[Serious] A Literal Bible. Answering questions

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

There is no slander here.

Boru

Correction; there is no argument here, you called my post drivel and refused to back your claim with anything. If you make a statement without evidence or logic then I will have no problem dismissing it without evidence or logic.

You're a big fish Boru, but how deep is the water?

You are perfectly free to dismiss any statements I make.

Boru

[Brian37]

I guess I'll ask one more time before I drop it..but, who are we talking about here?  Are we trying to employ some kind of empathy for the man who was close enough to watch a person be vaporized by an airburst in 1500bce, and lived to tell the tale?

The empathy point is a general point. 
In that specific example; a comet airburst involves an intense flash of light and heat, similar to a nuclear bomb. It lasts a moment, and doesn't penetrate the terrain. Getting up into the mountains for cover was the objective of the party, so it would stand to reason they were in mountainous terrain that shielded them from this effect, since they survived. One person being out in the open, observed by others in cover, is not a ridiculous idea. 
Having empathy for the author, who was having empathy for the figure in the story (which was derived from an Acacia bush, so the author says), is how you realise that 'pillar of salt' is the best terms a man who had no idea that space existed or what exactly was going on, could use to describe the appearance of what he saw.

It is a STORY, nothing more. It does not prove the existence of a super cognition being the cause and controller of everything. 

Flood mythology for example, isn't unique to the god/s of the 3 Abrahamic traditions. The Epic of Gilgamesh has a story of flooding and building a boat and and saving family and livestock. Back then the vast majority of our species had no clue how big the planet was, or that it was a round ball, a globe, and not flat. And most people were not long distance travelers. So when they saw a deluge they mistook a local flood to being the entirety of the planet.

None of the story you mention proves that a God exists. The Bible existing also is not evidence that a super cognition exists. It is only evidence that people made claims. You cant agree with me that they had no clue about what they were seeing, then claim the bible proves they knew what they were "on to something". Humans of all religions worldwide in antiquity saw things they didn't understand.

And please, do not bring up Aquinas and quantum physics.

[Green Diogenes]

We weren't really talking about that stuff though, Brian, it's more about giving you a tool to use for dealing with Young Earth Creationists. Adopting their narrative about the Bible and then pointing out that it's stupid has been the standard tactic for the last 150 years. This is something new

[Brian37]

We weren't really talking about that stuff though, Brian, it's more about giving you a tool to use for dealing with Young Earth Creationists. Adopting their narrative about the Bible and then pointing out that it's stupid has been the standard tactic for the last 150 years. This is something new

Yes it is stupid, but that is what theists do, they always have, and it hasn't been just the past century and a half. Look at what the Church of Galileo's time did to him. And FYI, the Vatican didn't officially recognize the planet as a globe until a picture of Earth from space was shown to the Pope. Secretly they knew they were wrong at that time, but religion is always slow on the uptake and constantly has to be drug kicking and screaming into the present.

The only thing that can be said about the past 150 years is that the industrial revolution allowed information to spread at a faster and faster pace, and theists are scrambling to retrofit new and better data to their old mythology.

[Jehanne]

We weren't really talking about that stuff though, Brian, it's more about giving you a tool to use for dealing with Young Earth Creationists. Adopting their narrative about the Bible and then pointing out that it's stupid has been the standard tactic for the last 150 years. This is something new

Yes it is stupid, but that is what theists do, they always have, and it hasn't been just the past century and a half. Look at what the Church of Galileo's time did to him. And FYI, the Vatican didn't officially recognize the planet as a globe until a picture of Earth from space was shown to the Pope. Secretly they knew they were wrong at that time, but religion is always slow on the uptake and constantly has to be drug kicking and screaming into the present.

The only thing that can be said about the past 150 years is that the industrial revolution allowed information to spread at a faster and faster pace, and theists are scrambling to retrofit new and better data to their old mythology.

From the time of the Venerable Bede, the Catholic Church held the Earth to be spherical. A handful of pre-Nicene fathers believed in a flat Earth, which, clearly, was also an idea that all of the New Testament authors held to.

[Green Diogenes]

We weren't really talking about that stuff though, Brian, it's more about giving you a tool to use for dealing with Young Earth Creationists. Adopting their narrative about the Bible and then pointing out that it's stupid has been the standard tactic for the last 150 years. This is something new

Yes it is stupid, but that is what theists do, they always have, and it hasn't been just the past century and a half. Look at what the Church of Galileo's time did to him. And FYI, the Vatican didn't officially recognize the planet as a globe until a picture of Earth from space was shown to the Pope. Secretly they knew they were wrong at that time, but religion is always slow on the uptake and constantly has to be drug kicking and screaming into the present.

The only thing that can be said about the past 150 years is that the industrial revolution allowed information to spread at a faster and faster pace, and theists are scrambling to retrofit new and better data to their old mythology.

