The Bible used to get a lot of things wrong
by Fred Clark, at 'slacktivist':
Amanda Marcotte writes at Salon about 10 things conservative Christians got horribly wrong .
Looking over the long history of people claiming to be speaking for Gods wishes, it quickly becomes evident that Christians are frequently on the wrong side of history. Here are 10 things that American Christians of the conservative stripe got completely wrong when they were so sure they were speaking on Gods behalf.
I realize that Marcotteis both an atheist ( gasp! ) and, even worse, a feminist , and thus shes not someone that conservative Christians are inclined to listen to. So let me point out that many politically conservative white evangelical men would agree with her on at least some of the items in her list.
For example, the first item on Amanda Marcottes list of things conservative Christians got horribly wrong is slavery. Southern Baptist spokesman Russell Moore agrees with her. Heres what Moore recently said on that topic:
The founders of the Southern Baptist Convention were wrong and wickedly wrong on the issue of human slavery. And the problem wasnt just that they were on the wrong side of a social issue; they were on the wrong side of Jesus and the gospel when it came to brothers and sisters in Christ made in the image of God that they treated with injustice.
Moore would probably (I think ) agree with about half of Marcottes list. Im guessing hed also agree that conservative Christians who defended segregation were horribly wrong. And Id guess he would agreethat Prohibition was a mistake, and that opposing womens suffrage was wrong (but not opposing womens ordination). And Im pretty sure he would say now that evangelicalshostile anti-Catholicism duringthe 19th and most of the 20th centuries was something that shouldnt have happened.
But he would likely disagree strenuously with the other half of Marcottes list, which includes things like evolution, official prayer in schools, contraception and marriage equality.*
On all of those points, of course, Moore and his fellow conservative Christians would insist that their own opinions arent the issue here. What matters, rather, is what the Bible clearly says. Its not that conservative Christians reject evolution, but that the Bible insists its wrong. And same-sex marriage is anathema not because conservative Christians think so, but because that is what the Bible clearly teaches. And contraception is wrong because the Bible clearly says so (right there in um Ill have to get back to you with chapter and verse on that one).
These conservative Christians would object to Marcottes assertion that they are wrong on these matters. What shes really saying, they would say, is that the Bible is wrong about such things.
The problem with that argument is that this is exactly what those earlier conservative Christians said about slavery, segregation, womens suffrage, Prohibition, and the Papist Menace.If Russell Moores Southern Baptist predecessors had been confronted with Moores claim that they were wrong and wickedly wrong on the issue of human slavery, they wouldnt have defended their opinion they would have said it wasnt about their opinion, but about the clear teaching and inerrant authority of the holy Word of God. And then theyd have viciously attacked Moore for his refusal to accept the clear and unambiguous authority of scripture.
This isnt speculation about how they would respond. This is what they actually did. Those pro-slavery Southern Baptists were regularly and repeatedly accused of being wickedly wrong about slavery. And their response documented in thousands of volumes was always to attack their accusers for infidelity to the clear teaching of the Bible.
Anti-slavery Christians, in response, insisted they werent criticizingthe Bible itself, only the way that pro-slavery Christians had chosen to interpret the Bible. The problem isnt with what the Bible says, they argued, but with how the pro-slavery Southern Baptists were reading it and misusing it.
But that response only made those pro-slavery Baptists angrier. There can be only one way to read the Bible, they insisted. There can be only one way to interpret it. More than that, really what they were arguing was that the Bible didnt need to be interpreted at all.
That claim is the identifying characteristic of the people Marcotte identifies as conservative Christians. They all share this idea that the Bible is uniform and unambiguous that despite being a diverse collection of ancient texts written over a period of centuries in diverse contexts for diverse audiences, it never displays a diversity of perspectives. The Bible, they insist, never contradicts itself and never presents opposing views, and thus requires little interpretation for a contemporary reader.
Unfortunately, while this view of the Bible is horrifically misleading, its also widely accepted not just by conservative Christians, but by many of their critics. Thus we see things like Marcotte writing the Bible clearly has a positive view of slavery uncritically acceptingnot just the illiterate anti-hermeneutic of the fundies, but even their favorite thought-suppressingadverb (the Bible clearly ).
The Bible does, in fact, contain a great deal of material that endorses various forms of slavery. That is undeniable. Slavery is, in various parts of the Bible, commended and commanded. In some places in the Bible, an abundance of slaves is presented as evidence of Gods blessing.
But the Bible also does, in fact, contain a great deal of material that attacks slavery. That is also undeniable. Slavery is, in various parts of the Bible, condemned as contemptible. In some places in the Bible, an abundance of slaves is presented as evidence of wickedness, disobedience and rebellion against God.
