Our server costs ~$56 per month to run. Please consider donating or becoming a Patron to help keep the site running. Help us gain new members by following us on Twitter and liking our page on Facebook!
Current time: March 29, 2024, 2:07 am

Thread Rating:
  • 0 Vote(s) - 0 Average
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
Christianity is heading for a full allegorization
#61
RE: Christianity is heading for a full allegorization
The important thing is Greek mythology only became merely a good collection of symbols after it stopped being a religion.

The purpose of religion is not to be good symbols, but to create a set of coercive fictions to enforce behavior control, for the benefit of a specific clique.
Reply
#62
RE: Christianity is heading for a full allegorization
(January 13, 2022 at 3:48 pm)Anomalocaris Wrote: The important thing is Greek mythology only became merely a good collection of symbols after it stopped being a religion.    

The purpose of religion is not to be good symbols, but to create a set of coercive fictions to enforce behavior control, for the benefit of a specific clique.
Yeah no that's very narrow-minded  Dodgy
"Imagination, life is your creation"
Reply
#63
RE: Christianity is heading for a full allegorization
(January 13, 2022 at 3:48 pm)Anomalocaris Wrote: The important thing is Greek mythology only became merely a good collection of symbols after it stopped being a religion.    

The purpose of religion is not to be good symbols, but to create a set of coercive fictions to enforce behavior control, for the benefit of a specific clique.

Yes, I believe that's very insightful.

Have you ever studied the period of Christianity between, say 200 and 1000?  Its fascinating how much diversity there was in the religion back then and each faction did everything in their power to get the others to fall in line, including killing them.  And most of this was over very specific ideas like the Christ's mortal vs divine nature and the use of religious icons.

I feel that we are fortunate to live in an era when religion has been pushed far enough from power that people are not forced to submit to its demands, in the free world anyway. Lets hope this era never ends and only pushes religion farther and farther from daily life.
Why is it so?
~Julius Sumner Miller
Reply
#64
RE: Christianity is heading for a full allegorization
(January 13, 2022 at 1:12 am)vulcanlogician Wrote:
(January 6, 2022 at 11:20 am)Anomalocaris Wrote: infallible is not the problems.    that salvation  is needed if you know what’s good for you and there is a christ outside of which is no salvation is the problem.    if you embrace that, accepting infallibility seems like just the sensibly conservative bet regardless of whether on any particular issue there is doubt.

So if christianity were to make christianity appreciably less noxious, it must renounce it’s own necessity by renouncing the necessity of christ.

By "decent religion" I just meant that it is a good collection of symbols. Like Greek Mythology. How many of us have referred to "the fates" or "the muses" to describe various things? Are any of us under the impression that these immortal entities exist? No. That's what full allegorization would entail. To allow us to simply refer to the symbol... "crown of thorns"... "prodigal son" etc. without the baggage of literal belief.

Without literal belief, it's hard for any religion to be noxious at all.

In that case, you would have to remove the "commands" from judaism, christianity, islam, mormonism.
Lines such as "You must stone person X if he does X" need to be removed from the unholy text (Bible).
Some of the lines are of the form of "You must do X or else you will go to hell, you will be destroyed, element 16 will rain down upon you." These must be
removed as well.

Another example:
"When 2 men are having sex, it is abominable. They have forfeited their lives."

^^^^^There is a lot of violent language in the Bible.

If you remove all that, you would be left with stories of the form
"Jesus did this and that. Peter came over here and took a bread."

But it is still risky. Jesus and the prophets are like heroes for these guys. They might try to emulate them, sort of how some kids emulate Superman and put on a cape and jump out the window.

Example:
There is a large number of priest claiming to be able to cure people and remove devils from them.
I think there was a case where someone threw his heart medication onto the stage of Peter Popoff. I don't know if the guy lived.

A priest playing doctor like that is very dangerous. You are playing with people's lives.
Reply
#65
RE: Christianity is heading for a full allegorization
(January 5, 2022 at 10:30 pm)vulcanlogician Wrote:
(January 5, 2022 at 8:41 pm)Jehanne Wrote: For Christians, the Bible is no longer an infallible authority; instead, it is the individual believer, denomination, etc., who decides what is literal and that which is not.  In other words, Christianity has gone from being objective to subjective.

