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Interpretation of scripture
#21
RE: Interpretation of scripture
Quote:MK wrote:
"Miracles, spiritual experience, reasoning and clear designation by a Prophet who has clear proofs in form of miracles, spiritual experience and reasoning"


MK, how long have you been here? Nothing science or logic based can or will ever rub off on you can it?

I've been here 1 year and learnt so much by the super collective known as AF.org.
In all facets including morality, philosophy, science, poo, etc

As Rob said before, you are incapable of changing your views which also means you are incapable of learning and progressing as an adult.

You remind me of an old saying at work: Never make yourself irreplaceable, because you can never be promoted.
No God, No fear.
Know God, Know fear.
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#22
RE: Interpretation of scripture
It's impossible to prove something is "a miracle" unless someone provides a very clear criteria for what exactly a miracle is and more importantly how it can be properly tested for.

Otherwise all you have is people making the argument from ignorance, or appealing to probabilities and such.

Unexplained means unexplained, it doesn't mean magic.
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#23
RE: Interpretation of scripture
(November 12, 2015 at 12:47 pm)Jörmungandr Wrote: [Image: anais%20nin%20quote.jpg]
As someone once said:  Don't believe everything that you think; a thought is just a thought.
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#24
RE: Interpretation of scripture
*bump* for relevence reasons.
"Never trust a fox. Looks like a dog, behaves like a cat."
~ Erin Hunter
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#25
RE: Interpretation of scripture
Everyone is free to interpret scripture however they want.
"Imagination, life is your creation"
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#26
RE: Interpretation of scripture
(November 12, 2015 at 6:42 am)robvalue Wrote: I totally agree. Since there is absolutely no way to test which is the "correct" interpretation, they are all arbitrary. There are no original copies in existence either, so we're dealing with unknown levels of inaccuracy. Simply stating that "this part isn't meant to be taken literally" is bogus since there is no guide at the start of the bible telling you when to do this, or notes by the author. This is not a fact based book. It's not even written in anything like the style of a fact based book. It's a series of anecdotes, mostly not told by anyone actually present in the story, even when the characters may represent someone real.

I said this before in another thread:

If I need anyone to help me interpret what the bible says, god has failed to communicate with me effectively.

You need to pick up a copy.

[Image: m_54b5e3c1eeb16f77ce042ab8.jpg]
I don't have an anger problem, I have an idiot problem.
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#27
RE: Interpretation of scripture
I haven't read through it all yet, just the first posts, but my response to this topic is the very obvious point that if God wanted to communicate with his creation, he did so very poorly. It's one of the big reasons I rejected Christianity and the Bible after I left Mormonism. It's simply not logical for His word to be so misinterpreted. It should be impervious to that, after all, this is God, right? He can't write a perfect book? Then again, he made man imperfect, so, I suppose it's a consistent problem for him to half-ass everything he creates.

Then again I'm biased. I grew up believing that the Book of Mormon was translated using ancient glasses, where as Joseph Smith read each word on the golden plates, it would appear in English and they couldn't move on to the next word until the scribe, Oliver Cowdery, wrote it down exactly right. THAT was how you did translation with God, in my mind. No room for error, just every single word fed into the magic glasses, translated to the exact English word God wanted to be used for his holy book. Notwithstanding the disillusionment of finding out that the BoM has been edited since the first copy about 3,000+ times, and about half of those changes were made to the second and third editions during JS's life(what? God made THAT big of an oopsie, Joseph? What about the glasses?), I still think my expectations of how a god might bring his word to us meek earthlings are pretty high.

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#28
RE: Interpretation of scripture
Of course, it’s easy for us with our 21st Century, materialistic minds to dismiss the Bible as a load of rubbish. But in the actual analysis, that is exactly what the Bible turns out to be---a load of rubbish! It is a book of nonsensical, fantastic stories about talking animals, talking bushes, mythical creatures, people rising from the dead, magic and pseudo-history. It is the creation of ignorant, fallible men, reflecting the prejudices, superstitions, bad theology and fears of the times in which it was written. It promotes slavery, ethnic cleansing, race prejudice, wars of conquest, the subjugation of women, child abuse and genital mutilation. It promotes the worship and celebration of a god who is little more than an egotistical, homicidal, fear-mongering tyrant. It is a book which any reasonable, intellectually honest, and intelligent person should heartily dismiss as bad fiction.  Dodgy
"The world is my country; all of humanity are my brethren; and to do good deeds is my religion." (Thomas Paine)
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#29
RE: Interpretation of scripture
(August 24, 2021 at 8:08 am)Ahriman Wrote: Everyone is free to interpret scripture however they want.

Oh, wow.  Now that's not a comment most Christians would agree with.

I see we're exercising our newly found right to ignore necroposting.  Funny that.

But seriously, it is a great topic.  Consider that the written word is a form of communication and nothing else.  We still haven't perfected the mind meld so getting across an idea from one bag of mostly water to another is not a perfect activity.  Every single human ape reads/listens/hears through their own filter that has been dirtied by their life experiences.  So no interpretation is perfect, no matter what you are talking about.

Regarding Biblical translations, you must consider that none are done without bias and this is an interpretation.  I would agree that any complete work should be interpreted "consistently" and by this I mean the entire work should be interpreted through the same lens or viewpoint so that the interpretation doesn't change throughout the work.  However, I seriously doubt is it possible for humans to interpret a work, particularly and ancient one, with zero bias.  Interpretation, especially from long dead languages, is not a perfect science.  A word from Koine Greek does not have an exact lookalike word in modern English.  It just doesn't work that way.  In part, any such translation is an attempt by the translator to get into the mind of the author of the work.  And mind you, I'm speaking about the specific work the translator is translating, which could very well be a translation of a translation of a copy of a copy of an oral story....multiply by 100.  When speaking about the Bible, there are no translations that came directly from the original version.
Why is it so?
~Julius Sumner Miller
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#30
RE: Interpretation of scripture
(August 24, 2021 at 8:08 am)Ahriman Wrote: Everyone is free to interpret scripture however they want.

That’s bloody convenient for you, innit?

Boru
‘But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods or no gods. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.’ - Thomas Jefferson
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