Such contradictory arguments can be bewildering if you havent got some way of determining which part of this biblical argument is the winning side. ( Jubilee, people, its always about Jubilee. All of it.)
But theres no way of doing that if youve decided ahead of time that such intra-biblical disputes cannot be allowed to exist. Pretending they dont exist doesnt make them go away. Refusing to acknowledge their existence doesnt make them vanish in a puff of smoke no matter how much conservative Christians wish that it were so.
This is a huge problem for 21st-century white evangelicals. Like Russell Moore, theyre mostlyconvinced now that white evangelical support for slavery had been a terrible mistake. Yet they still want to cling to the pro-slavery Christians insistence that the Bible is uniform and unambiguous and that no interpretation is necessary to understand what it clearly says.
So while theyre pretty sure those earlier, pro-slavery Christians were wrong, theyre notable to explain how or why they were wrong. And thus, today, they are also unable to explain how or why they themselves are right about all the things they claim the Bible clearly says.
If those early Southern Baptists were wrong about slavery, then they were wrong about the Bible wrong about how to read the Bible. They were wrong about slavery because they were wrong about how to read the Bible.
Contemporary white evangelicalswant to retain the same approach to reading the Bible, but not the same conclusions about slavery. That doesnt work.
If you want to retain the anti-hermeneutic of the early Southern Baptists while rejecting their pro-slavery views, then you cant say, The founders of the Southern Baptist Convention were wrong and wickedly wrong on the issue of human slavery. You have to say, instead, that the Bible itself used to be wrong and wickedly wrong on slavery, but somehow isnt anymore (even though it never changed).
If youre not willing to reject that anti-hermeneutic, then you have to say that the Bible itself used to be wrong about a lot of things.
- - - - - - -
* Im a bit worried about mentioning item No. 4 on Amanda Marcottes list:
4) Pain relief for childbirth. The Bible explicitly lays out pain in childbirth as Eves punishment for sin, so unsurprisingly, thats what many Christians in the 19th century believed had to be so. Once reliable pain relief in childbirth began to be developed, therefore, there was a lot of resistance to it from Christians who feared it defied God to let women have some relief. Eventually, the argument that women owed it to God to suffer through childbirth faded to the fringes of right-wing Christianity.
Its true that this was once conventional wisdom a widespread argument that shaped common practice. Childbirth was seen as something that ought to be painful, because Eve. Today,though,that argument is a mostly forgotten relic of history.
But today we also have a reflexively polarized religious right that trips over itself in a rush to oppose anything and everything that we evil liberals and baby-killers view approvingly. Just by mentioning stuff like this, we may be giving them ideas. If Amanda Marcotte approves of reliable pain relief in childbirth, that probably means that Barack Obama does too. And Sandra Fluke and Rachel Held Evans and Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi and Brian McLaren and Planned Parenthood. Probably even Rob Bell.
And once they realize that, theyre likely to start angrily opposing such pain relief as another evil symptom of womens lib and the sexual revolution. After all, if bearing children isnt as painful and dangerous as it was back in the Golden Age, then its like were giving these wanton hussies permission to go out and do the sex without the fear of pain and suffering that God intended to accompany such filthy behavior, etc., etc.
If you think thats an exaggeration, keep in mind that this is exactly what has happened in recent years when it comes to the abruptly newfound white evangelical opposition to contraception a position that has surged to prominence without anycredible biblical, ethical, scientific or logical argument to support it.
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The Bible used to get a lot of things wrong
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When a source contradicts itself, it cant be right all the time.
Great article!
Lots to go over too.
Does one believe that it's possible to be true and fallible?
I doubt that anyone would ever say it like that. What you'll hear is denial of whatever text is "inconvenient".
By "anyone" are you refering to Evangelicals?
No. The author of the seed is an evangelical.
I'm thinking of fundamentalist believers in Biblical inerrancy.
The bible (especially the Old Testament/Torah) is written often in parable. It wasn't suppose to be taken literally, but interpreted on many levels, each with a whole new thing to ponder.
Take the story of Abraham and Isaac, when Abraham is asked to take Isaac and give him as a burnt offering. Most people take this as meaning that one should not question god, even when he is asking the unthinkable. It is only when you look at the nuances of the story is there deeper meaning.
Here are various ways of viewing this story:
Jewish views [ edit ]
The majority of Jewish religious commentators argue that God was testing Abraham to see if he would actually kill his own son, as a test of his loyalty. However, a number of Jewish Biblical commentators from the medieval era, and many in the modern era, read the text in another way.
