[Serious] Literal and Not Literal

[Acrobat]

@Acrobat

Don't you find it peculiar that no Christian ever admits to cherry-picking from the Bible? Since we cannot pin down which is the correct interpretation, according to you and @Belaqua, isn't it safe to assume that most Christians are getting it wrong, since there can be as many interpretations as there are Christians?

How do you figure that you're not cherry-picking when certainly plenty of Christians are? What makes you so sure you're not guilty?

Atheists accuse every Christian of cherry picking.

Atheists have no definition of what it would mean to read the Bible in a way that doesn’t cherry pick.

So I take it when atheists accuse theists of cherry picking that they do so thoughtlessly.

I can think of some rules to not cherry picking which I follow:

1. read the Bible in the way you would any other text.

2. There should be no difference in how the meaning of the text is understand if one day you didn’t believe in God, or subscribed to another religion.

3. Your dislike of what a passage says, your uncomfortably with violence, your desire not to hold views offensive to many modern people should have no impact on your reading of the Bible.

4. Your understandinv of any particular text, passage, scripture should be one that holds greater explanatory power than any competing interpretations, choose the interpretation best consistent with the context, that answers more questions that it raises, when it comes to reading.

5. Don’t imagine biblical writers as mutants, but people very much like ourselves, living in a much tougher less comfortable word. Contemplate the sort of questions that would have most mattered to them. Be aware of the application of anachronism, unique feature of our period and time, absent in there’s.

6. Your reading of the Bible should be consistent with how you read other religious text, or other text in general, with incorporate the same styles of writing. There should be a different way in which the Genesis creation is story is read, than other pagan creation stories at the time, just because you subscribe to one religion but not the other.


These sound like good rules for avoiding cherry picking? If so if you want to accuse me of cherry picking, which rule did I violate?

If you have some other rules you think should be included to avoid cherry picking let me know what that is.

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And the rock story is accepted as literally true as a result of that faith.

That’s not faith. Replace faith with a word like hope, and perhaps you’d see the problem.

“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”

We can all see this rock, notice it’s an impressive looking rock, it’s not a rock we’re hoping to see or obtain.

Refer back to my ETA about how fundies argue for literal Genesis in much the same way you're arguing for literal Resurrection.

Fundies don’t. I talk with fundies all the time both online in other groups and in person.

They don’t argue for literalism of Genesis the way I argued the resurrection was meant literally. In fact their defense of literalism usually has nothing to do with how the story is interpreted and understand in itself, but it’s supposed impact on how other scripture in other books, or on their particular theological views are impacted by it.

In addition pretty much none of the meanings I derive from the text, are controversial to fundies. They don’t require an acceptance or rejection of literalism, but do make it unnecessary. Fundies for the most part more frequently agree with me than disagree with me.

I don’t have a contentious relationship with them as a result of my Religious beliefs. They understand that the acceptance of Christianity, isn’t reducible to the acceptance of scientific and historic facts, or quasi-equivalents. That even if we accepted everything ever suggested as literal as literal history, that wouldn’t equate to acceptance of Christianity, or make one a Christian, because even demons could believe such things, if they were true.

In facts fundie, in their official documents of faith, indicate that the acceptance of literalism isn’t a salvation issue, that it shouldn’t be elevated to a creed:

From the Chicago Statement of Inerrancy:

The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy states:

“We affirm that a confession of the full authority, infallibility and inerrancy of Scripture is vital to a sound understanding of the whole of the Christian faith. We further affirm that such confession should lead to increasing conformity to the image of Christ.

We deny that such confession is necessary for salvation. ”