Well of course you are correct, but my point in the last 150 years is that is when the current narrative was created. The flat earth movement, and Young Earth Creationism, emerged from the 19th century USA. New York has a particularly heavy flow of this specific brand of thought. (Earth was known to be round for a very long time. Flat Earth was a model for astrology to be understood from Earth perspective, not a different mode of thought entirely. Age of the Earth was usually left to Greek Philosophers, prior to the Reformation, iirc)
Atheists, and most modern Christians, have thrown the baby out with the bathwater, mistaking the dismantlement of those religious myths, with the foundational document from which those myths were derived. The book itself though is a powerful tool when dealing with people who insist on the book. Everyone has always spotted that the Christian denominations pick and choose which parts to use and which not, and come up with their own interpretations of the text. 
People who insist on the Bible as accurate are a different breed. They know, but cannot explain. This leads them to provably silly beliefs, like that the Bible was written by God, or delivered as a magical document, and that the evidence of their own eyes can be completely ignored unless it agrees with what their preacher tells them the Bible contains. People stuck in this line of thought are also stuck to this ridiculous psuedo-Literal interpretation of Scripture, which does not actually map onto the text when it is taken in context. 
You won't be able to shake their belief in the accuracy of the Bible, but where their faith is in their religious myth, and not based in the Scripture they want to follow; that is where you can get in.

[The Grand Nudger]

Literally.....none of that is true. The idea that the earth was flat did not originate in the 19th century, or in the US..and I find it hard to believe that you need anything more than your own understanding of chronological time and geography to figure that out. Young earth creationism, likewise, not an american invention..for the same and most obvious of reasons.

[Green Diogenes]

Literally.....none of that is true.  The idea that the earth was flat did not originate in the 19th century, or in the US..and I find it hard to believe that you need anything more than your own understanding of chronological time and geography to figure that out.  Young earth creationism, likewise, not an american invention..for the same and most obvious of reasons.

I never made that claim, I did however make the claim that the Flat Earth movement, in the modern incarnation, originated in the 19th century in the USA, and emerged out of a culture which had known the Earth was a sphere for about 2200 years.

I did make the claim that Young Earth Creationism emerged in the 19th century USA, but I should say I mean the mainstream Christian branch of Young Earth Creationism which is predominant in the western world today. I don't mean the Islamic YEC which is more globally relevant, and much older. I don't mean previous forms of YEC invented throughout history. The mainstream scientific view before that I also exclude, as while it predicted a younger earth than current models, it did not adhere to the 7000 year old Earth of the Young Earth Creationism movement.

[brewer]

I guess that means you'll need to work on your delivery, then.  As good a place as any.

Aye, figuring out how to break past the dichotomy and hit the core of the issue. It's difficult to break through multiple entrenched dogmas all at once, and I don't have any practice with Atheists so far lol
I'm not particularly interested in talking to Atheists per se, not because I'm not, but because I had 20 years experience being an atheist, and I already know where the 'veil' of the issue is, and can argue there myself. It generally comes down to an issue where two people look at the same piece of data and one man says he can see God, and another says he cannot.

Back to the issue in this thread though; the interpretation style I am using is Biblical, and can be defended extremely robustly in that context, as well as smashing apart the culturally accepted reading. Of course that doesn't mean anything to an atheist, unless possibly as method of engaging people who engage in the "If it's not in the Bible it's not real" line of thinking. It is a tool through that blockade. 

Individual examples and the arguments around the events they describe are something that comes in someone's own time, but the general spirit of empathy applies from the start. Where did this person come from, and when? What did he understand, and how would he describe the world around him, especially when it comes to things he does not really understand? 


(BTW is it just me or is the post new reply page really laggy?)

Biblical people can defend their position based on the Bible.


Nice circular logic.

The bible is story/anecdote/testimony, not fact.

[Brian37]

Literally.....none of that is true.  The idea that the earth was flat did not originate in the 19th century, or in the US..and I find it hard to believe that you need anything more than your own understanding of chronological time and geography to figure that out.  Young earth creationism, likewise, not an american invention..for the same and most obvious of reasons.

I never made that claim, I did however make the claim that the Flat Earth movement, in the modern incarnation, originated in the 19th century in the USA, and emerged out of a culture which had known the Earth was a sphere for about 2200 years.

I did make the claim that Young Earth Creationism emerged in the 19th century USA, but I should say I mean the mainstream Christian branch of Young Earth Creationism which is predominant in the  western world today. I don't mean the Islamic YEC which is more globally relevant, and much older. I don't mean previous forms of YEC invented throughout history. The mainstream scientific view before that I also exclude, as while it predicted a younger earth than current models, it did not adhere to the 7000 year old Earth of the Young Earth Creationism movement.

"Modern incarnation" gives you away. You admit that there were older versions of this false belief, and there were. The only thing new about believing the earth is flat today is that media for the past 150 years has exploded allowing more and more people to spread lies as fact.