That’s cool, rules like “though shalt not have any gods before me” help with basic happy life stuff.:rolleyes: BTW, I am very happy to hear about you coming out as an atheist (as you mentioned in that other thread.)
FrylockThere are two different questions I asked you.
Number one: Have you read the Bible?
Obviously you have not read the Bible else you would know that hell’s not for “bad guys” it’s for unbelievers (even if they are otherwise good guys) and bad guys who are believers/worshipers go to heaven. And you would know that if you had read the Bible.
So, I said “different rules, different contexts, different purposes,” and you replied by ascribing to me the view that one particular rule must serve one of the particular purposes I named. You are not reading my posts for content, and you are not responding in good faith.
FrylockThere are two different questions I asked you.
What’s question number two?
Bit of a moot point, as “bad guys” was clearly being used as shorthand for “the ones spoken of disapprovingly in the passages you’re referring to.”
But even if we take “bad guys” in the sense you did, you’re still wrong. Take the goat/sheep story. Nothing about belief there–it’s all about what the people did. The ones who did good things go to the good place, the ones who did bad things go to the bad place. In fact, I am not sure there is even a single verse in one of the four gospels where Jesus is depicted as saying that “unbelievers” go to hell. Maybe there is such a passage and I’m forgetting it, but this does not change the fact that on numerous occasions, the one said to go to a fiery fate aren’t “unbelievers” in particular, but rather, people who do bad things.
I just gave an example of a rule. Just so I could see you make some special pleading as to why that rule didn’t count in your system. Thanks. As an atheist however, you should really just start reading the book as you would read other literature.
I guess it was just one question you ignored. It’s cool, you answered it in your own way.
Well it’s not moot if you are considered one of the “bad guys” as you are for your atheism. Congratulations on coming out of the closet. But that really makes this conversation dull for me. My mission has already been accomplished.
This is why I really think you should read the Bible for yourself. Then you would know these things.
My own view is that most typically, that rule serves the purpose of manipulating people into feelings of forced loyalty. I also think individuals probably use the rule to different purposes on different occasions, and that sometimes those purposes are near and around to the “living a basically happy life” purpose you mentioned with ridicule. Depends on the person, depends on what they mean, depends on how they use it.
You have in no way presented a counter-example or indicated that any kind of “special pleading” is going on.
You think I don’t?
I ignored the question ‘Have you read the bible?’ I didn’t feel like I ignored it. I felt like I answered it by demonstration. But if you would like actual simple words to look at and read, here they are. Actually, here it is. “Yes.”
What closet? The kind of god you’re talking about is not anything I believe in. And there is nothing I believe in which you would refer to as “god.” Hence, as far as you’re concerned, I’m an atheist, and I’m happy to embrace that. But I fail to see how this makes me one of the “bad guys.”
Since any time anyone says a person is going to hell, they are speaking of that person disapprovingly, those passages depict unbelievers as “bad guys,” in the sense I elaborated.
(I should make it clear, though I mentioned above, that I’m talking about the synoptic gospels. Also, Mark 16:16 is a very, very late addition. It doesn’t even exist in my bible here at home!)
Since in the post you quoted you snipped out my acknowledgement that I could well be forgetting passages like that, and since the passages you quoted are not from biblical works I have been discussing, your point is lost.
My “name calling” was a parallel to one of your “humorous” jabs, earlier, however, if you are going to play the rules lawyer game, I note that this a direct personal attack
and that this
is more off-topic thread-shitting that I already told you to quit.
Knock it off. If you have some deep seated need to attack other posters,take it to The BBQ Pit.
Oh, I get it, it’s OK for you to get personally involved in a thread, break the rules and then blame me for it. Going forward at least I know what to expect around here.
Again it’s my thread and centuries old positions of the Catholic church based on literal interpretations of the Bible is directly relevant to my thread topic. It really seems to me that if you can accept most of Genesis is allegorical, why not accept that the prohibitions on divorce, birth control, and homosexuality are too?
In the three specific passages you quoted, no place is mentioned at all. Indeed, the second and third don’t even refer to a future state of any kind, much less a place to be gone to in the future.
Concerning special pleading: I have already explained the principled distinction that can be applied here. It’s commonly called “the criterion of embarrassment” btw. (The passages that would be more embarrassing to the original writers the ones most probably original.) You have yet to present any evidence at all that the idea of a fiery hell for the bad guys (i.e., sinners, unbelievers, the ones disapproved of, etc.) would have been particularly novel or embarrassing for the christian community involved in putting together these texts. And again, I’ll iterate that I haven’t presented evidence that it wasn’t embarrassing either. That’s where the matter stands. You seem to have a very certain feeling that you’ve proved a point, but you haven’t. Neither of us has.
As to whether I missed the idea that you have to believe in Jesus to go to heaven, that is very, very different from what you originally asked about. I will not do you the service of finding and quoting the original request, because I think it would do you good to re-read this whole thread, slowly and for comprehension.
Concerning the lateness of various passages, I was assuming you have a passing familiarity with the scholarship which both theist and atheist, christian and no-christian historians engage in w.r.t. the age of various specific passages in the books. We actually have some pretty good ideas about when the different passages in these books originated, which ones go back to the earliest times (i.e. Jesus himself), and which ones were interpolated later. You are correct that none of the books was written by an eyewitness. But some parts of the text are known to be much more likely to be original to Jesus than others. You were asking specifically about things Jesus said that were “novel.” It would make the most sense for an answer to come from some of those earlier passages.