"Infallible" is the real problem here. It tends to suggest "can not be questioned"... "is perfect"... "is better than anything you might think."

I have long thought that Christianity would be much less poisonous and evil without the concept of biblical inerrancy. It's a kind of decent religion without all that. But alas....

Nit pick here...in the Roman church and the Lutherans, at least, "infalibilty" refers to purpose (scripture achieves its purpose), not content.
I do not agree with this evasion, btw.
<insert profound quote here>
Reply
#66
RE: Christianity is heading for a full allegorization
(January 13, 2022 at 8:29 pm)Ferrocyanide Wrote:
(January 13, 2022 at 1:12 am)vulcanlogician Wrote: By "decent religion" I just meant that it is a good collection of symbols. Like Greek Mythology. How many of us have referred to "the fates" or "the muses" to describe various things? Are any of us under the impression that these immortal entities exist? No. That's what full allegorization would entail. To allow us to simply refer to the symbol... "crown of thorns"... "prodigal son" etc. without the baggage of literal belief.

Without literal belief, it's hard for any religion to be noxious at all.

In that case, you would have to remove the "commands" from judaism, christianity, islam, mormonism.
Lines such as "You must stone person X if he does X" need to be removed from the unholy text (Bible).
Some of the lines are of the form of "You must do X or else you will go to hell, you will be destroyed, element 16 will rain down upon you." These must be
removed as well.

Another example:
"When 2 men are having sex, it is abominable. They have forfeited their lives."

^^^^^There is a lot of violent language in the Bible.

If you remove all that, you would be left with stories of the form
"Jesus did this and that. Peter came over here and took a bread."

But it is still risky. Jesus and the prophets are like heroes for these guys. They might try to emulate them, sort of how some kids emulate Superman and put on a cape and jump out the window.

Example:
There is a large number of priest claiming to be able to cure people and remove devils from them.
I think there was a case where someone threw his heart medication onto the stage of Peter Popoff. I don't know if the guy lived.

A priest playing doctor like that is very dangerous. You are playing with people's lives.

Yeah that's what I'm talking about. Don't take any of it to be an inerrant truth. Ignore the commands. Treat it like Lord of the Rings or any other fictional work.

THEN see if there is any value in it. Like I said... just like we do with Greek mythology.

If a moral commandment is listed somewhere, think about it for yourself whether it's a good moral rule to live by. A lot of moral teachings in the Bible were borrowed from the Greeks anyway. (Even in the OT, via Hellenism.) The Golden Rule was discovered independently by several different thinkers... including Confucius. I happen to like the Golden Rule. And it just so happens, it's included in Christianity.

What people normally do with religion (follow it without question) is where most problems arise. Really, it's a problem with ideology in general. Not just religion. Religions are just a specific kind of ideology. I'm not too big on having an ideology. I think every belief ought to be questioned. Every idea ought to stand on its own two legs... not be propped up by some institution or ethos.

(January 13, 2022 at 9:03 pm)Neo-Scholastic Wrote:
(January 5, 2022 at 10:30 pm)vulcanlogician Wrote: "Infallible" is the real problem here. It tends to suggest "can not be questioned"... "is perfect"... "is better than anything you might think."

I have long thought that Christianity would be much less poisonous and evil without the concept of biblical inerrancy. It's a kind of decent religion without all that. But alas....

Nit pick here...in the Roman church and the Lutherans, at least, "infalibilty" refers to purpose (scripture achieves its purpose), not content.
I do not agree with this evasion, btw.

You're right. The modern Catholic position is what you say. But the world ain't all Catholics and Lutherans either. I'm not criticizing a boogeyman here. Certain believers really buy into inerrancy. My criticism was aimed at them.
Reply
#67
RE: Christianity is heading for a full allegorization
(January 14, 2022 at 1:12 am)vulcanlogician Wrote: I'm not too big on having an ideology.

