How much of the Bible do you believe literally?

[EvolutionKills]

I believe the part where some dudes ate some fish, that seems plausible.

[xpastor]

Well, when I started this thread, I was hoping that the fundamentalists would supply us with some interesting commentary on the physiology of talking snakes and the physics of an instantaneous stop in the earth's rotation.

However, they are not forthcoming. I wonder why.

[Minimalist]

Even if it was something that largely happened inside peoples heads what happened in their heads can still be very real. But the historical events, people and places we know are real people, events and places in their historical context as they are described. When you get to Genesis and other stories that's some level of spiritual portrayed in parable and dream visions and that kind of thing, it's not a literal account of how the Earth was formed and life evolved but it all ties in.

Couldn't the gospels be metaphors as well?

Only if "metaphor" is Greek for "bullshit."

[Tonus]

Even if it was something that largely happened inside peoples heads what happened in their heads can still be very real.

THE BIBLE: NOT MUCH DIFFERENT FROM A SUBDURAL HEMATOMA.

[Sword of Christ]

THE BIBLE: NOT MUCH DIFFERENT FROM A SUBDURAL HEMATOMA.

Mind to mind communication, Gods mind to mans mind. Mans mind being limited will only get the gist from the telepathic contact there but that's how the Bible was formed. It's very different from stories such as Jason and the band of Argonauts or whatever there's more content of some kind to be found in there.

[TaraJo]

I kinda look at the Bible the way I'd look at the telephone game when I was little. For those of you who don't remember (or didn't play that), the first kid started by whispering something into the ear of the person next to him. The person next to him whispered the same message into the ear of the next person and so on until they got to the end. What always happened was that the message at the end wound up being wildly different from the message that was initially sent out.

Simply put, every time a story is told by a new person, it will change slightly.

Now, look at the Bible. The overwhelming majority of the stories weren't written by the people who experienced them. When you got a story like Noah's Ark, for example, there may have been a grain of truth to start out (I've heard rumors of a land owner who built an ark for his livestock when seasonal floods came around), but over time, as those stories are passed down from person to person, translated from one language to he next and adapted from one culture to the next, they tend to change. Eventually, the story that wound up in the Bible has no resemblence to the story that originally happened.

[Sword of Christ]

For those of you who don't remember (or didn't play that), the first kid started by whispering something into the ear of the person next to him.

There may be some truth to this but as long as the first person to do the whispering was God.

[orangebox21]

For instance, do you believe

there was a talking serpent who tempted Adam and Eve? (Gen. 3:1)

there was a talking donkey? (Num. 22:28)

the sun stood still in the sky for a whole day? (Jos. 10:13)

a shadow moved backwards on command? (2 Ki. 20;11; Isa. 38:8)

the prophet Elijah was taken up to heaven in a chariot of fire? (2 Ki. 2:11)

Jesus ascended to heaven? (Acts 1:9-11)

Skeptics, feel free to ask about other impossible events.

Theists, feel free to tell about other miraculous events you believe in or to explain which parts of the bible you believe only in a figurative sense.

I'll bite. Of all the provided instances above I say yes these all happened as written. (Although I'll admit I don't know what a "chariot of fire" is or looks like.) You interpret the Bible and said events through your worldview and religion of naturalism. You believe that the ultimate authority of truth is natural processes, laws of science, laws of logic and reason, etc, which is really an appeal to man's collective authority. Your religion rules out anything supernatural. So if something were to have happened supernaturally you would reject it as having happened or not being possible because it cannot be explained in terms of man's understanding. I'll note here that this reasoning is a violation of the laws of logic (argument from ignorance).

[xpastor]

I'll bite. Of all the provided instances above I say yes these all happened as written. (Although I'll admit I don't know what a "chariot of fire" is or looks like.) You interpret the Bible and said events through your worldview and religion of naturalism. You believe that the ultimate authority of truth is natural processes, laws of science, laws of logic and reason, etc, which is really an appeal to man's collective authority. Your religion rules out anything supernatural. So if something were to have happened supernaturally you would reject it as having happened or not being possible because it cannot be explained in terms of man's understanding. I'll note here that this reasoning is a violation of the laws of logic (argument from ignorance).

I chose these examples deliberately.

How would a snake talk in terms of its physical structure?

What would happen if the earth suddenly stopped rotating? Or actually went in reverse? Which would have to happen to make the sun stand still in the sky or a shadow move backward. In terms of physics I would expect that it would be the end of terrestrial life. Humans, animals and most other surface objects would fly off into space.

No, you can't play the argument from ignorance game. These are empirical questions which need to be settled by evidence. If someone told you in all seriousness that unicorns really exist, you would not feel that you had to prove they do not exist.

No, I don't have to prove that fairies or gods exist or that violations of the laws of nature do not occur. The burden of proof is on those who believe such things.

I do not have a religion. I have beliefs and opinions based so far as possible on reason and evidence.

[Tonus]

You believe that the ultimate authority of truth is natural processes, laws of science, laws of logic and reason, etc, which is really an appeal to man's collective authority. Your religion rules out anything supernatural.

Has anyone ever noticed that sometimes a theist will try to denigrate atheism or science by calling them "religion"?