The three you brought up, as I said, did not come to mind. Partly because it’s been a long time since I read any of this. But partly because from when I did used to look into this stuff seriously, I did have a mental classification of those passages as “late” and so, not as important for answering questions about what “Jesus really said,” which is what you were asking about. This is probably part of why they didn’t come to mind. And that is good, because you were asking about what Jesus said, and he probably didn’t say those things. Moreover, as has been pointed out elsewhere in the thread, the three passages you gave are not even relevant to your request if they are original to Jesus, since none mention a fiery hell, and two don’t even mention a future fate of any kind.
Finally, as to what kind of God I believe in, I think that for believers the concept of God is a place marker for an ultimate rationale and an ultimate value, and I myself suspect that there is an ultimate rationale and value, (i.e., “it all ultimately makes sense,” “In the final analysis, everything really is okay,” “Some things really are important regardless of what anyone thinks,” that kind of thing) and moreover, I think the life of Jesus as depicted especially in the earlier layers, and the collective life of his earliest followers especailly as depicted in the earlier Pauline layers, turn out to be central to an effective way of explicating this ultimate rationale and value. Heck, I even think, whether it really happened or not, that the resurrection is a central and necessary device within that explication. In that sense, I am a Christian, and a believer in God.
But whatever to all of that. As far as you’re concerned, you should just call me atheist and get on with your life. I’m happy to cop to the label in my conversations with you. I’ve told you how my language works, but I suspect yours is simpler, and simpler is generally better.
I broke no rules; it was clearly a joke. (“Cad” as an insult? Piffle.)
Nope. You are the OP, so you get to request that the discussion follow certain directions. However, you are now claiming that a discussion of when the Bible began to be subjected to “Literalist” interpretations–the OP you actually posted–was actually just a ruse to allow you to make any complaint against Christianity and rationalize that complaint under the banner of pretending that various interpretations are based on “literal” interpretations, regardless of their actual provenance.
If you wish to bash Christianity, you are free to open a thread on that topic. You set the boundaries for this topic and you do not get to abandon those boundaries on the mistaken claim that this is “your” thread.
Beyond that, you persistently attempt to demand that other posters respond to off-topic questions in your little campaign. That tends to look to the staff as though you are simply badgering other posters. I note that you picked up a Mod Note from Marley on the same issue in a separate thread.
Badgering posters, particularly with off-topic “questions” has never been permitted on the SDMB and we are not going to change that practice for you.
I do not see him claiming that he no longer believes in the Copernican theory, only that he agrees that it violates Church doctrine (which it did not) and agreeing that he was wrong to publish those theories in contradiction of the letter that forbade him to do so.
Regarding the OP, Reza Aslan appears to agree with the scholarly consensus that Biblical literalism is a recent phenomenon. The professor was interviewed on the Daily Show recently: here is an excerpt from the transcript:
[QUOTE=Reza Aslan and John Oliver]
A: … why are there four gospels? I mean, why, why do we need four? Why not just one? And, frankly, these gospels contradict each other in many, many ways. They, they have different timelines, different, uh, outlines for, for, for events. Now, do you think the people, the, the sort of early Church Fathers who put these gospels together and canonized them didn’t know that?
O: [Chuckle]
A: They didn’t realize that “wait, the infancy narratives in Matthew, and, and Luke don’t match”, that Jesus is crucified on a completely different day in John than he is, in, in the other gospels. Of course they knew that, but they didn’t care because thi- this idea of literalism; that the Bible is literally true is a incredibly new phenomenon.
O: Right, but that, but that’s what’s interesting, because it’s not just that they didn’t care, but that they, that they were not intended to be read literally.
A: They were not intended to do that.
…
A: Fundamentalism is a reaction to the Scientific Revolution of the, of the nineteenth century. It’s a reaction to Christian liberalism. We as a society came to the conclusion that that which is true is that which can be empirically verified.
O: Right.
A: And, I think a group of conservative Christians felt as though that was a threat to them, because unless you can empirically verify the claims of the Bible, then it’s not scientifically true. And, so, they read the Bible as though it were literally true in a way that it was never intended to be read. Instead of understanding that the truth of the scriptures goes far beyond any kind of historical claims that it makes.
O: Right.
A: The truth is about, the, you know, it, it’s about the message that it’s trying to convey. Uh, not about, you know, the sort of dates and, and facts.
[/QUOTE]
Admittedly, Aslan isn’t presenting anything especially original: that literalism is mostly a new development is pretty well understood and obvious to any credentialed historian.
You are special pleading, whether you can admit it or not.
Much more likely meaning 25% likely instead of 2% likely? I quoted John also, but you hooked on Mark and used that to ignore everything. Again, that’s what special pleading, cognitive dissonance, confirmation bias, and cherry picking all look like.
Doth really protest too much. I’d suggest you just read the Gospel again and highlight all the parts where Jesus talks about he, and his dad, sending most of humanity to hell, torment, a furnace of fire, etc.
So if I understand you correctly, there is no being that can hear or answer your prayers, Jesus is not your Lord and Savior. He’s just a guy, who if you personally cherry pick his sayings, you like his philosophy. Is that all correct? If so, what sets Jesus apart from so many other philosophers from ages past?
OK cool, we can directly insult people if we mean it as a joke. You guys should amend the rules to say that.
I’m liberal with the interpretations of my thread titles. I don’t care if they go on tangents, and whether and what the Catholic church determines must be taken literal or not, is no tangent in this thread no matter how much you want it to be.
I was just asking questions. You don’t have to answer, in fact I didn’t expect that you would.
Prohibitions can’t be allegories; that’s not what allegory is.