If we go by good old Merriam Webster, then ideology isn't a bad thing. It would be hard to avoid having one.

Quote:ideology:
a : a manner or the content of thinking characteristic of an individual, group, or culture
b : the integrated assertions, theories and aims that constitute a sociopolitical program
c : a systematic body of concepts especially about human life or culture

Since we all have characteristic ways of thinking, and these ways of thinking are always derived from our culture, I don't see how we can be said NOT to have an ideology. 

Especially if we have strong beliefs about how the world could be better, then that's our ideology.

Quote:I think every belief ought to be questioned. Every idea ought to stand on its own two legs... not be propped up by some institution or ethos.

This strikes me as an extremely ideological statement. It says how people ought to think and how they should be in relation to their local institutions and ethos. It takes a stand against people with a different ideology -- for example, those who think they should be humble in the face of authority. 

The idea that we have an individual responsibility to evaluate and pass judgment on all claims is historically associated with liberalism. (And here I'm using the term in its historical sense; American media use the word differently.) 

It's also completely impossible for any idea to "stand on its own two legs." Every idea we hold, or every new idea we hear of, is woven into a system of beliefs from the moment it comes to us. An idea will be propped up by some institution or ethos -- whether that's science, or religion, or a social ideology like liberalism. 

What you said earlier is also a sort of prime example of how liberalism approaches texts:

Quote:Treat it like Lord of the Rings or any other fictional work.

THEN see if there is any value in it. Like I said... just like we do with Greek mythology.

Approaching the Bible, The Lord of the Rings, and Greek mythology all in the same way is, to me, bizarre and consumerist. All of these works were created and used in fundamentally different ways. 

The different parts of the Bible were written for different purposes, but have been treated and interpreted as sacred by very serious people for a very long time. The Bible as we read it now is not just the text -- we read it through the lens of all the interpretations that have come since it was new. The Lord of the Rings is a pastiche of real epics, written for children. For an adult to take it seriously now would indicate a serious developmental issue. Greek mythology has never existed just on its own. It is presented in other works, including Homer, Plato, Dante, Botticelli, Rembrandt, Freud, Nietzsche, etc. These are concepts woven into the fabric of Western thought, with varied and often contradictory uses. To know what the myths mean in any given context requires background knowledge, not just personal opinion. 

If we approach all of these things in the same way, we deracinate and devalue what it really is. To make it into some kind of Baskin Robbins "choose your favorite" is liberal consumer society at its worst. 

To detach a text from all of its history, institutional use, and social nuance, is to take away nearly everything it means. Then once we've completely deracinated it, and approach it with our own personal interpretation, we can easily use it to mean whatever we want it to. It easily becomes a method to reinforce prejudice, rather than teach something new. In fact this is the trouble with Bible reading today -- both fundies and fundie atheists just imagine it means whatever they imagine, and don't take the trouble to work on it.
Reply
#68
RE: Christianity is heading for a full allegorization
(January 15, 2022 at 4:09 am)Belacqua Wrote: Since we all have characteristic ways of thinking, and these ways of thinking are always derived from our culture, I don't see how we can be said NOT to have an ideology. 

Especially if we have strong beliefs about how the world could be better, then that's our ideology.

Nope. Ideology is a set of beliefs that must not be questioned but obeyed no matter what the evidence shows.

(January 15, 2022 at 4:09 am)Belacqua Wrote: This strikes me as an extremely ideological statement. It says how people ought to think and how they should be in relation to their local institutions and ethos. It takes a stand against people with a different ideology -- for example, those who think they should be humble in the face of authority. 

Lacking ideology is not ideology, let alone an extreme ideology.

(January 15, 2022 at 4:09 am)Belacqua Wrote: It's also completely impossible for any idea to "stand on its own two legs." Every idea we hold, or every new idea we hear of, is woven into a system of beliefs from the moment it comes to us. An idea will be propped up by some institution or ethos -- whether that's science

You really are playing a nonsense game, and contradicting yourself by saying that science is set of beliefs when it proved some idea.

