[Serious] Literal and Not Literal

[Acrobat]

Sure, sure, the story has meaning, but I’m glad we’ve agreed that creation and Christ and the fall, etc, aren’t historic or scientific facts.

That Christians and magic book are not describing beings or events, but some oblique concept of meaning in a story.

OFC, you can’t actually believe that and be a Christian.  Par for the course with you, huh.  Third time I’ll have to politely request that you tighten your shit up, lol.

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Let’s just cut to the chase, shall we?  You’re not angling for any sort of anti-literalism.  You’re looking for mistaken literalism.

You think the things described literally happened, just not the way described, maybe....except the Christ shit.  That’s not a metaphor, that’s just the authors getting the details wrong in a literal account.

Every Christian recognizes that the meaning and truth of Christianity are one and the same. 
While atheists such as yourself, only believe in meaningless truth. Truth absent of meaning.

[The Grand Nudger]

Truth which isn’t in magic book, since it doesn’t seek to describe historic or scientific truths.

Perhaps we should be more like Jesus, not that Jesus was any actual person.

Personally, I have better role models who actually were historic and scientific people....but I can see how a person could do worse than the metaphor of Christ. There are plenty of atheists who would agree with that sentiment.

[Peebothuhlu]

At work

Part of me wants to respond to Acrobat with a 'Lol'.

Another part of me wants to literary rip Acrobat a new orifice for such passive/aggressive type of posting

Then the winning part of me just and reminds me to use my caffeine powers for reasonable good so I'll respond with just a 'Fek it'.

[GrandizerII]

We know, for a fact, that people have had varying levels of compulsion to superstition over time, Acro.

It doesn't seem to me that we are any less superstitious today than in the past, we might have different superstitious but nothin leads me to assume we're less. If you have any data to support this please, supply it?

Now I know that people are less religious than in the past. Older generations are more religious, than younger generations. But in regards to superstitions this appears to be the other way around. Young people are more likely to be superstitious than old folks. Perhaps your fooled into thinking the decline in organized religions, equates to a decline is superstition, but this doesn't seem to be the case.

https://today.yougov.com/topics/lifestyl...erstitious

The record is under your feet.  That the superstitions in question were once more central to life, and more strenuously believed in, and believed in literally, is also not a point of legitimate debate.

The stories were central to their life, as central to mine as well. In fact it's the story that's central not the literalism. Why do you think the Doctrines of Inerrancy, Fundamentalism etc.. arose around the 19th Century.

Why do you think such revered church Fathers like Origen could express sentiments like this:

"who is so silly as to believe that God ... planted a paradise eastward in Eden, and set in it a visible and palpable tree of life ... [and] anyone who tasted its fruit with his bodily teeth would gain life?"

Without courting any real controversy, without being rendered a heretic, and cast out of orthodoxy? Can you imagine a fundie evangelical pastor saying this? He'd be kicked out the church quicker than if he slept with gay prostitutes and snorted coke.

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No, I'm confident about this part. Why is this up for debate exactly? Because <insert Acrobat's Christian-related belief about so and so>?

So you care to support it?

I mean you made a claim about the sort of doubt which I would have possessed regarding these stories as literal, didn't exists in the past, that it comes natural in our age but not their's.

This is pretty interesting claim of yours, but entirely unsupported. I would like to know the history of the development of such doubts, like my own, since in your view they're a modern phenomena? I want to learn what sort of events gave rise to these doubts?

Now you seem to suggest this is some self-evident truth, so you don't need to support it or something?

Where's your proof?

You continuously repeated how the support I used for my view was insufficient, while here you are not even supplying anything remotely compelling for a claim you say you're confident about.

You know why it comes natural to me, because I don't have the same reverence to scientific and historical facts as you do. You view such things as the only thing true, while i view such truths as superficial, Truths about meanings and values are far superior. Is this appreciation of meaning a modern phenomena to?

Since you seem to suggest otherwise, I want to hear your support, the history you're trying to paint here.

How about you not tell me how I see or do not see truth?

The way you're arguing with me is quite trollish and I don't have time for the next few days to deal with this nonsense, nor do I want to ruin the intended seriousness of this thread. So I'm out.

[Acrobat]

Truth which isn’t in magic book, since it doesn’t seek to describe historic or scientific truths.

Perhaps we should be more like Jesus, not that Jesus was any actual person.

Personally, I have better role models who actually were historic and scientific people....but I can see how a person could do worse than the metaphor of Christ. There are plenty of atheists who would agree with that sentiment.

In the world of your role models, guiding principles, values, in this the world of meaning, lays the things most comparable to religious truths.

Not in the world of scientific and historic facts.

That world for all of us, not just the religious is supreme.

[The Grand Nudger]

Sure, but again I’m making sure that we’re in agreement on the non literal nature of Christian truth. On its lack of historic and scientific truth.

There was no creation, no fall. There is no sin, and no Christ to redeem it.

The stories speak to meaning, not any facts of content. Correct?

This is what “god” inspired™. Fables.

[Acrobat]

Sure, but again I’m making sure that we’re in agreement on the non literal nature of Christian truth. On its lack of historic and scientific truth.

There was no creation, no fall. There is no sin, and no Christ to redeem it.

The stories speak to meaning, not any facts of content. Correct?

They’re are no facts of Christianity that are separable from meaning, as result no truth of Christianity can be reduced to scientific and historic truth.

Because historic and scientific truth by nature are the negation of meaning.

If you want to talk about your world of meaning, there’s something to talk about, a comparative discussion to have. If you want to talk about the world of scientific and historical facts there’s no meaningful discussion to be had.

[The Grand Nudger]

That’s nice, sounds like agreement( lol).

One wonders in what way you or anyone else is “Christian” if they don’t believe in the historical and (purportedly) scientific facts....of creation, the fall, and Christ.

That’s sort of defining. It’s how the religion got its name, lol. They’re not Jesusists or Mythicists. You should probably seek the council of your schisms authorities. There’s no Christianity without Christ. No literal god in a metaphoric figure of admiration.

The religion you’re describing could replace Christ with captain crunch and be none the worse for it. Is that what you believe, or is this (more historically and scientifically speaking) a convenient rhetorical perch?

[Acrobat]

That’s nice, sounds like agreement( lol).

One wonders in what way you or anyone else is “Christian” if they don’t believe in the historical and (purportedly) scientific facts....of creation, the fall, and Christ.

X is historic fact. X derives it’s importance from meaning. Absent of meaning X is historic fact is meaningless.

Gae wants to have a discussion about x is a historical fact absent of meaning, Gae wants to have a meaningless discussion.

If all the things a fundie ever suggested as historical were true, and we accepted them, we would have no Christianity. A demon could accept all these things, and no Christian will ever come of it.

[EgoDeath]

If a Holy Book is NOT the direct word of god, what is the point in giving it any credence as a book to live your life by?

We don't live our life by scientific or historic facts either. So what do we live our life by?

So, are you going to answer my question, or no?