RE: Literal and Not Literal
August 30, 2019 at 6:18 am
(This post was last modified: August 30, 2019 at 6:19 am by Fake Messiah.)
(August 30, 2019 at 5:29 am)Belaqua Wrote: I am saying that they interpret the Bible in a literal way,
Nope, you are quite clear that they are wrong and even calling them stupid.
(August 30, 2019 at 5:29 am)Belaqua Wrote: and that we have good historical reasons to believe that it hasn't always been interpreted literally.
Actually quite the opposite. Start with character of Jesus himself who was literalist believed in the Flood, Jonah, six day creation. Or let's say we take the story of Adam and Eve as only as a metaphor. So, in order to impress himself, Jesus had himself tortured and executed, in vicarious punishment for a symbolic sin committed by a non-existent individual? Seems barking mad, as well as viciously unpleasant.
(August 30, 2019 at 5:29 am)Belaqua Wrote: I have never said that anyone is or is not a True Christian.
Really? Then explain me how can a group of Christians be true Christians and interpret Bible completely wrong?
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