The early rabbinic midrash Genesis Rabbah imagines God as saying "I never considered telling Abraham to slaughter Isaac (using the Hebrew root letters for "slaughter", not "sacrifice")". Rabbi Yona Ibn Janach ( Spain , 11th century) wrote that God demanded only a symbolic sacrifice. Rabbi Yosef Ibn Caspi (Spain, early 14th century) wrote that Abraham's "imagination" led him astray, making him believe that he had been commanded to sacrifice his son. Ibn Caspi writes "How could God command such a revolting thing?" But according to Rabbi Joseph H. Hertz ( Chief Rabbi of the British Empire ), child sacrifice was actually "rife among the Semitic peoples," and suggests that "in that age, it was astounding that Abraham's God should have interposed to prevent the sacrifice, not that He should have asked for it." Hertz interprets the Akedah as demonstrating to the Jews that human sacrifice is abhorrent. "Unlike the cruel heathen deities, it was the spiritual surrender alone that God required. " In Jeremiah 32:35, God states that the later Israelite practice of child sacrifice to the deity Molech "had [never] entered My mind that they should do this abomination."
Other rabbinic scholars also note that Abraham was willing to do everything to spare his son, even if it meant going against the divine command: while it was God who ordered Abraham to sacrifice his son, it was an angel , a lesser being in the celestial hierarchy, that commanded him to stop. However, the actions and words of angels (from the Greek for "messenger") are generally understood to derive directly from God's will.
In some later Jewish writings, the theology of a "divine test" is rejected, and the sacrifice of Isaac is interpreted as a "punishment" for Abraham's earlier "mistreatment" of Ishmael , his elder son, whom he expelled from his household at the request of his wife, Sarah . According to this view, Abraham failed to show compassion for his son, so God punished him by ostensibly failing to show compassion for Abraham's son. This is a somewhat flawed theory, since the Bible says that God agreed with Sarah, and it was only at His insistence that Abraham actually had Ishmael leave. In The Last Trial , Shalom Spiegel argues that these commentators were interpreting the Biblical narration as an implicit rebuke against Christianity's claim that God would sacrifice His own son.
The Tzemach Tzedek [4] cites a question asked by Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Vitebsk : At first glance, this appears to have been mainly a test of Isaac, for he was the one to be giving up his life al kiddush Hashem (in order to sanctify Gods Name). However the Torah states (Gen. 22:1) that God meant to test Abraham, not Isaac? Rabbi Menachem Mendel answers that although it is a very great Mitzvah to give up ones life, it is unremarkable in the annals of Jewish history. Even the most unlettered and ordinary Jews would surrender their lives in martyrdom. Thus, as great a Mitzvah as it is, this test is considered trivial for someone of the spiritual stature of Isaac, who, as one of our forefathers, was likened to Gods chariot (Gen. Rabba 47:6) for he served as a vehicle for the divine traits of kindness, strictness, and compassion.
Rather, at the binding the main one tested was Abraham. It was a test of faith to see whether he would doubt God's words. Abraham had been assured by God that Your seed will be called through Isaac (Gen. 21:12), i.e., Isaac (and not Ishmael) would father a great nationthe Jewish people. However, Abraham could apparently have asked a very glaring question: at the time that God commanded him to offer up Isaac as a sacrifice, Isaac was still single, and if Isaac would die now, how could he possibly father the nation which was to be born from Abraham? Moreover, isnt God eternal and unchanging, as God declares: I have not changed (Malachi 3:6), implying that He does not change His mind?
Abraham believed with faith that if this is what God was telling him to do now, this was surely the right thing to do. It was passing this test that was remarkable even for someone of Abraham's stature.
