[Serious] Literal and Not Literal

[Foxaèr]

To touch on something else that has been brought up as though it is veritable gospel:

You cannot know what the writers had in mind or meant when they wrote what they did.

Ever heard of interpretative understanding? It is done all the time in school, where you read a poem or short story or book and then exercise your mind by attempting to think what the author could have meant by that blue curtain billowing from the breeze of the open window.

By placing myself in the mind of the writer by reading his works, I can absolutely understand what he meant when he wrote what he did. In fact, sometimes new interpretive meanings are derived from such exercises. Heck, even new religious schisms are born from branching away from what is considered outdated interpretations.

[Fake Messiah]

To touch on something else that has been brought up as though it is veritable gospel:

You cannot know what the writers had in mind or meant when they wrote what they did.

Ever heard of interpretative understanding? It is done all the time in school, where you read a poem or short story or book and then exercise your mind by attempting to think what the author could have meant by that blue curtain billowing from the breeze of the open window.

By placing myself in the mind of the writer by reading his works, I can absolutely understand what he meant when he wrote what he did. In fact, sometimes new interpretive meanings are derived from such exercises. Heck, even new religious schisms are born from branching away from what is considered outdated interpretations.

Exactly. That's how it is with fiction and therefore Bible as well, and not like Plato's "Republic". Imagine if let's say if United States Constitution was written in poetry and metaphors and stories, then you would have wars waging for what each of the amendments really means. But it is not. It was written in straight forward crystal language that even when translated doesn't lose it's meaning.

[GrandizerII]

Given what I know about how people, living in remote villages away from the influence of modernism and naturalistic way of thinking, having the tendency to take these religious stories for granted, then it's reasonable that the ancient people back then more similar to these villagers than to modern scientifically-minded societies also perhaps took these stories for granted.

Are you sure the stories were meant to be literal explanations of nature? In every case? Or were they from the beginning intended as moral lessons? Are all such people the same?

I'm not sure. I've been very clear about that. You're not sure either, right?

Then there's the question of who wrote the myths in Genesis. There's a common and almost certainly false assumption that they began with "bronze age goat-herders." Some historians think that the myths originated with the most educated and literate people long after the Bronze Age, for clear political and moral purposes.

For clear political and moral purposes does not necessarily mean they intended the stories they penned down/edited/compiled to not be taken literally.

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Furthermore these stories were not written out of whole cloths in the sense that there were no prior myths from which these were based. This I can say with certainty.

[EgoDeath]

Twenty-five pages later and @Belaqua has still not made one single coherent claim. Just going round and round about how none of us can know anything for sure. Life's just a big bottle of Dr. Pepper; no one knows what flavor they're tasting.

[Acrobat]

It's peculiar in the same way pursuit of real understanding of reality is peculiar to those who find happy delusion entirely sufficient for the small wish thinking life that looks for nothing bigger, better founded or more substantial.

It doesn’t actually follow, its hard to think that when you’re referring to freedom here, that you’re speaking of an acceptance of a particular set of scientific or historical facts about reality. I doubt you would present me a series of peer reviewed scientific studies, and imply that if I accepted them, I would obtain the sort of “freedom” you’re referring to.

This peculiar freedom reminds me of the verse “the truth shall set you free”. Some like Nietzsche would suggest that your belief in a liberating truth, is inherited from Christianity, but I think you believe this because there is some truth to it, one that you recognize at some level but don’t understand.

In the acquisition of some set of scientific and historic truths did you gain this freedom? It doesn’t look like it.

I repeat it for the purpose of making it clear just what contortion and willful self deception your ilk go through to derive an ultimately sterile comfort from the morally sickening.

You seem to be saying this more for yourself than for me, you have some need to believe this, more so than out of some sort of empathetic desire to get me to recognize my condition. Is this the nature of the freedom you’re trying to sell us on? It doesn’t look very free. In fact it sounds rather out of touch with the reality here, consistent with lack of clarity in introspection common among delusions.

[GrandizerII]

What I'm about to say here is mostly speculative and requires imagination, but I can easily imagine how myths in general would have come about.

Let's say you live in the older days before Christ, before the influence of ancient Greek thought and such. You see an impressive rock somewhere in the wild on your path to wherever you're going. You look at it, admire it, and see if you can move it, only to realize it's immovable. You think hmmmm, the gods must have put that rock there. You tell that basic story to your family and friends, asserting it as true rather than wondering if it is or not. Your kids believe it, they tell other kids, these kids believe it as well. Your fellow adults believe it because it sounds like it's true. With time it becomes a very well-accepted story and people take it for granted. Extra details are added to the story to explain things that were pondered about the story ... such as why it was put there. One person believes there was a fight that happened between good God and evil serpent, and serpent was defeated and God placed a rock over the serpent's body. Quakes would happen often around that area, so people thought that must be the snake trying to shake its way out of where it was trapped. Others came with different explanations. All nevertheless intended to be taken as true. One of the explanations dominated the other for various reasons and it became the accepted truth among the clan. So now we have a case where a story started out as a simple basic statement then over time evolved to a more elaborate story that was still plausibly true given what they already believed, and all this happening without the need to lie or consciously make up stuff.

[Acrobat]

What I'm about to say here is mostly speculative and requires imagination, but I can easily imagine how myths in general would have come about.

