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For those of you who believe that the stories in the Bible (or any other sacred scripture) represent literal truth, I have a some questions:
1. Do you believe that the stories also make sense as metaphor and allegory? For instance, if you believe that the story of Noah and the Flood really happened, do you also think that it works as, say, a metaphor for building a strong foundation of faith (the Ark) and mentally and emotionally gathering together the things that are important to you (the animals two by two) to sustain you through time of adversity (the Flood)?
2. If you don't think the stories work as metaphor, why not? (I'll be intrigued if anyone doesn't think so, because every sermon I've ever attended uses the stories in this way.)
3. If you do think the stories work as metaphor, then why do you also believe they're literally true? (That's what I really want to know.)
For those Christians who are concerned that I'm a trolling atheist, I genuinely want to know, because this is something that I've never been able to understand. Laying my own spiritual cards on the table, I was raised without religion. My mother and father left the Catholic and Baptist churches respectively before they met each other because they were tired of the focus on sin and guilt (which I know doesn't represent all churches). I always felt a deep spiritual yearning, as did my dad, and from the time I was a young teen, we read a lot of spiritual books together, primarily New Age. Later, I read from the major religious scriptures, and also plenty of philosophical and psychological writings, and I attended a Unitarian and then a Buddhist church. I eventually came to the conclusion that, if there is an afterlife, reincarnation makes more sense from a fairness standpoint than does the "you only go around once in life, and then you're judged for all eternity" cosmology of Judeo-Christianity.
Ironically, I ended up falling in love with and marrying a Christian. She was different in that she never prosylethized or told me I'd go to hell if I didn't accept Jesus as my personal savior. She showed me by example her philosophy that people should love and help one another -- something I, who had theretofore been pretty self-centered, needed. I spent over a year going to a Foursquare Church with her, and read more of the Bible, some scholarly theological commentary, and a history of Christianity. Finally, we stopped going to church because my wife got tired of the politics and lack of what she considered Christian behavior. I mention all this to show that I gave Christianity a fair shot.
Concurrently, I've always been deeply interested in the sciences, so I understand and accept the scientific method. I believe that evolution is a proven fact, and that the earth is several billion years old. Reading The God Delusion sealed my lack of belief in the Judeo-Christian concept of God. I also realize that finding reincarnation to be a more fair system doesn't necessarily make it true. On the other hand, I do think that there's much we don't yet understand about the nature of reality, so I'm not one of those people who believe that every account of reincarnation, haunting, clairvoyance, etc. has to be false because we don't currently know a mechanism by which they might occur. So I keep an open mind, but I require some sort of proof (or at least a plausible theory that can be tested) before I say, "I believe in that."
One of my spiritual epiphanies came when I first heard a (Unitarian-style) pastor use Biblical stories as metaphors. Suddenly, the Bible made perfect sense to me -- as metaphoric (rather than literal) truth, a collection of parables that can be interpreted in different ways by different people at different times in their lives. I was greatly helped by various Biblical passages at certain times in my life -- just as I've been helped by other other works of scripture, philosophy, literature, music, art, and science. Metaphoric truth remains the same as scienctific knowledge advances. Discovering that the universe is much, much older than 6,000 years doesn't affect the basic, perennial human problems that philosophy and spirituality are meant to help. On the other hand, believing that the Bible is literally true requires ignoring scientific discoveries that contradict the Bible, and cherry picking or distorting discoveries that (arguably) support the Bible.
So I consider myself to be an open-minded adult who has come to the conclusion that the Bible (and other sacred texts) make perfect sense as metaphoric truth, and little or no sense as literal truth (at least from a supernatural standpoint). I'm comfortable with ambiguity and not believing that I have to take the Bible (or anything else) as "all or nothing." That's where I part with Dawkins: I don't believe that religion is overwhelmingly evil. People have commited plenty of atrocities in the name of religion, but they've committed atrocities in the name of politics, nationalism, ethnicity, and so on. If someone is bent on perpetrating evil, finding a justification is pretty easy, whether it's "God told me to do this" or something else.