(January 15, 2022 at 4:09 am)Belacqua Wrote: The different parts of the Bible were written for different purposes, but have been treated and interpreted as sacred by very serious people for a very long time.

Wow, serous people, oh my. For what purpose was it written to put a sword in a baby's heart?
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
Reply
#69
RE: Christianity is heading for a full allegorization
(January 15, 2022 at 4:09 am)Belacqua Wrote:
Quote:I think every belief ought to be questioned. Every idea ought to stand on its own two legs... not be propped up by some institution or ethos.

This strikes me as an extremely ideological statement. It says how people ought to think and how they should be in relation to their local institutions and ethos. It takes a stand against people with a different ideology -- for example, those who think they should be humble in the face of authority.

Why should we be humble in the face of an authority that actually has no access to the information claimed?

Quote:The idea that we have an individual responsibility to evaluate and pass judgment on all claims is historically associated with liberalism. (And here I'm using the term in its historical sense; American media use the word differently.) 

Well, it is true that no individual can investigate *everything*. But it is a good thing to educate yourself prior to taking what authorities say on faith. Do they really have access to the information they claim? Are they really self-criticising in the way that they should? Are they really looking at alternatives in a way required to make sure that what they are saying is true?

Quote:It's also completely impossible for any idea to "stand on its own two legs." Every idea we hold, or every new idea we hear of, is woven into a system of beliefs from the moment it comes to us. An idea will be propped up by some institution or ethos -- whether that's science, or religion, or a social ideology like liberalism.

And it is a good idea to question that network of beliefs to see if it is upholding ideas that are false and dangerous.

Quote:What you said earlier is also a sort of prime example of how liberalism approaches texts:

Quote:Treat it like Lord of the Rings or any other fictional work.

THEN see if there is any value in it. Like I said... just like we do with Greek mythology.

Approaching the Bible, The Lord of the Rings, and Greek mythology all in the same way is, to me, bizarre and consumerist. All of these works were created and used in fundamentally different ways. 

Yes, of course they were. And we should question whether they have been used in false and dangerous ways. For the Lord of  he Rings, that isn't so much of a problem. For the Bible, it very much is a problem.

Quote:The different parts of the Bible were written for different purposes, but have been treated and interpreted as sacred by very serious people for a very long time. The Bible as we read it now is not just the text -- we read it through the lens of all the interpretations that have come since it was new. The Lord of the Rings is a pastiche of real epics, written for children. For an adult to take it seriously now would indicate a serious developmental issue. Greek mythology has never existed just on its own. It is presented in other works, including Homer, Plato, Dante, Botticelli, Rembrandt, Freud, Nietzsche, etc. These are concepts woven into the fabric of Western thought, with varied and often contradictory uses. To know what the myths mean in any given context requires background knowledge, not just personal opinion. 

And it is always good to look at the literary criticism of any text to see if it gives insights into the text that you haven't considered.

The Bible was taken seriously be serious people just like the Greek myths were taken seriously by serious people. One thing we should try to do is understand why they did so. But it doesn't mean *we* should take those texts seriously in the same way they did. We can make our own judgements about the truth and usefulness of those texts and how we should interpret them today.

Quote:If we approach all of these things in the same way, we deracinate and devalue what it really is. To make it into some kind of Baskin Robbins "choose your favorite" is liberal consumer society at its worst. 

To detach a text from all of its history, institutional use, and social nuance, is to take away nearly everything it means. Then once we've completely deracinated it, and approach it with our own personal interpretation, we can easily use it to mean whatever we want it to. It easily becomes a method to reinforce prejudice, rather than teach something new. In fact this is the trouble with Bible reading today -- both fundies and fundie atheists just imagine it means whatever they imagine, and don't take the trouble to work on it.

It is doubtful that the Lord of the Rings is going to be used to reinforce prejudice.  But a great deal of historical tradition has interpreted the Bible in ways that has greatly encouraged prejudice. So it is probably a good thing to question the traditions and validity of the interpretations found historically. A good first step is to question whether the Bible is accurate in the stories it tells. Maybe we should move towards seeing it as one piece of literature in our tradition as opposed to a collection of writings that should be taken as factual.

