1- Are you a christian?
2- what is the valuable where god kills everyone on the planet with a flood except for a boat full of animals and the 5 or 10 people on board?
Here’s a previous thread on the subject. (It’s late and I’m going to bed in a few minutes, I’ll try and find a better cite tomorrow. Cheers)
I had to go to town to buy groceries and other supplies. My car had broken down and it is a 7 mile walk from my house into town. Not only is there the 7 mile walk but no way could I bring back all of the groceries since I would have to walk. UPS is bringing the carburetor I need for my car on Monday, I’ve already told my boss I may have to take a half day from work on Monday or possibly the whole Day off. I was talking to Fred on Saturday morning and he heard me mention that my car was out of service. So he told me, why don’t you take my old station wagon and make a trip to town. Just fill up any gas that you use. Fred provided me with a car to drive to town and I was very grateful that he was able to help me.
What part, specifically, of that story do you take to be allegorical?
thanks, I am sure it will make interesting reading, thank you for the link. when you come back i would be interested to know what you think that french peasant was thinking when friar Brown talks about Noah’s Ark.
Now, some people may mistake this for the antechamber to a real Age of Reason, where free thinking and atheism will thrive. It’s just a lull actually, isolated in space in time, and the longer it takes, I’m afraid, the more virulent the religious revival will be. Nature may not really abhor a vacuum, but human society does abhor the profane. If I may come back in 500 years’ time (say, by the Divine’s grace), I wouldn’t wonder if the largest chunk of the world’s population were Muslim, for instance.
Here’s an example. Paganism in the Roman Empire failed mainly due to three factors: 1) the mainstream evolution toward an esoteric intellectualism; 2) the tendency of the actively religious to embrace beliefs that flourished at the periphery of the empire; 3) the conversion of influential leaders. Given the circumstances, the question is not if, but when.
You don’t know that. There isn’t any evidence for it.
It’s very possible that the first person to tell the story thought he was recounting something true.
It’s also possible he thought it was mythic. He might have analogized. Say he cut open a snake, and found a mouse still alive. He could have said, “Wow! That could have been a man, still alive inside a great fish!” It’s neither a lie nor a truth, but an idea.
You’re making definitive declarations, but you’re not able to back them up, because you (nor anyone else) was there at the time the stories were first told.
Does “Honor the Sabbath Day and keep it Holy” ring a bell? The Blue Laws of which I speak covered Sunday only, so those who worshiped the real Sabbath on Saturday were forced to close their shops for two days. Which demonstrates that the laws were not intended only to give employees a day off.
Really, the influence of religion on the American legal system in the past is hardly a controversial thing. The hoops you have to jump through to get a drink in a bar in SLC is another (I think they’ve done away with that at last.) So much so that the Convention and Visitors Bureau video on SLC had more drinking in it than any I’ve seen - to convince people that the place isn’t dry.
I’ll accept that aversion to alcohol in general is non-Biblical. Jesus, after all, was a bootlegger.
Fred got wings, man! He’s the greatest man on earth! He saved my life! I owe him a million dollars. Fred is a goddam superhero, and that’s the truth.
How could you think a Donkey talked unless you actually saw him talk? The fact that donkeys - do not - talk means that the person who made up the story did so deliberately with full knowledge they were telling a lie, unless, of course, they were severely mentally ill.
Yes. But the author of the book of Jonah actually claims that Jonah actually lived inside a big fish for three days.
Yes, I am, anything not scientifically possible was obviously made up.
What? You’re joking right? Those are what, reactions to the fact that Fred loaned me his car. Do you honestly have any reason to think that when I say “Fred provided me with a car” that there is anything allegorical or supernatural about that statement?
I do not see what bearing that has at all to the factual nature of my responses to your posts in this thread.
That’s rather easy and, no doubt, you’ve probably heard some of the moral of the story before. But here goes anyway:
[list]The narrator is using the story to warn the audience of how terrible disregarding the cultural norms of their group is. The narrator then goes on to say that the group’s deity, even in the throes of anger against a group which has “thumbed its nose” at the deity, still manages to ensure the most righteous of the group survives the extermination of the unrighteous. And that even among the most righteous, there is still some unrighteousness which the person or persons rationalized or justified to themselves. And for a group that does not take the story literally, the killing in the story is not an issue. To them, it’s part of a sory and they understand the moral of the story.
Surely it’s not news to you that many groups throughout history have considered their group to be more special than other groups.
None of it. It’s just a bunch of false statements strung together. And that’s because you intentionally crafted a story with no value. See above where I used the term good fiction. What you wrote is not good fiction. It’s just bad writing.
Why are you so insulting? Have I insulted you?
I did not intentionally construct a story of no value. I originally made the claim “Fred provided me with a car.” That is because the bible verse said "The Lord provided Jonah with a big fish… ". I made an attempt to match the two statements. A person can ride in car, a person can not live in the belly of a big fish. The only difference of substantive is that Jonah was on a mission of some urgency. Change my story from needed to get groceries to needed to take sister to the hospital and it’s still the same except for one detail, a heighten sense of urgency.
Do you actually consider that to be morally correct? Act correctly or suffer and die. Letting the few live who do not “thumb their nose” is even further evidence of psychotic tendencies.
