What are your feelings about God (grace, Mormon, prophet, mercy)
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The operative words were "superior knowledge and understanding" . . . not intellect. An ignorant genius can still be ignorant (not possess the requisite knowledge).
Intellect was your word, not mine.
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You have little faith in knowledge or intellect, if so.
You do not believe that superior knowledge and understanding can be applied to the more ignorant and superstitious interpretations of our ancestors to more clearly and knowledgeably discern what the underlying reality was for what they recorded??? You have little faith in knowledge or intellect, if so.
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Originally Posted by MysticPhD
The operative words were "superior knowledge and understanding" . . . not intellect. An ignorant genius can still be ignorant (not possess the requisite knowledge).
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Originally Posted by Amaznjohn
Intellect was your word, not mine.
Stop parsing and taking things out of context. The superior adjective was used for "knowledge and understanding." Of course it takes BOTH knowledge and intellect to reinterpret ancient recordings . . . but it is the superior knowledge and understanding we have compared to our ignorant primitive ancestors that makes all the difference.
God is that which we worship... our "ultimate concern."
Sometimes it seems our ultimate concern is proving the other person is more illusional than we are.
Stop parsing and taking things out of context. The superior adjective was used for "knowledge and understanding." Of course it takes BOTH knowledge and intellect to reinterpret ancient recordings . . . but it is the superior knowledge and understanding we have compared to our ignorant primitive ancestors that makes all the difference.
You miss the point. Without first hand knowledge of the individuals who wrote the texts, the circumstances in which they were writing, and the external influences, one cannot effectively evaluate a writer's intent. But, claiming to be able to do so is quite convenient.
"superior knowledge and understanding"? Hah!
If we put you and one of "our ignorant primitive ancestors" out naked in the woods, I wonder who would have the best chance of survival.
Completely irrelevant to an accurate knowledge and understanding of our reality and our God. The following descriptions compare the way a modern man would interpret what he has seen with the way the same event would have been interpreted by a Viking intellectual. First the actual event as it would be described in the modern interpretation using modern knowledge:
A man lands a helicopter in a clearing of the forest, takes out a .45 calibre automatic pistol, shoots it at a rabbit, then returns to the helicopter and flies away into the clouds.
The Viking, on the other hand, lacking knowledge would probably describe it in a manner similar to the following:
Thor came hunting in a flying chariot with his hammer that throws lightning bolts, and then went back to his home in the clouds.
It is important to recognize that the Viking's interpretation is not the result of low intelligence, but is the result of a lack of valid information and understanding. The previous description would probably have been produced by a Viking genius, as long as he lacked any knowledge of gunpowder and helicopters.
Completely irrelevant to an accurate knowledge and understanding of our reality and our God. The following descriptions compare the way a modern man would interpret what he has seen with the way the same event would have been interpreted by a Viking intellectual. First the actual event as it would be described in the modern interpretation using modern knowledge:
A man lands a helicopter in a clearing of the forest, takes out a .45 calibre automatic pistol, shoots it at a rabbit, then returns to the helicopter and flies away into the clouds.
The Viking, on the other hand, lacking knowledge would probably describe it in a manner similar to the following:
Thor came hunting in a flying chariot with his hammer that throws lightning bolts, and then went back to his home in the clouds.
It is important to recognize that the Viking's interpretation is not the result of low intelligence, but is the result of a lack of valid information and understanding. The previous description would probably have been produced by a Viking genius, as long as he lacked any knowledge of gunpowder and helicopters.
Assuming you have more knowledge, centuries after the written events, than the writers, how do you know that what they saw, heard, or envisioned was not literal? And, assuming that you are correct, what parts of the Bible can you say are literal and which are not? Maybe Jesus was only a hallucination conjured up by a group of writers. Maybe his dying on the cross was only a symbolic parable. Or, the more likely, maybe it was only a fairy tale designed to explain the unexplainable to the laziest of our species.
You miss the point. Without first hand knowledge of the individuals who wrote the texts, the circumstances in which they were writing, and the external influences, one cannot effectively evaluate a writer's intent. But, claiming to be able to do so is quite convenient.
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Originally Posted by Amaznjohn
Assuming you have more knowledge, centuries after the written events, than the writers, how do you know that what they saw, heard, or envisioned was not literal? And, assuming that you are correct, what parts of the Bible can you say are literal and which are not? Maybe Jesus was only a hallucination conjured up by a group of writers. Maybe his dying on the cross was only a symbolic parable. Or, the more likely, maybe it was only a fairy tale designed to explain the unexplainable to the laziest of our species.
This is the clarion call of the "it is too difficult and we can not perfectly and infallibly know blah, blah, blah." OF course we can't. We are human. So were our ancestors. But we are far more knowledgeable than they were and we CAN make sense out of what they could only relate using their superstitions, fears, and ignorance of so many things. Can we be perfect? Can we be infallible? Of course not. But neither were they . . . and to believe what they wrote literally requires that we believe they were.
The point remains that IF THERE IS A GOD . . . He would inspire those sincerely trying to understand Him. It is those kernels of truth that we must seek to extract from the gibberish and superstition. I am absolutely certain that God exists and that He does indeed reside within each of us as the Comforter (Holy Spirit) and that He DOES still inspire us to understand Him better than our ignorant savage barbarian ancestors did.
The point remains that IF THERE IS A GOD . . . He would inspire those sincerely trying to understand Him. .
There's no reason at all to presume this.
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