In The Binding of Isaac, Religious Murders & Kabbalah , Lippman Bodoff argues that Abraham never intended to actually sacrifice his son, and that he had faith that God had no intention that he do so. Rabbi Ari Kahn (on the Orthodox Union website) elaborates this view as follows: Yitzchaks death was never a possibility not as far as Avraham was concerned, and not as far as God was concerned. Gods commandment to Avraham was very specific, and Avraham understood it very precisely: Yitzchak was to be raised up as an offering, and God would use the opportunity to teach humankind, once and for all, that human sacrifice, child sacrifice, is not acceptable. This is precisely how the sages of the Talmud (Taanit 4a) understood Akeidat Yitzchak. Citing the Prophet Jeremiahs exhortation against child sacrifice (Chapter 19), they state unequivocally that such behavior never crossed Gods mind -referring specifically to the sacrificial slaughter of Yitzchak. Though readers of this parashah throughout the generations have been disturbed, even horrified, by the Akeida, there was no miscommunication between God and Avraham. The thought of actually killing Yitzchak never crossed their minds. [5] Others suggest [ who? ] that Abraham's apparent complicity with the sacrifice was actually his way of testing God. Abraham had previously argued with God to save lives in Sodom and Gomorrah . By silently complying with God's instructions to kill Isaac, Abraham was putting pressure on God to act in a moral way to preserve life. More evidence that Abraham thought that he won't actually sacrifice Isaac comes from Genesis 22:5, where Abraham said to his servants, "You stay here with the ass. The boy and I will go up there; we will worship and we will return to you." By saying that we (as opposed to I), he meant that both he and Isaac will return. Thus, he didn't believe that Isaac would be sacrificed in the end. [6]
In The Guide for the Perplexed , Maimonides argues that the story of the Binding of Isaac contains two "great notions." First, Abraham's willingness to sacrifice Isaac demonstrates the limit of humanity's capability to both love and fear God. Second, because Abraham acted on a prophetic vision of what God had asked him to do, the story exemplifies how prophetic revelation has the same truth value as philosophical argument and thus carries equal certainty, notwithstanding the fact that it comes in a dream or vision. [7]
In Glory and Agony: Isaac's Sacrifice and National Narrative , Yael S. Feldman argues that the story of Isaac's Binding, in both its biblical and post-biblical versions (the New Testament included) has had a great impact on the ethos of altruist heroism and self-sacrifice in modern Hebrew national culture. As her study demonstrates, over the last century the "Binding of Isaac" has morphed into the "Sacrifice of Isaac," connoting both the glory and agony of heroic death on the battlefield. [8]
Wanted to be sure.
Perrie, that's all very erudite & scholarly, but that isn't the way many (most?) Fundies read the Bible-- "Interpretation" is anathema. And, in an odd way, what you've just outlined is really the same attempt to put a rational spin on another Biblical contradiction: we now have learned scholars explaining what both God and Abraham "really thought" or "really meant".
'Rationalizing' the actions of the Old Testament God has always been a thorny issue--- God in the Old Testament was often a vindictive psychopath. Trying to 'make sense' out of the contradictions in the Bible is behind a large part of the admonition to take it all'on faith'. The 'Master Plan' literallyhas to be unknowable & incomprehensible to mere humans... 'cause otherwise Old Testament God would be a paranoid schizophrenic child.
Perrie,
I find it remarkable that the Jews, who have been dealing with their Holy Book for a lot longer than Christians, and who revere the physical object with an intensity that Christians rarely attain... have no notion of inerrancy. (Well, there are some crazy little sects.... but those are , precisely, "crazy little sects", not a huge segment striving to be all-powerful.)
The Jews have debated the interpretation of this word or that, and spotlighted contradictions in order to try to resolve them, for a very, very long time. They have added to the mass of texts "about the Bible" since... Biblical times! The Bible is just the Torah, the First Five Books, the Pentateuch... The other "books of the Old Testament" are later additions, and such additions continue to this day.
Swami...
I think you are missing the point, both of the seed and of Perrie's contribution.
You are right that many fundies believe in inerrancy. But that doesn't disqualify the Bible! It disqualifies those people.
You are judging the God of Abraham by modern standards. Take a look at the others gods who ruled the universe back in those days.
Funny, I don't recall those instructions as being included with the scriptures. You would think that an infallible entity would have made sure to preface a work of contradiction and ambiguous alegory with a disclaimer, in order to avoid thousands of years of endless carnage resulting from differing interpretations of that garbage. Perrie - did He recruit you to spread the disclaimer?
Mike,
Read the article(s) then, as one is a critique of the one you just referred to.
Am I to understand that you believe in an omniscient and omnipotent God?
Actually... no.
Re-read that sentence two or three times. If you still haven't figured out what it actually means, just repeat your question. I'll be glad to explain how adjectives work in English...
What distinction do you make between the "modern god" in which you apparently believe, and the "ancient god" that your adjective postulates?
I have very much the same.
That's a very general generalization!
Do you really believe that all of the world's billions of Christians are taught the same -- identical -- approach to the Bible? What international organization ensures that all Christian training is identical?
Oh?
I have thought about Jesus for the last five decades... often perturbed by the many disparate images of Jesus that different Christians proposed.
If you know of a "one and only Jesus as described in the Bible"... I would be very grateful to learn of Him.
It's wonderful to discover, after all this time, that someone has the Truth!
Let me see if I understand you...
You are confident that you know "the one and only Jesus as described in the Bible", and you are an unabashed atheist.
You consider that "the truth can be reduced to four words". Bumper sticker length.
Well.......