My spirituality is a mixture of philosophy and wisdom, combined with a sense of awe that we and everything else even exist, and a dose of humility that there may be more that we don't understand (call it God if you want). If there's some sort of afterlife -- great. If there isn't, then I won't be aware of it.
Anyway, back to my original question: how do people come to the conclusion that the supernatural aspects of the Bible are literally true, when they work perfectly well as metaphor and are endlesslessly problematic as literal fact?
For those of you who believe that the stories in the Bible (or any other sacred scripture) represent literal truth, I have a some questions:
1. Do you believe that the stories also make sense as metaphor and allegory? For instance, if you believe that the story of Noah and the Flood really happened, do you also think that it works as, say, a metaphor for building a strong foundation of faith (the Ark) and mentally and emotionally gathering together the things that are important to you (the animals two by two) to sustain you through time of adversity (the Flood)?
It's a stretch for me - sometimes it can be pulled off. There are metaphors and allegories (or even direct statements) in the Bible that are better suited for use in the pulpits. Why not use Jesus' statement about a solid foundation in Matthew 7?
Quote:
Originally Posted by HonuMan
2. If you don't think the stories work as metaphor, why not? (I'll be intrigued if anyone doesn't think so, because every sermon I've ever attended uses the stories in this way.)
There are better scriptures to use to make the point more clearly.
Quote:
Originally Posted by HonuMan
Anyway, back to my original question: how do people come to the conclusion that the supernatural aspects of the Bible are literally true, when they work perfectly well as metaphor and are endlesslessly problematic as literal fact?
There are definitely stories in the Bible that should be taken as metaphor or allegory, but I believe those are restricted to the parables of Jesus. The rest (flood of Noah, etc.) should be read as history.
You next logical question to that would be what about the supernatural or miraculous events in those stories that seem to propel them into the realm of metaphor and out of literal reality. Fair enough. If I am a follower of Christ and accept Him for who he claims He is and believe in what he did for me, then I accept the Bible as the Word of God. God can do all things.
People tend to focus on the supernatural and miraculous things in the stories and use that to discredit their interpretation as literal truth. Yet they forget the amount of supernatural and miraculous still happening today. There are numerous documented and unexplained phenomonae every year. Does that discredit the whole event?
Why do we refer to childbirth as the "miracle" of life? because science and naturalism cannot explain it. We can describe exactly WHAT is happening, but not why or how in the naturalistic sense. If you cannot explaing something naturalistically then it is classified as supernatural until a natural explanation is revealed and accepted. Miraculous healings of cancer and other medical miracles are documented every year and there are even regular symposiums discussing these phenomonae.
No I take the Bible as the Word of God, Jesus as the Word made flesh and the savior of all mankind. John 3:16
It's not just Christians that believe in the Bible
That's part of my question. A person can "believe in the Bible" on different levels. I believe that it contains a great deal of valuable wisdom, some great literature, and some historical accuracy (e.g., I have no reason to doubt the existence of Jesus Christ and many of the non-supernatural events described). I believe in the basic message of Jesus: Love one another. As someone who became a stepfather in middle age after marrying a Christian woman, I often asked myself, "What would Jesus do?" when faced with a difficult problem. What I was really asking myself was, "What is the loving thing to do?," realizing that what is loving in the big picture might require "tough love" in the moment.
What's interesting is that my wife has broadened her views on religion since I met her. She now believes that other religions are just as valid, as long as people use "What is the loving thing to do?" as their primary guiding principle. She doesn't believe in hell, and she believes that the passages in the Bible that refer to an angry, vengeful God are manmade and have nothing to do with the real God, whom she considers loving and forgiving. I think she believes in the supernatural actions attributed to Jesus. She considers me to be a Christian, because I live according to what she considers the core Christian values. She knows I don't believe in the metaphysical aspects (if you don't accept Jesus as your lord and savior, you'll go to hell when you die; you're judged for all eternity based on the actions of one short lifetime; etc.).
I'm fine with her calling me a Christian in that context, although I think most Christians would say you aren't one unless you subscribe to the metaphysical dogma. I don't believe that Christianity (or even religion in general) has a monopoly on wisdom and on how to live an ethical life. I believe that if there is a God, it's far too complex for human understanding, and it certainly isn't an omniscient, omnipotent, paternalistic, supernatural entity that created the universe and its laws but isn't bound by them.
