Quote:I did not say I agree that interpretations are arbitrary. Please don't add things to my position that I didn't say.
[definition of arbitrary: based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system.]
Just because something is open to interpretation doesn't mean that it can be interpreted any damn way. Just because something is non-literal doesn't mean that any damn meaning can be assigned to it.
By this definition, any statement can be understood arbitrarily since there is no standard—that is, there are no obvious meanings. Hermeneutics? If Biblical Hermeneutics had been invented and, more importantly, was being in writing books before or during the Bible was being written, and if people only use those basics without coming up with new ones or altering them, they won't be considered arbitrary interpretations.
I need to look up the history of Biblical Hermeneutics regarding when exactly it was first used, where it was being used and its evolution.
Quote:In the saying attributed to Jesus, "let him who is without sin cast the first stone," the meaning is non-literal. (In the context of the story, people are holding stones, but the meaning is supposed to be applicable to non-stone-holding situations.) Does this mean that I can interpret it to mean that it is good for me to do violence? A psychopath certainly could reach that conclusion, or an arbitrary computer bot. Could a reasonable person?
Most people would understand this according to the context, but some verses are not that clear. I did not say that it applies to all verses.
I can't speak for all psychopaths or other people with atypical processing of information, but, yes, some could. A psychopath is reasonable in his/her own way, just as normal people are reasonable in their own way. A God who presumably created people, including psychopaths, should have considered this by making the unclear statements clear enough for everyone to get them right. It is typical of humans to ignore the minority. That's another human feature that we regularly find in holy books.
Quote:Several times on this thread I have said that hermeneutics is difficult. How we interpret a non-literal sentence is a challenge, not something we can just do however we want.
As long as the basics of Biblical interpretations do not change over time to suit our evolving culture and knowledge, and had all been invented/used before or during the Bible was being written, it should be fine. If the basics used in interpreting the Bible are new, they are arbitrary, because, any interpretation that is based on what we think is reasonable describes us, and not what the religion calls for.
Quote:Moreover, many people who offer new interpretations of a famous story do so without claiming that their reading is the one and only, true forever best reading. Have you read Zizek's interpretation of the Clytemnestra story? He gets a fascinating lesson out of it, without in any way claiming to replace or supersede previous readings.
Balequa, I never said we can't take some morals from arbitrary interpretations of stories or even holy texts. It still does not prove that supernatural beings exist. Mostly, we don't need to be told how to behave appropriately, because it is intuitive, and we learn by experience.
Quote:Is the parable of the sower agricultural advice? I hold that it was meant non-literally. Most Christians do, also, since it is labeled as a parable.
No, that was not what I meant. I was speaking generally. Depending on when exactly the basics of Biblical Hermeneutics used to interpret each statement were invented, we can determine whether it was actually meant to be literal or non-literal, and if non-literal, what was the intended meaning. What you and other Christians think does not matter in this case because, again, people try to interpret them according to what makes sense to them. Some statements are obvious, but others are not. Again, I am not speaking specifically about the example you mentioned; I am speaking generally.
Quote:Maybe so. I don't want to speak about other people's minds, and why they believe things. No doubt there are good thinkers and bad thinkers in the world.
Aside from the motivations people have, though, there are myths that are interpreted non-literally as tools to think about things. Neither Aristophanes nor Socrates, for example, believed the myths they recounted in the Symposium. If we keep in mind that such usage of myths was well known in ancient times, I see no reason to think that their use of myths won't be informed by such practices.
I don't believe in any myths, I hope. I do find the discussion of myths to be relevant to moral and human issues, just as fiction like Proust is informative about moral and human issues. I don't have to believe in the literal existence of Job or of Charlus to find these stories helpful.
Yes, they can be motivational.
This way of interpreting myths is the one most people today use, but, in the past, people certainly believed in most/all of them. There is no evidence that all of those myths were meant to be demonstrative "stories" that were not believed to have actually been true.
You seem to be focusing on the morals that can be derived from the Bible, and not on the truth about the origin of the Bible itself. Sure, you can always get morals from any "holy" book. I do that myself.
Quote:Well, I guess it's too bad that they didn't ask you how to do it. Rather than dream about a counterfactual ideal past, I think we should learn to deal with myth, religion, literature, and human issues in the way that history gives them to us, without dumbing down the wisdom and beauty they sometimes contain.
It should have been ideal because that is how supernatural beings are described in religions. Those silly flaws I explained are human flaws, and should not have been evident in "holy" books that are supposedly peculiar. If I were one of the authors of any ancient holy book, I probably would have made some of those mistakes because some of them could not have been avoided unless the authors were being helped by someone who knew about the 21st century's Science and morals.
Accepting the truth that is based on logic that the holy texts are not actually holy does not mean we should abandon all the wisdom and morals in them. They are a good source for history.
Quote:I still maintain that the wisdom of literature comes largely in its varied applicability independent of the specifics of the text.
Yes, but when texts are interpreted differently than was intended, it is not the author's wisdom, it is the interpreter's. But wisdom can still be found, literally and non-literally, in ancient literature in general; however, again, this does not prove that a god exists.
