or strawberries, or colors. 

The ancient Hebrews saw a single thing, that defies any attempt at definition, like the dwellers of Plato's cave, seeing a hint of light from the sun. And that perception grows throughout their history, until it's fully realized in the person of Christ. Like the slow peeling of a blindfold, over thousands of years. There's a kernel that grows from one end to the next. But one has to see this seed in order to recognize it. No words, no matter how clearly said to you, can do that. Just like the redness of rubies can't be conveyed to the blind.

But the unsaved are in precisely the position of your blind man.  I asked you again:  If God wants everyone to be saved (and he does, it says so right there in the manual), why is the Bible intentionally ambiguous?  Surely it would be within God's power to make it clear and unambiguous to everyone. Moreover, the message in the Bible could be couched in such a manner as to make it irresistible to everyone.

And if the ancient Hebrews saw something that defies any attempt at definition, why did they take so much trouble to define it?

Boru

[Acrobat]

But the unsaved are in precisely the position of your blind man.  I asked you again:  If God wants everyone to be saved (and he does, it says so right there in the manual), why is the Bible intentionally ambiguous?  Surely it would be within God's power to make it clear and unambiguous to everyone. Moreover, the message in the Bible could be couched in such a manner as to make it irresistible to everyone.

I don't think God has wants. I don't see God as some being with some deficiency resolved by yours or my salvation. Any salvation is for myself, not for God.

But let's think of something analogous to consider the question of irresistible. It seems to me that nobody really wants to be a bad a person, no one wakes up in the morning, and goes I want to be terrible or a bad father, a bad friend, a bad son. No one wakes up saying they want to be filled with hatred, resentment, and contempt. We seem at some level desire to be good. But why is it this thing that I desire, why is this desire not sufficient enough to be good?

Nobody wants to be the man pulling the rope on the lynching tree, but when the time came, that's where we all are more likely to end up, pulling that rope. Have we men of the future resolved, the condition that could lead us back to the lynching given similar conditions? I don't think so. That condition remains unresolved, rearing itself in other ways, till the time comes again.

Maybe we're men of competing desires, we desire to be good, but another part of us desires to be bad. If Good is the state of eternal salvation, and bad is the eternal state of damnation, maybe some of us desire to be damned. We want to be buried in our resentments, rather than being buried in Love.

And if the ancient Hebrews saw something that defies any attempt at definition, why did they take so much trouble to define it?

They didn't. It's written for those who do see it. For those that don't, they can't see anything but a series of wannabe/pseudo scientific and historical facts when reading it.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

But the unsaved are in precisely the position of your blind man.  I asked you again:  If God wants everyone to be saved (and he does, it says so right there in the manual), why is the Bible intentionally ambiguous?  Surely it would be within God's power to make it clear and unambiguous to everyone. Moreover, the message in the Bible could be couched in such a manner as to make it irresistible to everyone.

I don't think God has wants. I don't see God as some being with some  deficiency resolved by yours or my salvation. Any salvation is for myself, not for God.

And if the ancient Hebrews saw something that defies any attempt at definition, why did they take so much trouble to define it?

They didn't. It's written for those who do see it. For those that don't, they can't see anything but a series of wannabe/pseudo scientific and historical facts when reading it.

Well, the Bible says God has wants, and one of these is that everyone be saved.  Is this another reason not to read the Bible, that it can't be trusted?

The Hebrews didn't try to define that undefinable something?  Then what's the OT all about? And if it's written for those who already see it, what's the point of writing about it?

Boru

[Anomalocaris]

But the unsaved are in precisely the position of your blind man.  I asked you again:  If God wants everyone to be saved (and he does, it says so right there in the manual), why is the Bible intentionally ambiguous?  Surely it would be within God's power to make it clear and unambiguous to everyone. Moreover, the message in the Bible could be couched in such a manner as to make it irresistible to everyone.

I don't think God has wants. I don't see God as some being with some  deficiency resolved by yours or my salvation. Any salvation is for myself, not for God.

