RE: Literal and Not Literal
August 28, 2019 at 9:56 am
(This post was last modified: August 28, 2019 at 9:57 am by Acrobat.)
(August 28, 2019 at 9:08 am)Fake Messiah Wrote: When I see that phrase “The Bible is not a textbook of science.”, I automatically translate it as, “The Bible is not entirely true,” for that is what it means. The “nontextbook” claim, of course, is a rationale for believers to pick and choose what they consider really true in scripture—or, for liberal Muslims like Reza Aslan, in the Quran.
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.
Scientific and historical truths are superficial. If all the questions of science were answered all the questions of human life would remain untouched, as Wittgenstein would put it.
If I think of all the really important things I want my children to know, it wouldn’t include some peer reviewed scientific study, or any set of historical facts.
These important truths might fall into a category we call “moral truths”, how to be and live in the fractured world in front of them. The sort of the truths that are important to communities, friends, families, to the nature of human life, but less important than the truths one derive in pristine laboratories, or an archeological dig.
Where are as you might say such truths, aren’t real truths, unlike scientific and historical truths, I say the opposite. That these are the things truly worthy of being called truth.
Its why Einstein would praise Dostoevsky, as giving him “more than any scientist, more than Gauss”.
It’s the nature of this more important thing being given, that’s neither science or history, that remains elusive to your type.
