[Serious] Literal and Not Literal

[Acrobat]

But how do you know this? What makes you think that it would of started of with the author of Genesis talking about how they gained the knowledge? The OT was written in a completely different time, in a different context, no? What makes you think it would be treated the same way as the gospels? How do you discern this?

Because all interpretation of language, whether in the Bible, or in real life, in novels, book, etc... require an assumption of intent. What it is that Ego is trying to communicate to me above. If the author of Genesis had a vision from God, I would expect him to have indicated that, because I don't see any reason why he wouldn't. Why would that be omitted? The fact that this omission seems quite incomprehensible to me, is why I hold the assumption that I do.

The virgin birth is only two of the gospels accounts, and Matthew ties it to prophecy in Isaiah, that he might have misinterpreted as indicating the messiah would be born of a virgin.

Judging that he tied it to a prophecy of the messiah, it does appear that he expected his readers to take it literally, as a fulfillment of the prophecy.

Meaning, what? How do you know that "tying it to prophecy" somehow makes it literal? How do you know there isn't a bigger metaphor in there somewhere? See, you're not really explaining anything. You're just talking out of your ass and hoping it will make me go away.

What bigger metaphor? Some unknown bigger metaphor?

I don't deal with unknown interpretations. Just like I don't withhold belief in the theory of evolution, because of the possibility of some unknown theory that might one day replace it, and prove it false.

I deal with known, or given interpretations, and see which one fits that information better.

[EgoDeath]

Because all interpretation of language, whether in the Bible, or in real life, in novels, book, etc... require an assumption of intent. What it is that Ego is trying to communicate to me above. If the author of Genesis had a vision from God, I would expect him to have indicated that, because I don't see any reason why he wouldn't. Why would that be omitted? The fact that this omission seems quite incomprehensible  to me, is why I hold the assumption that I do.

But why assume he would include it? Maybe he thought you'd be smart enough to simply take the text as a literal account of creation. What makes your version more reasonable than mine?

What bigger metaphor? Some unknown bigger metaphor?

Who knows? It could be one none of us are even aware of? Maybe the original meaning of the text was lost long, long ago? My point is, how do you know?

I don't deal with unknown interpretations. Just like I don't withhold belief in the theory of evolution, because of the possibility of some unknown theory that might one day replace it, and prove it false.

Well, you are though. You're constantly coming up with your own interpretations of things every time you read something. That interpretation was unknown to you until you developed it. So the question is, how did you develop the interpretation and what makes you think that interpretation is valid versus someone else's?

I deal with known, or given interpretations, and see which one fits that information better.

If in you only want to discuss interpretations you've already developed, then sure. But even then, how are you deciding which interpretation fits the information better?

[Acrobat]

We were discussing whether evolutionary biology was unscientific.  Or different, even, from what parts of biology you do accept.

Is a hypothesis, both consistent with theory and consistent with observations....but unverifiable due to lack of a time machine....

......unscientific....?

In what way, specifically?  Additionally, how does that tie in with literal and non literal interpretations in your beliefs?

You're discussing whether evolutionary biology is unscientific. I'm discussing Acrobat's question of how to choose between competing explanations for things such as sacrifice, and whether choosing anything at all is cherry picking; my answer is that you can't choose between such explanations and often "cherry picking" is what's done.

Verifiability is the soul of a hypothesis, not consistency. If a hypothesis requires a time machine to test it, and instead you lean on how consistant it is with theory, that's unscientific.

How about explanatory power? Is that unscientific? If there's a variety of explanations for "sacrifice", the explanations that holds the greater explanatory power, able to make sense of the pieces better, is the preferable one to hold, at least as a hypothesis? The strong the observations and expectations align with it, the more we can be certain about it. 



Explanatory power is the ability of a hypothesis or theory to effectively explain the subject matter it pertains to. The opposite of explanatory power is explanatory impotence.
In the past, various criteria or measures for explanatory power have been proposed. In particular, one hypothesis, theory, or explanation can be said to have more explanatory power than another about the same subject matter

• if more facts or observations are accounted for;
  
  
• if it changes more "surprising facts" into "a matter of course" (following Peirce);
  
  
• if more details of causal relations are provided, leading to a high accuracy and precision of the description;
  
  
• if it offers greater predictive power, i.e., if it offers more details about what we should expect to see, and what we should not;
  
  
• if it depends less on authorities and more on observations;
  
  
• if it makes fewer assumptions;
  
  
• if it is more falsifiable, i.e., more testable by observation or experiment (following Popper). -wiki
  

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But why assume he would include it? Maybe he thought you'd be smart enough to simply take the text as a literal account of creation. What makes your version more reasonable than mine?

When people have something they perceive as miraculous, a vision from God, God speaking to them, visions of heaven, hell, etc... They indicate that, not so much for the sake of adding credibility to what they're saying, but to share that they had such a profound experience.

If the author of Genesis had such an experience why would they not have shared it? Why would they have kept it to themselves? Now maybe you'll get creative and offer an explanation, but do you actually think that was the case? Or are you just throwing it out as a possibility?