But let's think of something analogous to consider the question of irresistible. It seems to me that nobody really wants to be a bad a person, no one wakes up in the morning, and goes I want to be terrible or a bad father, a bad friend, a bad son. No one wakes up saying they want to be filled with hatred, resentment, and contempt. We seem at some level desire to be good.  But why is it this thing that I desire, why is this desire not sufficient enough to be good?

Nobody wants to be the man pulling the rope on the lynching tree, but when the time came, that's where we all are more likely to end up, pulling that rope. Have we men of the future resolved, the condition that could lead us back to the lynching given similar conditions? I don't think so. That condition remains unresolved, rearing itself in other ways, till the time comes again.

Maybe we're men of competing desires, we desire to be good, but another part of us desires to be bad. If Good is the state of eternal salvation, and bad is the eternal state of damnation, maybe some of us desire to be damned. We want to be buried in our resentments, rather than being buried in Love.

And if the ancient Hebrews saw something that defies any attempt at definition, why did they take so much trouble to define it?

They didn't. It's written for those who do see it. For those that don't, they can't see anything but a series of wannabe/pseudo scientific and historical facts when reading it.

"Good" is a nothing more than a very crude and variable heuristic algorithm thought, not always honestly, by opinion makers to be sellable as "bringing the greater good in which everyone has a stake", for the goal of brining predictability and controllability to the society,    If such a stake can't be shown, it must be made up.  Hence god and reward of heaven.


 But by no means can most people's innate ability to see and the desire to pursue what seems advantageous to themselves always be reconciled with such crude algorithms.   Hence evil.


Evil is not the failure to do good.   It is the reflection of the innate intellectual bankruptcy of the traditional concept of the moral "truth"

[Acrobat]

Well, the Bible says God has wants, and one of these is that everyone be saved.  Is this another reason not to read the Bible, that it can't be trusted?

I guess thats better than saying God wants some people to be saved, and others not to be?

The Bible says a lot of things, that God has regrets, that God is jealous, that God has wants. Yet pretty much all believers, Christian or otherwise, acknowledge God as an eternal and unchanging being. So what would it mean for biblical writers who share such view to says things like this? That they're similes, the limit of finite language to express the infinite.

The Hebrews didn't try to define that undefinable something?  Then what's the OT all about? And if it's written for those who already see it, what's the point of writing about it?

Not about defining the given. It's written for believers in something, not written for believers in nothing, to convince them of something.

It helps those who see it, to see it more clearly. It's one generations attempt to chip away at that perception, to pass along to the next generation to chip away even further, until it's seen more clearly. It's to take whats partially realized to being fully realized.

It's not for those who can see nothing in the Bible, but a series of wannabe/pseudo scientific and historic facts. Who look at the world and their lives, and see nothing except that.

[Anomalocaris]

Well, the Bible says God has wants, and one of these is that everyone be saved.  Is this another reason not to read the Bible, that it can't be trusted?

I guess thats better than saying God wants some people to be saved, and others not to be?

The Bible says a lot of things, that God has regrets, that God is jealous, that God has wants. Yet pretty much all believers, Christian or otherwise, acknowledge God as an eternal and unchanging being. So what would it mean for biblical writers who share such view to says things like this? That they're similes, the limit of finite language to express the infinite.

The Hebrews didn't try to define that undefinable something?  Then what's the OT all about? And if it's written for those who already see it, what's the point of writing about it?

Not about defining the given. It's written for believers in something, not written for believers in nothing, to convince them of something.

It helps those who see it, to see it more clearly. It's one generations attempt to chip away at that perception, to pass along to the next generation to chip away even further, until it's seen more clearly. It's to take whats partially realized to being fully realized.

It's not for those who can see nothing in the Bible, but a series of wannabe/pseudo scientific and historic facts. Who look at the world and their lives, and see nothing except that.

I thought God has no wants?

Does the fact that language can not express the alleged infinity of god be traceable to god not being any sort of coherent or internally consistent concept able to withstand such minimal scrutiny as might be brought to bear when a fluffy notion in the head had to be articulated?

Infinity in this context seems to be a code word for "mind fully accustomed to bullshit and will not accept limits on its ability to make shit up, trying to protect certain treasured bullshit with yet more bullshit excuses, if not threats against scrutiny".

[LastPoet]

Revelation is very good when using allucinogenics, I can vouch for that.