Why do most atheists who debate theists interpret the Bible (or other religious texts) even more literally than most fundamentalists?
Case in point: http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/
Because there’s no other evidence than the Bible to talk about? Because we have to start somewhere, and there’s no actual facts to discuss, just the Bible? Because the fundamentalists are the people we get in the most arguments with? Because most fundamentalists these days* DO interpret it absolutely literally, despite what you are saying?
- Yes, I’m aware that’s a relatively modern development.
I mean they interpret it more literally than the fundamentalists. To give an example the phrase “the sun rose” is used to justify that the Bible argues for geocentrism when we ourselves still use the phrase!
The only reason religious folk interpret the Bible as metaphor and allegory in the first place is because that’s the only way for them to reconcile their belief in it given its absurdity.
Exactly. It’s blatant nonsense, but they “interpret” statements that were clearly meant literally to mean something else because they can’t let themselves admit that it’s nothing more than a collection of primitive, ignorant, and rather malignant myths.
Has God written down somewhere the precise limits to the literalism with which the Bible should be viewed?
If not, who is to say your 'literal interpretation is the correct one?
Exactly. Some atheists interpret the Bible like a person with Asperger’s would do.
Your link just leads me to a bible quote generator. It appears to be a different quote every time the page loads.
There are commentaries on the various books under the quote.
I don’t see it, maybe a browser issue?
But even if I could see the commentary, its a different quote everytime the page loads, right? Kinda hard to have a discussion when everyones seeing something different.
Because the Bible and other religious texts are supposed to be written or inspired by God. Words mean things and if God is what it is built up to be, those words are extremely important.
If the Bible says “thou shall spit upon every third person thy meet” then anyone who believes it should spit on the third person they meet. If they don’t, then I doubt how seriously they take their own faith. Sure apologists can twist the words around until they don’t resemble anything close to what they actually say, but they are really being willfully blind.
The Bible and Koran are ugly works and people who claim to follow them should understand what they say without having them come through a filter of so called holy men. Religious people who ignore the more nasty parts of their works and focus on the pleasant touchy feely stuff are frankly dishonest.
Except that the point of the site isn’t the quote that loads on the homepage. The point of the site is its use as Bible commentary. It’s as if a random thread title was displayed on the SDMB homepage.
And some don’t. Some religious folks interpret more literally that some atheist. I’m not sure your premise is true.
Most religious folks for instance take such passages as “Judge not, lest ye be judged” in a wider context and not the ridiculous idea that we should never, ever criticize anyone for anything.
I think you need to support your premise that “most atheists” are so pedantically over-literal. I suppose some probably are as a kind of “gotcha” (and there definitely are literalists who claim that every word is literally true), but I don’t think most atheist debaters typically waste their time trying to play games with obviously figurative or metaphorical language. I haven’t seen it either here or on the atheist board I moderate on. Honestly, I think if you saw an atheist here trying to make hay out of “the sun rose,” you’d see other atheists being the first ones to roll their eyes at it. There are far richer targets in the Bible which are not so easily dismissed as figurative.
There actually is no wider context for that one. Jesus was pretty absolute about it.
I fail to see how this is such a bad thing. As an atheist I think the bible is a bunch of rubbish. So why should I care what parts of it people choose to believe? Sure people cherry pick the bible to justify their actions, but they would do that anyway if the bible didn’t exist.
First off Curtis, you have to give up this idea that atheists are anti-Christians. It’s no more accurate than saying Christians are anti-Buddhists. Atheists generally don’t worry about what the Bible says or what it means.
The issue is that Christians do worry about what the Bible says. And they use the Bible as a justification for telling non-Christians what to do. So when Christians start claiming Biblical authority as justification for telling other people what to do, those other people have a right to determine what the authority is worth.
And the Bible, as you note, can’t stand up to any rigor. It’s full of absurdities and contradictions. But you can’t partially invoke it - you can’t say that the parts you agree with are the inspired and unquestionable word of God and the parts you don’t agree with should be ignored. The same book of the Bible that condemns homosexuality also condemns tattoos - how do you claim one passage is literal and one is allegorical?
I agree and I really don’t care either. But if someone claims to be x-religion and they don’t follow what their ‘holy texts’ say, then I don’t see how they can claim to be x. This is more important than belonging to a political party or knitting club, this deals with what the creator of the universe says.