Who knows? It could be one none of us are even aware of? Maybe the original meaning of the text was lost long, long ago? My point is, how do you know?

I don't know if there's an unknown better explanation than the theory of evolution, that in the future might be discovered and falsify it. But this unknown doesn't cause me to stop believing in the theory of evolution.

Well, you are though. You're constantly coming up with your own interpretations of things every time you read something. That interpretation was unknown to you until you developed it. So the question is, how did you develop the interpretation and what makes you think that interpretation is valid versus someone else's?

Sure, i read it and form an interpretation the same way I read what you wrote and form an interpretation of what you're communicating. If other people hold different interpretations, than I might go out and explore them, perhaps they make better sense of the over all context, are aware of some historical factors at the time I wasn't aware of, or had a better grasp of original language, etc...Sometime more than one interpretation sounds equally reasonable, and I can't decide between the two. Sometimes I realize my initial interpretation was wrong.

If in you only want to discuss interpretations you've already developed, then sure. But even then, how are you deciding which interpretation fits the information better?

I decide it based on explanatory power, which one takes into account the context and history better, the overall passage etc... Which one answers more questions than it raises. Sometimes two sides can have equally compelling arguments, in which a decision is not easy to come by.

[EgoDeath]

When people have something they perceive as miraculous, a vision from God, God speaking to them, visions of heaven, hell, etc... They indicate that, not so much for the sake of adding credibility to what they're saying, but to share that they had such a profound experience.

If the author of Genesis had such an experience why would they not have shared it? Why would they have kept it to themselves? Now maybe you'll get creative and offer an explanation, but do you actually think that was the case? Or are you just throwing it out as a possibility?

Once again, why would they have shared it? Because another author did in a different book? Why hold two different others, who lived at different times and wrote things at different times to the same set of criteria? You're still not explaining this, you just keep going around in circles and then attempt to throw the question back at me.

I don't know if there's an unknown better explanation than the theory of evolution, that in the future might be discovered and falsify it. But this unknown doesn't cause me to stop believing in the theory of evolution.

You're not supposed to believe in evolution. You review the evidence in support of it and either accept it as fact or don't. If the current facts of evolution end up support a more nuanced, or bigger idea, then great. That would be a fascinating thing to happen for the world.

Sure, i read it and form an interpretation the same way I read what you wrote and form an interpretation of what you're communicating. If other people hold different interpretations, than I might go out and explore them, perhaps they make better sense of the over all context, are aware of some historical factors at the time I wasn't aware of, or had a better grasp of original language, etc...Sometime more than one interpretation sounds equally reasonable, and I can't decide between the two. Sometimes I realize my initial interpretation was wrong.

So, by that logic, maybe your current interpretation of the Bible is wrong?

I decide it based on explanatory power, which one takes into account the context and history better, the overall passage etc... Which one answers more questions than it raises. Sometimes two sides can have equally compelling arguments, in which a decision is not easy to come by.

Sounds good.

[Acrobat]

Such all of Jesus’s parables, that confused even his disciples.

I would argue the opposite, in that the parables while sometimes misunderstood, where a way of Christ talking a seriously complex kingdom principle like loving your neighbor when the society you grew up in was 100% xenophobic and racist to the point where all other races where looked down on, to take them to a new idea that even the lowliest breed or race of people saw and or worked with the idea that made everyone neighbors.

Or how to explain why God will not forgive sins when you do not forgive sins, or even why real souls beyond death can not come back and warn their family. why evil people live among God's people here in this world. Why God seems to bless the wicked.

I think you are confusing Jesus teaching with parables and Jesus straight up main line teaching. As parables where often explained in detail drawing from a relatable story or principal and connecting the dots to a more complex kingdom teaching.

Where Jesus' teaching seem to confuse the most would be when He took the filters of the parables off and used kingdom descriptions to plot and drive a lesson. Perfect example would be the teaching/session Jesus had with the pharisee nicodemus.

3 There was a man named Nicodemus, one of the Pharisees. He was an important Jewish leader. 2 One night he came to Jesus and said, “Teacher, we know that you are a teacher sent from God. No one can do these miraculous signs that you do unless they have God’s help.”
3 Jesus answered, “I assure you, everyone must be born again. Anyone who is not born again cannot be in God’s kingdom.”
4 Nicodemus said, “How can a man who is already old be born again? Can he go back into his mother’s womb and be born a second time?”
5 Jesus answered, “Believe me when I say that everyone must be born from water and the Spirit. Anyone who is not born from water and the Spirit cannot enter God’s kingdom. 6 The only life people get from their human parents is physical. But the new life that the Spirit gives a person is spiritual. 7 Don’t be surprised that I told you, ‘You must be born again.’8 The wind blows wherever it wants to. You hear it, but you don’t know where it is coming from or where it is going. It is the same with everyone who is born from the Spirit.”
9 Nicodemus asked, “How is all this possible?”
10 Jesus said, “You are an important teacher of Israel, and you still don’t understand these things? 11 The truth is, we talk about what we know. We tell about what we have seen. But you people don’t accept what we tell you. 12 I have told you about things here on earth, but you do not believe me. So I’m sure you will not believe me if I tell you about heavenly things! 13 The only one who has ever gone up to heaven is the one who came down from heaven—the Son of Man.
14 “Moses lifted up the snake in the desert.[a] It is the same with the Son of Man. He must be lifted up too. 15 Then everyone who believes in him can have eternal life.”[b]
16 Yes, God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him would not be lost but have eternal life.17 God sent his Son into the world. He did not send him to judge the world guilty, but to save the world through him. 18 People who believe in God’s Son are not judged guilty. But people who do not believe are already judged, because they have not believed in God’s only Son.19 They are judged by this fact: The light[c] has come into the world. But they did not want light. They wanted darkness, because they were doing evil things. 20 Everyone who does evil hates the light. They will not come to the light, because the light will show all the bad things they have done. 21 But anyone who follows the true way comes to the light. Then the light will show that whatever they have done was done through God.

