[Serious] Literal and Not Literal

[Acrobat]

Secondly interpreting the text, and following whatever the text dictates are not the same thing.

Sure it is. If you know what all of the rules are, but then choose to not follow certain rules, you're cherry-picking which rules to follow and which to ignore.

Read what i said again.

The argument/accusation was over cherry picking what’s literal and non-literal. This is the accusation I’ve been addressing.

To try and change it to cherry picking what I follow and don’t follow, is moving the goal posts.

There you go, being disingenuous again. I actually never accused you of cherry-picking. I asked you what made you so sure that you weren't?

And I’ve responded multiple times to this, by being consistent, pointing out that I no more cherry pick what’s meant as literal vs non-literal, then I do when recognizing what’s sarcasm and not sarcasm. I even outlined this consistent methodology.

A methodology that doesn’t treat the Bible any different than any other text. One that doesn’t require a different approach to reading the Koran, or Buddhist scriptures, or Plato etc....

Now, you can say that’s not a good or valid approach to avoid cherry picking what literal or not in the Bible, and indicate why, or say that seem to be reasonable way to avoid it, etc..

What do you mean by unanimous interpretation?

An interpretation that all Christians can agree on.

Not even churches, require their parishioners to agree on a single interpretation of every passage of the Bible. Most of them like mine understand that people can have reasonable disagreements, and that it okay to have such disagreements. Churches may have sets of core non-negotiable beliefs, like the Niccean creed, but an agreement in interpretation of the entire Bible isn’t one of them.

I care less about how other Christians interpret the Bible, and more about what motivates and drives that interpretation, if it’s driven by a desire to appease the current culture, out of selfishness, hatred, resentment, etc... or just honest disagreement.

I remember people use to try and say that when Jesus spoke of the impossibly of the rich entering the kingdom of Heaven, likening to a camel going through the eye of a needle, would try to suggest that eye of the needle was a gate in Jerusalem where the camel just had to stoop. But no such gate exists, and it was made up around the 15th century.

Several other attempts have been made to soften this passage. But the motivation for any this doesn’t seem to be reasonableness, an alternative interpretation with the parameters of the text, and it’s context, but rather to be more palatable for the wealthy.

Another example of when slave owners started becoming interested in converting their slaves to Christianity, by giving them censored versions of the Bible, to exclude stories like Exodus, by monitoring their services and religious gathering, sermons, etc...

What motivates such attempts, wasn’t out of concern for the souls of the slaves, but quell any desire for uprising.

I don’t care that us 2 billions Christians don’t share a single interpretation of the entire Bible, but rather what motivates these interpretations, whether it’s honest disagreement, or bad intentions, etc..

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The inward knowledge is ultimately only of any value whatsoever if it enables the individual to better gain and leverage knowledge of the reality outside for his survival.

Without ever enlarging knowledge of the outside world, inner knowledge is a sterile masturbation. Inner knowledge by itself can not offer any possibility whatsoever of forestalling extinction, it can only accelerate extinction by creating the delusion of forestalling extinction and thus prevent measures that can be taken from being recognized as necessary.  Inner knowledge that does not dovetail with acquisition of outside knowledge is truely pure escapism with no redeeming value whatsoever.

Outside knowledge by itself can only forestall extinction for so long.  But it can.   What is more it can contribute to forestalling extinction for longer  because it directly contributes to further acquisition of further outside knowledge that can forestall extinction beyond that point.

"The mystery of human existence lies not in just staying alive, but in finding something to live for" - Dosteovsky

People, the human creature, isn't ultimately looking for ways to survive and forestall extinction. Our evolutionary brothers have managed to survive and reproduce for a long time absent of the sort of contemplate minds, and the knowledge acquired by them we possess. Foolish people as a whole, are no less likely to survive and have offspring as the wise. If you live a life absent of love, you probably wouldn't want to live very long, even if you had all the tools for survival at your disposal. You just might choose a gun to your head, over them.

What we ultimately seek is meaning and purpose, which isn't reducible to survival and forestalling extinction. We seek something to live for, then to merely just live.

What a peculiar desire? That causes people even when they seem to materially have everything, to speak of a void, an absence in their life.
What is it seeking? What is to fill it? Not bread alone.

Here we are staring into another universe, a near infinite uncharted territory not out there, but in here. A profound and terrible place, that we fear looking into, and seeing the reflection staring back at us. No wonder we prefer to occupy ourselves with the world out there instead. "Tell us about what you see out there, what objective truths lay out in front of it, rather than tell us what you see in us". "Tell me about you oh God, in a way that doesn't tell me about myself"