God's God

[archangle]

Although this is aside from the OP, I felt like responding to this "literal" vs. non-literal thing.

If we were arguing over an ancient book about Santa Claus (or Gilgamesh, or Allah, or any other mythical creation of man) would it really matter as to how one decides to interpret such fictional claims when those claims haven't been demonstrated? Lots of ancient texts make lots of claims to the supernatural. Now, if one doesn't take those passages "literally" (provided we have agreed upon a definition of that term - mine is generally that such claims actually happened in the physical corporeal world of experience), the said religion loses it's teeth! Are Christians asking us not to take the alleged resurrection of Jesus literally? How about "salvation"? Is that just a figure of speech but not really "literal"? And what about eternal torment in a lake of fire for those who disbelieve and/or reject Christ as their "personal Lord and Savior"?? Is that just metaphor?

Christianity, as far as I see it, loses all of it's power over anyone when you let those things travel down the metaphor ladder. Should we take every single thing in the 66 books of the old and new testaments in exactly the same way? Of course not, and it doesn't really sound like Lord Privy Seal is making that case either. But now let's turn the tables. Should we take everything figuratively then?? It sounds to me like there could be a red herring going on, or at least one is talking past the other. Apologists often pull out the "out of context!" card to rationalize their presupposition regarding the text of the bible. If your claim is that Lord Privy is doing that in the reverse I think you are attacking a strawman. The argument is that without taking these passages as they read (at face value), they are of no consequence and don't effect our lives in any significant way (i.e. - b/c they're fiction and/or metaphor and/or not binding in any significant way). Therefore, we can simply just chuck them out and live our lives b/c they carry no weight (just like all the other religious books in history) and have no authoritative power (Does God literally, or just figuratively, want us all to be "saved"?).

But of course, that is not what religious apologists want us to think. Now, if apologists were only arguing that the bible is only good for academic study but isn't really pertinent to your lives there would be no need in having this debate (b/c again the religion would be expressing no power over anything we experience - Is the afterlife "figurative"?). But doesn't this seem quite a contradiction? "I'm arguing for the truth of the bible but I don't really take the supernatural claims literally." Uh, what? Things don't play out like this in the real world (which is one of the reasons we are having this discussion for so many hundreds of years). Those who often argue vehemently for their theology overwhelmingly do so because they believe their religious views are literally true - that there is a literal invisible deity person named Yahweh, that Jesus literally rose from the dead (only by the divine supernatural agency power of Yahweh), that there is a literal afterlife, that God will literally punish you if you reject his command, etc.

Pulling out the context card doesn't do anything b/c you can makeup just about any context you want to in order to fit what you want the text to say (see the thousands of Christian sects today who do just that and can't agree on anything completely). So then, at BEST, what we ought to be doing is suspending judgment, refraining from enacting laws based upon theological/religious underlying motivation (until their alleged deity demonstrates itself consistently to all), and halting all attempts at defending any supernaturalism within the front and back of that leather bound collection called the bible.

Yet still, I want to know why Christians take ANY of the alleged supernatural claims in the bible as actually (i.e. - literally) true, while rejecting the supernatural claims of other holy books. And THAT, is why we are having these types of discussions (at least for me). So in different senses I agree with both of you. I don't take the bible literally, simply because I don't think it's claims have met their burden of proof, but I do take the texts to mean what they say (especially when an overwhelming amount of Christians state clearly that they believe these things literally). Thus, I don't take it literally in a "truth" sense but in a "claim" sense b/c these are the things Christian apologists are generally trying to state and defend.

god aint jealous. I don't get that out of the bible at all.

"You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God” (Exodus 20:4-5)

I don't take it literally. You will need to provide some evidence that shows me your "evil god" wrote the book.

yes, religion's power should never be such that it can motivate us kill another human being in the name of 'my god". yes again, to a literal person, thinking out side of the "literal" word makes no sense. Like "that is one bad ride". And we have plenty of these types of atheists and theist. The word means exactly what they see. They see no more.