Christianity is heading for a full allegorization

[Ferrocyanide]

I remember the few discussions I have had with OEC (old earth creationists) of how Genesis is an allegory.
In other words, Genesis goes to the trash, science replaces it, but I’m not sure exactly which portion of Genesis they want to retain as being factual.

I was looking into how christians deal with epilepsy and ran into an interesting case.

Source:
https://livingwellwithepilepsy.com/2019/...bible.html

It is a blog from Elaine Reeves.
it is very short.
The Bible definitely talks about epilepsy in Matthew 17:14 and Mark 9:14.
Jesus comes along and tells the devil to get out and boom! The man is cured.

Elaine Reeves is surprised that there are still christians who believe those lines.

The language used by the Bible bothers her. She says:

The language in the Bible verses that are said to be useful for stopping seizures is disturbing to me because it describes people with epilepsy as having a “foul spirit,” a “dumb spirit,” a “deaf spirit” (Mark 9), “unclean spirit,” (Luke 9).

She is not even sure if the Bible is describing epilepsy:

It is not clear to me that any of these New Testament verses are an accurate description of epilepsy or ever were.

She concludes that the Bible writers were nice guys but they are just primitive people:

The writers of the Gospels wrote in good faith with the knowledge that was available at the time, but new knowledge is available now. I do not have a foul, dumb, deaf, or unclean spirit. I have a medical condition that can be addressed by knowledge gained from current medical research. To deliberately persist in using ineffective, outdated ideas about casting out demons as a substitute for effective medical care is irresponsible and unethical.

She is not quite ready to throw the Bible into the trash heap. She is going to allegorize those lines:

When I was a Christian fundamentalist, I took the Bible literally word for word believing that all that mattered was the “truth” of God’s Word. I believed that as long as I was in God’s “truth,” I was OK. As a result of the life disruptions that I experienced because of a lack of accurate medical diagnosis for epilepsy, I began to learn that sometimes the only “truth” that matters is my “truth.” Using my own eyes and ears and not the lens of distorted Bible verses taken literally, I learned to not be afraid of being punished by God for seeking help from “secular” doctors and medicine. When I learned that I had a medical condition my mind was healed from the fear that I was sinful and being punished by God for leaving God’s “truth.” Then my body could heal, too.

Who knows, maybe one day, she will view all the magical components of the Bible as allegory (fake stories, fantastic stories).

In other words, maybe, Christianity is heading for a full allegorization.
Sure, we can keep the names of the cities and names of the people. How much of the Bible can be transferred to a history book?

[Anomalocaris]

Christianity is a man-made thing systematically tailored and adjusted over two thousand years by very intelligent, cunning, unscrupulous, misanthropic people specifically to overwhelm critical thinking faculties of the hoi palloi with an vast and assiduously mustered arsenal of emotional and deceitful attacks, threats, hollow boasts, false promises and basest appeals launched from every direction and carefully tailored and refined to penetrate common cognitive weaknesses as determined through long and careful observation.

Such a purposed, unscrupulous and malevolent construct, with the vast arsenal of tools and weapons still largely at its disposal, and long accustomed to stopping at nothing in pursuit of its own aggrandizement and in defence of its Ill gotten prerogatives, will absolutely not be readily and peaceably relegated to the status of powerlessness.

[brewer]

But leprosy, scoliosis, blind, ................ no biblical issues. But epilepsy the bible got wrong.

Next.

[Jehanne]

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.

[Anomalocaris]

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.

it went from subjectivity written down to subjectivity that can’t even be written down.

[vulcanlogician]

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....

[brewer]

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.

Across all denominations there are a set of definite objective beliefs.

[The Grand Nudger]

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....

Hardly.  The problem with christianity, is christ, after all.  It can't help but be evil and poisonous. The faithful honestly don't mean it to be, it just is that way.

[Anomalocaris]

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....

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.

[Ahriman]

I've never taken the Bible to be anything other than an allegory. To that end, it suits its purpose rather well.