If you think the parables confused or mislead then I ask which ones and why.

I think we risk misunderstanding each other. Even your example, shows that the things Jesus said did confuse people, not just Nicodemus, but even his own disciples. This doesn't mean that Jesus was intentionally trying to confuse people. This doesn't mean that Jesus could have said what he had to say any clearer than how he did. Christ parables may in fact have been as clear as his ideas could ever be expressed. But that doesn't mean they're not difficult to grasp. 

I've read the gospels many times when I was younger, but often times when I'm reading it, it's as if I'm reading it again for the first time. What Christ has to say, is not the sort of things we casually accept, but things we constantly contemplate and engage with the meaning of, rather than read it as open and shut. 

An analogy would be that of a great film, or novel in which the ideas and images stay with you long after the credits have rolled, sometimes for days, or years, or your entire life, thinking about them. 

The Gospels whatever they are about, seem to be as much about the questions as they are the answers. That which requires a life of contemplation, absent of which brings on the folly of pride and destruction.

[John 6IX Breezy]

Hmm I don't know what use explanatory power has, other than to say one explanation has more of it than another. The warfare between explanations is still fought by testing their hypotheses. My guess is that explanatory power belongs more to the philosophy of science than to science itself.

[Acrobat]

Once again, why would they have shared it? Because another author did in a different book? Why hold two different others, who lived at different times and wrote things at different times to the same set of criteria? You're still not explaining this, you just keep going around in circles and then attempt to throw the question back at me.

Patterns of behavior. Deductive reasoning. I expect people who had visions to behave, as other people who had visions to behave, in the similar predictable ways. Unless I have good reason to think other wise, I would expect to see the predicative indicators.

So, by that logic, maybe your current interpretation of the Bible is wrong?

Sure, but I'd have to have a reason to think I was wrong, to realize that. It could also be said that I don't have a closed interpretation of the Bible either, but one continually being worked out, as has been the case for the last 2000 years. The entirety of that almost has nothing to do with literal vs non-literal distinctions. Christianity will always be a religion in dialogue, and that's what makes it a rich tradition for people such as myself.

[EgoDeath]

Patterns of behavior. Deductive reasoning. I expect people who had visions to behave, as other people who had visions to behave, in the similar predictable ways. Unless I have good reason to think other wise, I would expect to see the predicative indicators.

Not if they were from completely different times in the world. Or maybe they could just be two people who have different ideas of how to share a revelatory experience. It seems your only reasoning to think what you think is that you want to think it. You have no real evidence for what you're saying, it's just an opinion, based on your own reasoning.

Sure

Okay, good to know.

[Acrobat]

Patterns of behavior. Deductive reasoning. I expect people who had visions to behave, as other people who had visions to behave, in the similar predictable ways. Unless I have good reason to think other wise, I would expect to see the predicative indicators.

Not if they were from completely different times in the world. Or maybe they could just be two people who have different ideas of how to share a revelatory experience. It seems your only reasoning to think what you think is that you want to think it. You have no real evidence for what you're saying, it's just an opinion, based on your own reasoning.

Unless I have good reasons to think human beings in the past behaved differently when exposed to similar stimuli, than humans beings in the present, then I expect them to follow the same predictable patterns. In fact plenty of people in the past wrote of having visions, etc, including in the Bible. So it does seem that this tendency was present then as it is now.

[EgoDeath]

Unless I have good reasons to think human beings in the past behaved differently when exposed to similar stimuli, than humans beings in the present, then I expect them to follow the same predictable patterns. In fact plenty of people in the past wrote of having visions, etc, including in the Bible. So it does seem that this tendency was present then as it is now.

Not necessarily. You're just assuming they'd behave the same because that's what you want to believe. The truth is, you don't know, and you can't stand to admit that.

You're arguing that the creation story isn't literal because it wasn't announced at the beginning of genesis that it was literal. But by this logic, the creation of Adam and Eve isn't literal either, right?

Also, we can then assume that the vast majority of the Bible isn't literal too, right?

All you're doing in this argument with me is proving that, in your view, with your reasoning, you know what is literal and what isn't. To you. You haven't proved anything outside of that. And you certainly haven't proven that any sort of interpretation of the Bible is more valid than another.