Let's say you live in the older days before Christ, before the influence of ancient Greek thought and such. You see an impressive rock somewhere in the wild on your path to wherever you're going. You look at it, admire it, and see if you can move it, only to realize it's immovable. You think hmmmm, the gods must have put that rock there. You tell that basic story to your family and friends, asserting it as true rather than wondering if it is or not. Your kids believe it, they tell other kids, these kids believe it as well. Your fellow adults believe it because it sounds like it's true. With time it becomes a very well-accepted story and people take it for granted. Extra details are added to the story to explain things that were pondered about the story ... such as why it was put there. One person believes there was a fight that happened between good God and evil serpent, and serpent was defeated and God placed a rock over the serpent's body. Quakes would happen often around that area, so people thought that must be the snake trying to shake its way out of where it was trapped. Others came with different explanations. All nevertheless intended to be taken as true. One of the explanations dominated the other for various reasons and it became the accepted truth among the clan. So now we have a case where a story started out as a simple basic statement then over time evolved to a more elaborate story that was still plausibly true given what they already believed, and all this happening without the need to lie or consciously make up stuff.

What would be the purpose of telling people that God put a rock there? Why would anyone care to believe it one way or the other?

Most people don’t care about the science of rock formations, why do you think civilizations with lot more pressing things going on would care just because someone said God formed the useless rock sitting over there?

Most of what is taught in school regarding science, is primarily because we see that knowledge as usual to possess, and to churn scientific curiosity and reasoning in others? Clearly it’s not this sort of purpose religious stories were attempting to mimic. They werent trying to get people to think historically or scientifically, so what purpose would this quasi-science have served, in such a context?

I think the explanation you’re trying to give for religious myths and stories, doesn’t add up, and doesn’t seem to recognize the unique aspects that form the role which science and history play in values and thinking today, that didn’t exist in the past.

[GrandizerII]

What I'm about to say here is mostly speculative and requires imagination, but I can easily imagine how myths in general would have come about.

Let's say you live in the older days before Christ, before the influence of ancient Greek thought and such. You see an impressive rock somewhere in the wild on your path to wherever you're going. You look at it, admire it, and see if you can move it, only to realize it's immovable. You think hmmmm, the gods must have put that rock there. You tell that basic story to your family and friends, asserting it as true rather than wondering if it is or not. Your kids believe it, they tell other kids, these kids believe it as well. Your fellow adults believe it because it sounds like it's true. With time it becomes a very well-accepted story and people take it for granted. Extra details are added to the story to explain things that were pondered about the story ... such as why it was put there. One person believes there was a fight that happened between good God and evil serpent, and serpent was defeated and God placed a rock over the serpent's body. Quakes would happen often around that area, so people thought that must be the snake trying to shake its way out of where it was trapped. Others came with different explanations. All nevertheless intended to be taken as true. One of the explanations dominated the other for various reasons and it became the accepted truth among the clan. So now we have a case where a story started out as a simple basic statement then over time evolved to a more elaborate story that was still plausibly true given what they already believed, and all this happening without the need to lie or consciously make up stuff.

What would be the purpose of telling people that God put a rock there? Why would anyone care to believe it one way or the other?

Most people don’t care about the science of rock formations, why do you think civilizations with lot more pressing things going on would care just because someone said God formed the useless rock sitting over there?

Most of what is taught in school regarding science, is primarily because we see that knowledge as usual to possess, and to churn scientific curiosity and reasoning in others? Clearly it’s not this sort of purpose religious stories were attempting to mimic. They werent trying to get people to think historically or scientifically, so what purpose would this quasi-science have served, in such a context?

You have your mind set up already, though I don't quite understand this level of unwarranted certainty you possess. There's no point arguing with you.

[Acrobat]

What would be the purpose of telling people that God put a rock there? Why would anyone care to believe it one way or the other?

Most people don’t care about the science of rock formations, why do you think civilizations with lot more pressing things going on would care just because someone said God formed the useless rock sitting over there?

Most of what is taught in school regarding science, is primarily because we see that knowledge as usual to possess, and to churn scientific curiosity and reasoning in others? Clearly it’s not this sort of purpose religious stories were attempting to mimic. They werent trying to get people to think historically or scientifically, so what purpose would this quasi-science have served, in such a context?

You have your mind set up already, though I don't quite understand this level of unwarranted certainty you possess. There's no point arguing with you.

Sure, I have a naturalistic alternative view of how and why religions developed, that I find better able to account for its development, than the one you’re trying to convey. Because the one you’re trying to say makes little sense, hence why i pointed out the flaw in your rock example.

What purpose would anyone have trying to sell their community on some divinely formed rock? Why would such a thing be so important that they would want their children and subsequent generations to know this as well?

Regarding certainty, my certainty develops in any particular conclusion, based on explanatory power, the ability of a conclusion to resolve more questions than it creates. That if you could poke reasonable holes in my conclusions like the way I do yours, I might have to rethink them.

[GrandizerII]

You have your mind set up already, though I don't quite understand this level of unwarranted certainty you possess. There's no point arguing with you.

Sure, I have a naturalistic alternative view of how and why religions developed, that I find better able to account for its development, than the one your trying to convey. Because the one you’re trying to say makes little sense, hence why i pointed out the flaw in your rock example?

What purpose would anyone have trying to sell their community on some divinely formed rock? Why would such a thing be so important that they would want their children and subsequent generations to know this as well?

It's an impressive rock that prompted one person to think it was placed there directly by the gods ... It became a story as a result ... People loved the story about that impressive rock and it became true to them

People saw snake skins shed in the wild. They made stories out of them. That's the way it went back then. To satisfy their curiosity in the absence of proper scientific tools and mindset, that's what they had. They had other types of stories, sure. They also had this type of story.

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You have your mind set up already, though I don't quite understand this level of unwarranted certainty you possess. There's no point arguing with you.

Regarding certainty, my certainty develops in any particular conclusion, based on explanatory power, the ability of a conclusion to resolve more questions than it creates. That if you could poke reasonable holes in my conclusions like the way I do yours, I might have to rethink them.

You're asking why questions, you're not poking holes, lol.

Perhaps you can explain to me then the whole thing with the resurrection.

Was it intended to be a true account from the start?