I wish you a pleasant life...
I really don't care what supernatural beliefs anyone has so long as those beliefs do not infringe upon my constitutional rights. Unfortunately, there are specific Christian sects whom chose to enter the political arena with the blatant intention of forcing their religious ideology into law.
That, I will resist.
Is there some relation between this post and the seed? I'm sorry, but I don't see it.
Ah, yes. The Santa Claus argument. Unicorns are next up?
How do you KNOW these things? Does He speak to you?
I assume that you understand that "knowing" a negative, such as "God does not exist", is an act of faith.
You tell me. All I see is you trying to manipulate your own topic. Try summing up your own topic, in your own words, rather than playing your games.
Mike...
The seed is about things conservative Christians got wrong.
It does not say that liberal Christians never got anything wrong.
If you want to seed an article about things liberal Christians got wrong, go right ahead.
This seed comes from a blog run by a liberal evangelical. Does Fred Clark have an agenda? You betcha!
Now...Do you have anything to say about the content of the seed?
Say WHAT?
Do I understand that you haven't bothered to read the seed before posting?
How about you read the seed??
Yeeesh!!
Hal,
A self-declared atheist has no right to define the criteria for being a Christian. You can't play both sides.
Hal,
You have rigorous data to back up this statement, right?
Actually no. There is over 2,500 year old book called the Talmud that is in depth discussion over the meaning of the Bible, and even today, Jews who study the Old Testament/Bible continue to interpret it to make it relevant in a modern world. In this way, it is very different than just learning scripture.
Meaning no disrespect to your article/seed, which I think is excellent, or to you-- but when I read the title of this article, I thought of two scenarios, (my thoughts are in italics):
1. The bible used to get a lot of things wrong, (long ago-- and now it is somehow better), or
2. The bible used, (as a tool), to get a lot of things wrong.
No matter which way I think of it, though, I must agree. I think that the bible has been used as a tool to support arguments that suits someone's agenda, and this has been going on for a long time. It is sometimes hard to remember that each of us who reads it is going to interpret the bible's meanings through our own eyes and experiences.
Is there some relation between this post and the seed?
I read the original Salon article - 10 things conservative Christians got horribly wrong. My reply was in response to that article.
In your synopsis of the article you completely overlooked that each point in the article has been used by the religious right in the political arena...making the article part of a political issue.
My reaction to any attempt to push a religious initiative into law, (be it Christian, Islamic or Jewish) that interferes with my constitutional rights, is to fight it but within the political system.
In a large part, the theological accuracy of the religious rights use of the bible to justify their actions (see: Dominion Theology and Christian Reconstructionism ) is secondary to the fact that it doesn't belong in the secular world of politics, in the first place.
While I agree with much of your analysis of the article and could spend time bringing up points such as how the Evangelicals, southern Baptists and Fundamentalists are using " sola scriptura " in interpreting the bible as a tool to enforce what they see as Gods manifest destiny for the US ---- in my reply, I chose to take a different tact.
Hal,
C'mon, Hal! Let's be just a teeny-tiny bit rogourous:
Have you looked at the Pew poll? The questions? The detail of the results. It does not work in your favor.
This is a "froth" poll. All the poll-takers do them. They are intended to find results that their consumers will like. The questions are written to that end, and the results are collated to that end. But when you dig in, you can find the actual situation. I suggest you do that, before saying silly things like " the typical atheist knows far more"...
For pity's sake Hal! Perrie's post has absolutely nothing to do with "melding"!
Hal... You cannot have a coherent conversation if all you do is pick a single one of the other person's words at random, and then write a free-form riff...
Perrie was being kind enough to give you a one-paragraph synopsis of the long Wikipedia extract she posted previously... and which you apparently did not read.
Instead of appreciating her gift, you smacked her.
Good work, Hal!
...
...
...
Im sorry you don't find this study to have merit, Bob. It's a good thing everyone else does, including FOX News - since they posted David Silverman's well written opinion piece. Btw, that's just the tip of the iceberg on who has published articles about that poll.
Excellent!
I had not seen 2)... but it certainly works!
My point above is that only an undeniable idiot would claim that there is global cohesion in Abrahamic religions. When someone comes along and says "the Bible is meant to be blah blah blah", they are assuming to know something that they don't, as evidenced by the real world around them. Like every other religious doctrine throughout history, it's a book of ambiguity that serves to foment conflict in every manner imaginable.
AP,
I wrote no synopsis. What are you talking about?
That is totally irrelevant to the seed.
Ah! This at least tangentially mentions the seed... but... if " theological accuracy of the religious rights use of the bible to justify their actions... is secondary to the fact that it doesn't belong in the secular world of politics, in the first place"... why are you bothering to react to a seed that is strictly about that theological accuracy?
