RE: Admitting You're a Sinner
January 22, 2018 at 6:01 am
(This post was last modified: January 22, 2018 at 6:03 am by vulcanlogician.)
(January 22, 2018 at 5:27 am)Khemikal Wrote: They may even reference something overtly absurd as a way, by metaphor, of establishing the theological truth which the narrative is meant to convey. These, we commonly call "miracles". Jumping forward in magic book to one of the most illustrative examples...consider the loaves and the fishes. Are we to believe that this is a news report from galillean shorefront...wherein a magic man made the absurd a reality, splitting a few loaves of bread and a couple of fish to the point where it could feed a multiude? Or is this..instead, an exposition of the ability of magic mans theology to satisfy many with very little? Of being a redemptive chalice which is not only running over...but which cannot be drained no matter how many drink from it?
This has been addressed on the forums before I'm sure, but the miracles obviously represent allegory. Take the fig tree example. Jesus cursed it for not providing fruit, even though the fruit was out of season. Why would he do this? It makes more sense to view the whole account as a metaphor for the temple being destroyed.
And yet, Christians are told to treat the miracles as literal events. Does this mean The Actual Jesus™ actually went through the motions of cursing the fig tree just so it could be written down later and its symbollic meaning thus transmitted? That just doesn't make sense.
"You're lucky, bitch. The only reason I cured your kid's leprosy is cuz it fits into some grand metaphor."
But if the accounts are meant to simply portray events, its a bit presumptuous to go assigning allegorical meaning to them. One may even say sacreligious. Then again, if one takes all the allegory out of the NT, it becomes a truly meaningless and nihilistic document.
