A Book?

[lilphil1989]

Without evidence, how do you decide what is meaningless, and what isn't?

Using rationalisation

Surely rationalisation has to be based on some kind of evidence?
If not, can you describe the rationalisation for me?

sorry, I misunderstood. I thought you meant that you had observed things that applied.
So you're saying that everything in the bible is direct observation?

I didn't say that. There are observations of God. Of Gods involvement & interactions with humans...

I think that observation is too strong a word, in that they could just as easily be purely fiction.
But anyway, how do these "observations" apply to your life?

The gospel of the flying spaghetti monster contains observations about His noodly holiness.
Whether or not they are true is a different matter.

Show me where in the Bible it says that the Sun orbits the earth.

Psalm 93:
The world is firmly established;
it cannot be moved.

In Joshua 10, the sun is made to "stand still". But in a solar-centric model of the solar system this is meaningless.

Psalm 93 - you can't be serious!

Why not? This part isn't meant to be taken literally because..... ?
Describe your process of differentiating between fact, fiction and metaphor.

Very obviously the story in Joshua is allegorical. I'll place you in the nutters pigeonhole with the Creationists then.

How do you decide what is allegorical and what literal truth?
Personal incredulity?
Random choice?
Social acceptability? (e.g "all the parts where god condones slavery must be metaphorical, because it's socially unacceptabe to condone slavery")

And as Kyu rightly pointed out, your decision on what's true could differ wildly to another christian's.
But the truth isn't open to decisions on what's true. The truth is the truth.
So for your bible to hold any truth value at all there must be a reliable, consistent, way of choosing truth, that is independant of the "chooser".

It follows the logic. Brings the benefits promised from the rationalisations leading to the reasons for leaping.

What are the benefits?