Why are you wasting your time... and ours?
Why are you wasting your time... and ours
Who is "ours"? Do you have a mouse in your pocket. I also should have said the synopsis you posted. I don't think you are capable if giving a synopsis in your own words.
Last time I looked here this was an open forum where thoughts related to topics can be discussed. I have no idea what conniving BS you are pulling here nor what the hell you are trying to accomplish but I tried to remain civil with you. Since you obviously do not grasp such a concept, I will now treat you as you have treated me.
This is the crux of it... "thoughts related". The question is "how closely related?" After all, any post concerning religion is "related" to the seed... if only very, very distantly.
Of course, if each post is "very vaguely related" to the previous one, the result is chaos.
I'll explain: I am seeding articles that I find in my daily reading, and that I think a worthy of sharing and discussing. Or writing articles on subjects that interest me.
Then I observe the results. I want to see if reasonable discourse is possible without Red Rules... and thus far, the results are brutally clear: NO!!
Civility is good... but insufficient. A perfectly civil post can still be a derail. That is what you were doing, whether you realized it or not.
Please understand that I am NOT accusing you of intentionally derailing. I am afraid that habits on the Front Page have drifted so far away from "conversation" that people do not even realize that they are derailing.
Good conversation requires effort.
Each participant must listen to the others. Each participant must try to place the other's post in the context of the original article.
I am not interested in free-form rambling. If you want free-form rambling, that's fine for you... but it is not at all "civil" to indulge that desire on someone else's seed.
Hal,
The pretext to this whole discussion is the possibility of misinterpretation of the bible. That is doesn't have to be dogmatically followed. I offered one example of how it isn't. I never suggested that there would be world peace if everyone just followed the Talmud. I offered it up as a good example of a template of how more fundamental Christians could begin to interpret the New Testament. BTW, my discussion here isn't about the past, but the possibility of the future.
C'mon, Hal...
You know how cable news works. Pew publishes under a dynamite headline, and all the cable outfits are sure to carry it.
Dig into the poll, Hal. Don't take my word. The data doesn't support the headline.
Nope. If you're interested, you'll take three minutes to look at the questions and the results. If you're not interested... you won't.
... not according to a poll that you will find just above...
I dont understand. I never spoke of Pew having an agenda. (Other than making money, of course.)
Pew did with this poll what all pollsters do with their fluff polls: stick a YOWZA title on an otherwise "yawn" poll.
And when Lot offers up his own daughters to be gang raped, to save the sexual abuse of two complete strangers who are men - how on earth can anyone with a conscience spin out a tale of morality from that?
Ouch!
We're getting our wires crossed... badly...
I'm not sure who "it" is here. If "it" is the Pew poll, I never said it was "vague". I said there was little of interest in it, and that the headline drawn from it is misleading at best. But once again, I am not surprised. That is how pollsters sell pointless polls: with overblown conclusions.
OMG-- could it be?
Bob Nelson back-- after all this time?
Anyway-- its wonderful to see you again :^)
(P.S: Don't be fooled by my current avatar-- its me-- the same 'ole mischievous Krishna).
Where's Kurdistan?
;-))Ummmmm...... Hal??
You REALLY should examine your poll results. YOUR poll results do not show what you think they show.
In any case, I'm done with the poll.
Hal, you are arguing with yourself, creating the foil and attacking it.
I said:
Hal said:
Well, actually, no.
Case in point:
Perrie posted a Wiki article in which it is shown that the people of the jewish faith allow for interpretation of the religious writings which the people of the christian faith call the Old Testament. This interpretation by the jewish scholars is in direct contrast with the christian infallibility supposition, and is actually supportive (In a way) of your view that they are just stories told by men.
You jumped her shit and asked, "Perrie - did He recruit you to spread the disclaimer?," ignoring the fact that perhaps the origins of these writings are lost in the distance of time. Instead you chose to speak on how anyone who believes in religions is an idiot. No skin off of my ass, but it does not seem to be the best way to address your particular topic of interest by slamming apertinentand cogent post supporting your position (Once again: They are just stories) with several posts of how all religion sucks and any and all adherents to a religion are foolish.
Any document written can be interpreted in different ways, no matter how stringent the writers are to make the ways of interpretation clear and distinct. Just look at thelitigiousnessof society today for a clear example. Humans have a rational component, but we are largely defined by our cultures because we are herd beasts, so upbringing has as much or more to do with the attitudes that we represent than the (il)logic which we follow.
BTW, I agree with much of what you say, just not the way in which you present it.