What moral is that exactly, when you take away the killing? Have regard for cultural norms. Because you heard a story about a flood. Why not entice people to do good for good reasons? Is it not more moral to do good because you want to do good instead of being shamed into it?
great, so you are either snarky and confrontational or an evasive christian. neither option seems to be that admirable.
I did not insult you. I accurately described the caliber of your writing in that instance.
There is a lot more to the story in the Bible than hitching a ride on a vehicle, be it a car or a “fish”.
[quoqte]I made an attempt to match the two statements. A person can ride in car, a person can not live in the belly of a big fish. The only difference of substantive is that Jonah was on a mission of some urgency. Change my story from needed to get groceries to needed to take sister to the hospital and it’s still the same except for one detail, a heighten sense of urgency.
[/QUOTE]
This is what made your story bad fiction. You did not have a purpose, a moral to the story. The writer of the story in the Book of Jonah did.
Well, since I do not consider the story to be literally true, I also do not consider a widespread slaughter to actually be true. The use of said widespread slaughter in the story is a literary device.
Perhaps the narrator knew his audience better than you know his audience.
And that comment just got reported to the moderators of this site.
People at the time were less sophisticated in that way, and were more likely to accept such ideas. (And…some people accept such ideas even today.) Maybe the guy was looking at his donkey, and, at the same time, two guys along the road, nearby, were talking, producing the illusion that the donkey was talking.
The thing is – you don’t know. You weren’t there. No one is in a position to make affirmative declarations about the state of mind of the original writers.
Well, that’s what he wrote down. Unless you have some miraculous power, you don’t have any idea what he actually thought happened.
But “made up” doesn’t mean “made up while knowing consciously that it is not true.” It could have been “made up while thinking it might have been true.” It also might have been “made up with some reservations.” What’s your evidence?
I gave you some examples of allegorical things people say when a good bud lends them a car at a time of need. They aren’t “lies.” They aren’t “believed literally to be true.” People really do say such things. The next guy along might begin to wonder: Is Fred really a superhero? The point is that you don’t know what someone else believes or does not believe. You’re putting yourself into a position of prophecy, and that’s a weird position for an atheist to occupy.
Yeah, if you want to keep pretending that, go ahead
And this was necessary for what reason?
True! That does not, however, make it any easier for a person to live in the belly of a big fish
Yes, he did, how does that make it any more possible that a person can live in the belly of a big fish? There really is no purpose at all for the statement. The same effect can be achieved by stating “really fast ship” as “belly of a whale”. I think it is at this point where I stop defending myself for criticizing non nonsensical statements.
of course it is. my contention is not really with the literary device as it is with the psychotic thinking that goes behind it.
That is probably true. It would then mean, therefor, that the story was no longer relevant.
ah so you’re a snarky and insulting coward
No, a donkey either speaks, or it doesn’t. There is no way you could be “slightly confused” about that. The fact that donkeys do not speak means it was most definitely a deliberate lie. If I told you my cat is talking to me the — only — way that can not be a lie is if I am severely mentally ill.
I actually like talking to you. I hate the term agree to disagree, it sounds phony and defeatist. But, I think we have both exchanged our POV here quite clearly. I doubt I am going to come any closer to agreeing with you. But if there is some other topic that gets mentioned on this thread I would welcome your comments.
I did not describe you. I described that particular piece of writing. What is so hard about that to understand?
Why, that’s also rather easy to understand. You wrote a short piece of fiction with no point to the story and you compared that to another short story, one which actually had a point, and I felt it necessary to show the difference.
And if the narrator never had the intention for anyone to believe the story was literally true, then it does not matter if it were possible for someone to live in the belly of a fish, or a whale even.
The impossibility is irrelevant. What is at issue is the choice of literary device by the original narrator.
The chosen literary device is one that possibly indicated towards the audience the concern of their deity (or even “the establishment”) with what happens when a person selected to perform some official duty refuses to perform the functions of his office. After all, there really is a lot more to the story of Jonah than just “being in the belly of a fish”.
Huh?
What psychotic thinking is involved if the narrator and the audience consider it a literary device? What about the expression “You’re killing me here”? That does not, of course, mean that the person addressed is actually killing the person who made that utterance. It’s simply a literary device indicating seriousness.
Well, the story may not be relevant any longer, except for all those literary issues, such as: plot, setting, interesting character(s), rising action, conflict, climax, falling action, and resolution of conflict.
Ah, I see you’re not familiar with the rules of this site.
You know, my problem is I am looking at this from a modern perspective. I am accustomed to the idea that Donkey’s don’t talk, so I would never make the claim that a Donkey said something to me. If I wanted to add dramatic effect to my story I’d provably say “I was riding on a horse through the pouring rain for six hours.” Well, actually, I wouldn’t say that, I am almost compulsively honest, but I can see how person riding a horse in the rain for several hours might say that. Not the perfect example but you see the point. So back when people had no scientific knowledge and people regularly believed supernatural fantastic events actually occurred, in such a time I can see that if you were on a long donkey ride and fell asleep, had a dream, and were jolted awake, you might somehow think the donkey spoke to you.
Similarly, if you were recording the story of Jonah and it was reported to you that Jonah took “a really fast ship” you might change the story to “belly of a fish” if such outlandish claims were already commonly accepted and repeated in your society.