It is probably not a good idea to start out looking at the Bible as pure fiction. Instead, we can approach it as we do any other ancient text claiming historical views along with claims of divine intervention. We ask who wrote it and why. We ask why it was promulgated and who it served. We ask whether those that wrote it misinterpreted what they heard or saw. We try to see what biases the writers had. We try to see the historical context of the writing. We try to see what message the author was trying to convey and why they chose the stories they did. We should ask what propaganda value it served to those who wrote it and those who continued to copy it. In a collection like the Bible, this should be done with each individual book as well as asking why the collection was brought together: who did it serve to do so? What other texts were eliminated and why? What other ideologies were ignored or suppressed when the choices were made?

And yes, as with other literature, we can ask how interpretations have changed over time. Just as we can look at how the Oedipus series has been interpreted over time, we can look at how the books of the Bible have been so. And this should be done.

I see a better model for reading the Bible as a mix of Homer and Livy. It is a mixture of history, ideology, moral stories, and flat out propaganda.

Let's face it. Serious people took the Greek mythology seriously tone time. For an adult to do so today would be at least unusual. perhaps the same should be true of the Bible? Maybe we should regard it as a collection of works from particular time periods that attempted to convey the views of one part of the society of the time, but that should not be taken seriously by adults outside of that?
Reply
#70
RE: Christianity is heading for a full allegorization
(January 15, 2022 at 10:21 am)Fake Messiah Wrote:
(January 15, 2022 at 4:09 am)Belacqua Wrote: Since we all have characteristic ways of thinking, and these ways of thinking are always derived from our culture, I don't see how we can be said NOT to have an ideology. 

Especially if we have strong beliefs about how the world could be better, then that's our ideology.

Nope. Ideology is a set of beliefs that must not be questioned but obeyed no matter what the evidence shows.

No, that would be dogma. We already have a word for that. Ideological in the sense of being pejorative typically means that one's ideology dictates their beliefs to a greater extent than is common in the average person, or is held irrationally. Much like racism, it is a matter of degree. Having implicit biases against a specific race makes you racist according to a strict interpretation, but the pejorative use of the term is reserved for those in whom biases against a specific race are more significant and consciously held. Strictly speaking, everybody has an ideology, except for the fact that the word is not often used in that sense in colloquial discourse.
[Image: extraordinarywoo-sig.jpg]
Reply



Possibly Related Threads...
Thread Author Replies Views Last Post
  Why are Christians so full of hate? I_am_not_mafia 183 16904 October 18, 2018 at 7:50 am
Last Post: Fake Messiah
  Tell All Book Says Pat Robertson Full of Shit Minimalist 12 3522 September 29, 2017 at 3:51 pm
Last Post: Atheist73
  No Surprise, Here. Xtians Are Full of Shit. Minimalist 5 1186 August 4, 2017 at 12:31 am
Last Post: ComradeMeow
  Orthodox Christianity is Best Christianity! Annoyingbutnicetheist 30 6747 January 26, 2016 at 10:44 pm
Last Post: ignoramus
  Heaven is full of tapeworms Brakeman 15 4505 August 13, 2015 at 10:23 am
Last Post: orangebox21
  This holy water thing is full of shit! Esquilax 35 12069 March 20, 2015 at 6:55 pm
Last Post: Ravenshire
  Christianity vs Gnostic Christianity themonkeyman 12 8460 December 26, 2013 at 11:00 am
Last Post: pineapplebunnybounce
  Russian antisuicide forum which is full of shit feeling 6 2348 December 18, 2013 at 4:17 am
Last Post: feeling
  Moderate Christianity - Even More Illogical Than Fundamentalist Christianity? Xavier 22 18218 November 23, 2013 at 11:21 am
Last Post: Jacob(smooth)
  My debate in Christian Forums in full swing greneknight 99 38325 September 17, 2012 at 8:29 pm
Last Post: System of Solace



Users browsing this thread: 1 Guest(s)