Hi Bob,
Sorry I missed your comment.
You are correct on all accounts. The discussions on the bible's stories are every bit just as important as the actual stories themselves, if not more.
So I guess you never heard about Lilith?
Telling part of a story to prove a point, doesn't. This story took place the night before Sodom and Gomorrah were to be destroyed. It is about the utter depth of desperation of a Sophie's choice.
Brolly,
Spot on...
And the irony is that I am actually agnostic. All I was trying to bring to the discussion is that I am sure that the reason that there are so many different denominations of Christianity is because of the differences in the way they interpret the bible. Otherwise, there would be just one kind of Christian. But I used Judaism because unlike Christianity, there is an actual text, the Talmud, and continual study on what the stories mean.
Perrie said:
as you say, "Spot on."
Mickey,
If you do not see the difference between the God of Abraham and the God of Jesus... you simply are not paying attention. From "an eye for an eye" to "turn the other cheek"... from hellfire to love.
Keep in mind that the stories of "Abraham" (who may very well be a literary composite / construct), were recorded / written some five centuries before Jesus's time, describing a world set some fifteen centuries earlier yet. So the God of Abraham is situated as far earlier than Jesus as Jesus is earlier than we.
Perrie,
You may know this better than I...
As I understand it, the Torah appeared during the Babylonian Captivity. It may have been much older -- it describes events over a thousand years earlier -- handed down orally, and simply recorded for the first time in Babylon. Or it may have be written (in the full sense of "conceived and elaborated").
It seems to me that the jumble that is the Torah, with various authors and various agendas being identifiable, is too messy to have been written in a short time, even in the two centuries of the Captivity. So I'd guess it's an oral tradition of unknown age, recorded in Babylon.
Your thoughts?
Perrie and Brolly,
"Spot on!"
From wiki: "The Hebrew term Lilith or "Lilit" (translated as "night creatures", "night monster", "night hag", or "screech owl") first occurs in Isaiah 34:14, either singular or plural according to variations in the earliest manuscripts, though in a list of animals. In the Dead Sea Scrolls Songs of the Sage the term first occurs in a list of monsters. In Jewish magical inscriptions on bowls and amulets from the 6th century CE onwards, Lilith is identified as a female demon and the first visual depictions appear."
And Perrie, mother to two daughters, please tell me that you don't find anything moral about the inclusion of Lot allowing for the gang rape of his daughters over the gang rape of two strange men. What purpose could that possibly serve? I don't care if the rest of that story involves a wealth of wisdom and virtue, including the gang rape of daughters is like pissing in the punch bowl.
The problem, Hal... is that that has nothing to do with either the seed or Perrie's post. Either you weren't paying attention or you intentionally derailed... and you smacked Perrie in the face in the process...
Not well done....
The story of Lilith was written in the 8th century, hardly an enlighten period for women's rights. Yet, the story came into being and showed women as equals.
First, the daughters of Lot were not ganged raped as god intervene and made the men blind. That sends quite a message about rape.
Second, I don't take the bible literally. It is parable. As the mother of two very modern daughters, I would only expect THEM to realize not to take it literally and indeed they don't. My family has always been open to discussions on many subjects, including religion. We all have many differing POVs and that's OK with us... including the right not to believe.
It's a geopolitical region in Syria, Iran, Turkey, et. al. LINK
"Where's Kurdistan" was a joke. Krishna and I go way back, and we both know that we both know a bit -- or quite a bit -- about the Middle East.
Please pardon my using "inside" humor in public. Bad form. Sorry.
No problem at all!!! I'm sorry I butted in! I had to look it up, myself...
I don't know much about the middle east-- it is very confusing to me! So, I thought I'd better look it up and share that info... Please excuse me!
My "humor" gets me in trouble all the time. I would never be cruel, but I often skate close enough to hint at what might have been said...
People who know me assume that there's nothing evil hiding under the rock... but I forget that not everyone knows me...
(
I've known you for years, Bob. I didn't take any kind of offense...
I don't assume people are out to get me, either. When they really are, it's always a shock!
Jeez, Mickey !
For a guy who says "I have been reading it"... You sure miss a lot!
You have just added to the general demonstration of the necessity for Red Rules. In two ways. First, meta is always off-topic. Second, the seed was not about religion and politics. Double derail.
As I said to AeonPax, I don't think you're doing this derailing on purpose. You probably don't realize what you are doing.
The fact is that it doesn't matter whether or not you are derailing on purpose. You are derailing in any case...
I'm sorry. I was clearly off topic! Bob, please feel free to delete.