There are more than enough threads here debating those topics, and I was specifically interested in how people reach the conclusion that the Bible is literally true, rather than figuratively.
That's part of my question. A person can "believe in the Bible" on different levels. I believe that it contains a great deal of valuable wisdom, some great literature, and some historical accuracy (e.g., I have no reason to doubt the existence of Jesus Christ and many of the non-supernatural events described). I believe in the basic message of Jesus: Love one another. As someone who became a stepfather in middle age after marrying a Christian woman, I often asked myself, "What would Jesus do?" when faced with a difficult problem. What I was really asking myself was, "What is the loving thing to do?," realizing that what is loving in the big picture might require "tough love" in the moment.
What's interesting is that my wife has broadened her views on religion since I met her. She now believes that other religions are just as valid, as long as people use "What is the loving thing to do?" as their primary guiding principle. She doesn't believe in hell, and she believes that the passages in the Bible that refer to an angry, vengeful God are manmade and have nothing to do with the real God, whom she considers loving and forgiving. I think she believes in the supernatural actions attributed to Jesus. She considers me to be a Christian, because I live according to what she considers the core Christian values. She knows I don't believe in the metaphysical aspects (if you don't accept Jesus as your lord and savior, you'll go to hell when you die; you're judged for all eternity based on the actions of one short lifetime; etc.).
I'm fine with her calling me a Christian in that context, although I think most Christians would say you aren't one unless you subscribe to the metaphysical dogma. I don't believe that Christianity (or even religion in general) has a monopoly on wisdom and on how to live an ethical life. I believe that if there is a God, it's far too complex for human understanding, and it certainly isn't an omniscient, omnipotent, paternalistic, supernatural entity that created the universe and its laws but isn't bound by them.
There are more than enough threads here debating those topics, and I was specifically interested in how people reach the conclusion that the Bible is literally true, rather than figuratively.
Why do you believe that? On what basis?
Also about what your wife believes; That is classified as universalism. Accepting all religions. But that violates the law of noncontradiction. It is true that all religions contain some truth. Buddha says to "love your neighbor", but it is also true that all of the major religions claim exclusivity (the only true religion). When two contradictory claims are made, they cannot both be true. Either one is true or both are false.
You are definitely opening up a lot of different discussions here but I want to focus on one.
You say you accept the basic message of Jesus: love one another. Why are you cherry picking? Don't you know what Jesus said about the meta-physical? Hell is a real place. Those who do not believe in Christ will indeed perish. I agree it is a tough pill to swallow, but because you do not believe God would do such an unloving thing does not make it false.
As for these claims being man-made. yes, men wrote the books of the Bible, but these were eyewitness accounts, which are not refuted by any other texts of the time. Most historians, even secular ones, accept the authenticity of the Gospels and have not historical proof to refute them. There were MANY enemies of Jesus in His time, but not one refuted his miracles or his resurrection.
There are definitely stories in the Bible that should be taken as metaphor or allegory, but I believe those are restricted to the parables of Jesus. The rest (flood of Noah, etc.) should be read as history.
You next logical question to that would be what about the supernatural or miraculous events in those stories that seem to propel them into the realm of metaphor and out of literal reality. Fair enough. If I am a follower of Christ and accept Him for who he claims He is and believe in what he did for me, then I accept the Bible as the Word of God. God can do all things.
People tend to focus on the supernatural and miraculous things in the stories and use that to discredit their interpretation as literal truth. Yet they forget the amount of supernatural and miraculous still happening today. There are numerous documented and unexplained phenomonae every year. Does that discredit the whole event?
Why do we refer to childbirth as the "miracle" of life? because science and naturalism cannot explain it. We can describe exactly WHAT is happening, but not why or how in the naturalistic sense. If you cannot explaing something naturalistically then it is classified as supernatural until a natural explanation is revealed and accepted. Miraculous healings of cancer and other medical miracles are documented every year and there are even regular symposiums discussing these phenomonae.