That's an interesting notion, Mickey. It could be the topic of an interesting conversation. But it is not the topic of this conversation.
I get to decide the topic here, because I seeded the article to which the conversation refers.
If you want to discuss your topic, fine! Start a conversation. But not here.
Your refusal to recognize that an author must have the authority to decide what is and is not on-topic is of course at the heart of the Red Rules debate. You are advocating that all participants should be allowed to post at will, each one of them deciding what is on-topic. I say that is chaos.
Once again... thank you for this demonstration of chaos.
The Bible, like any story and any set of rules-- even any event-- is interpreted differently by different people. The problem is that most people always think that they are right-- that there is only one way to interpret anything (and anyone who interprets it differently is wrong).
For example-- the meaning of a story. or a law. I heard people debate different provisions of the Consti;tiution-- some even say "its obvious" what it means. (of course many with opposing interpretations also feel the meaning "is obvious").
I suppose out country coild've worked OK with just 2 branches (legislative & judiciary) but out Founding fathers were pretty smrt-- they realized that no mtter how good a job they did writing th,e Constitution, people would interpret it differently. So they provided for another branch of gov't-- to be the final word in h,ow each part was interpreted (the Supreme Court).
Even events-- different witnesses to the crime swear what they saw was correct-- but often they contradict each, other!
So to a large degree, its all about how its interpreted.
Perrie mentioned that the Old testiment was writeen in parables, not to be taken literally. Well, so were the teachings of Jesus. All very symbolic, figurative language. I think I understand them-- and most Christians-- including most clergy in all denominations don't. (of course I've never been known to be particularly humble
Its true-- jews are constantly debating the meaning of each sentence-- even every letter...
Among religious Jews, questionng of everything is not only permitted-- its encouraged. Challenging convention is, IMO, why Israelis so innovative-- more sucessful tech start-ups per capita than any other countryn in the word (except, possibly, the U.S.?).
Interestingly, in almost all branches of Islam (I'm not sure about the Sufis?), its just the opposite-- questioning the Koran is not only not encouraged-- its blasphemy! A good Muslim must believe that the Koran is the literal word of God. That not one letter has been changed since it was originally written. Which is why the Arab world is so backward! (There are 22 Arab countries-- I've read that, to cite one example,not counting Korans, there are more books published in Spain in a year than in all of the Arab world.). "Thinking outside the box" is not only not encouraged-- its blasphemy. And not thinking outside the box keeps the Arab world in a perpetual backward state.
What's your purpose here, Mickey?
Are you trying to protect the topic of this conversation? Of course not. You're trying to be clever; to score points in some game that you are playing. You believe you have a "gotcha!" A great big, 100-point "GOTCHA!!!"
Nope. Because I am not playing your silly game.
I am conversing. In a conversation, there is the topic... and there are asides. An aside is a momentary step away from the topic, to something else, with no intention to stay on that something else.
A derail is a permanent step away from the topic.
An aside lightens the conversation, with the risk of slipping into a derail. The author must allow asides, but not derails. It's a judgement call.
In the present case, I felt that the conversation had pretty much died already, so an aside was no danger at all.
Hey! I even let you into meta!
There's no "gotcha!" here, Mickey. Not even a teeny-tiny 1-point "gotcha!"
Agreed.
link?
Yes, but without consequence. There was no problem!
What we did was an aside, not a derail. Our little side-trip was never intended to become the focus of the conversation, and there was little risk that it would.
An occasional aside does no harm.
When people of good faith converse, they voluntarily stay on the topic, until there is a clear consensus to move on. In the meantime, they may make an aside or two, but they voluntarily return to the original topic. As we would have done, if we cared to. Personally I think the conversation had died its natural death.
Then it was revived by a derail into meta. That's amusing, somehow!
link?
Definitely. I think that's a very important point to keep in mind. (Although interestingly,many people forget it-- in fact there are probably a lot who never realized it in the first place).
Where? its in the Treaty of Sevres.
K (for "K"urdistan or for "K"rishna, or whatever),
The seed goes a step further: The Bible must be open to differing interpretations.
We apprehend a text within our context, much more than within the author's context. (There has been an excellent conversation about Huck Finn and the n-word over the last few days, in which the reader's perception of the n-word varies over time.)
The result is that Southern Baptists stoutly defended slavery, back in the day... but solidly condemn it today.
Either the Book contradicts itself, or the preachers were wrong, or both.
It is not possible to defend both the preachers and the book. Something or someone has to go under the bus.
(Did you type your post on a thumb-pad? That's the highest density of typos I've seen in a very long time!)
Fear not-- now the cavalry has come to the rescue! Not that I am here, expect things to pick up considerably!