No I take the Bible as the Word of God, Jesus as the Word made flesh and the savior of all mankind. John 3:16
Thanks for the thoughtful response. I sometimes get the feeling that if you want your thread to get a lot of responses on here, you have to make a provocative, incendiary comment that's bound to polarize people. I've killed many a thread (or have just been ignored) when I've made a point but have conceded that the opposing viewpoint has some merit, too.
I use "supernatural" in the way you do: things that happen outside the currently understood laws of the universe. Some people use it to mean not bound by the laws of the universe. That never made sense to me: if something exists, it's natural, by definition -- unless you want to use it in the common way, meaning "not man-made." A phenomenon that seems to break a law of physics has only two possibilities: 1) you're misunderstanding the phenomenon, or 2) that particular law of physics still has some holes in it and needs to be amended. Newtonian physics was once thought to completely describe the workings of the universe, but our understanding of the universe increased, and Newtonian physics was found not to apply at the subatomic level, so quantum physics was developed. There is still much to be discovered in physics.
And therein lies part of my point: If some of the seemingly supernatural events in the Bible occurred, then they had to have adhered to natural laws of some sort, whether we understand them now or not. Simply saying, "God isn't bound by the natural laws He created" doesn't answer anything.
And my other point, which is often made here but not always understood by others, is that science is a method of learning about the universe, not an unchanging set of beliefs about the universe. Those of us who believe in the validity of the method are happy when new knowledge proves that a previously held belief was incorrect. The sum total of knowledge provided by science changes every day.
That's diametrically opposed to the way many literalists approach the Bible: if a new piece of scientific knowledge corroborates something in the Bible, it's assumed to be correct. If it contradicts something in the Bible, it's assumed to be incorrect. I don't understand not thinking, "You know, maybe that particular incident in the Bible is just a metaphor, after all." And when I say "just," I don't mean it in a diminishing way. I value metaphoric truth as much as literal truth, as long as one understands the difference.
Simply saying, "God isn't bound by the natural laws He created" doesn't answer anything.
Here is where we disagree. Our very existence, actually the very existence of anything, is a violation of known scientific law.
First Law of Thermodynamics: Matter and energy can neither be created nor destroyed.
Well, what is matter and energy? Everything we see. Does matter exist? Yes, just look around. But by known scientific law matter should not exist. If scientific naturalism cannot explain the existence of matter and energy, then we must find the explanation for this outside of natural law.
Some scientists will try to get around the first law issue by saying the universe has always existed but most scientists of today and even in history have concluded that the universe had a beginning. Even Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking, arguably two of the greatest scientific minds in history, have made this claim. But even without science, philosophically it is logical to conclude that the universe is finite. Follow me on this. If I want to explain the existence of something I ask, “How did it come into existence”? You can do this with anything. I see an apple. How did it come into existence? It is the fruit from a tree. How did the tree come into existence? From a seed. You can continue back and back seemingly forever. The premise is the same with a person. You are the “effect” of your parents coming together and you can trace back your lineage throughout history. Philosophically it can be summed up this way: Take anything physical and slice it down to its’ minutest form and its’ existence cannot be explained in and of itself, but the explanation for its existence lies outside itself. You are either self-caused, uncaused or caused by another. Self causation is self defeating because you have to exist in order to cause yourself. To be caused by another, that person must exist first and must also be caused by someone else. To be uncaused is to be outside of time and be infinite. So the only thing that can explain its own existence is something that is non-physical, i.e. spiritual.
When you posit that God is the First Cause you will always get the question, “Who created God?” A logical question, but based on a false assumption. We posit that only that which is finite needs a cause. If everything needed a cause then you would have to posit an infinite series of causes. If you have an infinite series of causes over an infinite period of time, you would never have come to this moment because it would take an infinite numbers of moments in order to get here. God by definition is infinite and does not require a cause nor had a beginning because to have a “beginning” only makes sense within the confines of time, but if God is the creator of space, time and matter, then He is outside space, time and matter.
People try to "put God in a box". We try to apply what we know and assume God is bound by the same laws we are bound by. Can you heal a blind man or make a paralytic well? Can you tame the weather?
These feats are not natural. they are miraculous. If we see God for who he is, the creator of all, then we cannot put anything outside the realm of possibility.
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