faetal on 19/2/2015 at 09:30
Quote Posted by Tony_Tarantula
If you were familiar with the document you would know the answer to that question.
Sorry, but I don't see how that passage pertains to laws being god given?
DDL on 19/2/2015 at 11:56
I once had a creationist try to demonstrate that the ages of people listed in the bible since the flood showed a very neat correlation with an exponential decay curve. When pressed on exactly why "decline in maximum age" should follow first-order kinetics, they blocked me.
It's also odd that despite adam, eve and co apparently being surrounded at all times by crazy ediacarans and fucking dinosaurs*, the bible chooses to focus primarily on incest, murder, and then endless dull stretches of genealogy and city building. You'd think "Then Enosh went forth and yea did he witness a T-rex eating a slime monster. And yea it was good. And he went forth anon." or similar would make it in at some point, but no.
Bible literalists are all kinds of interesting.
Anyway, heywood: that was a beautiful essay: thanks for that.
*as in OMG dinosaurs, not dinosaurs fucking. Though probably that, too, I guess.
faetal on 19/2/2015 at 12:00
It's interesting, and I'd definitely consider the bible as important historical literature. But when faced with the opposing possibilities of the bible being either:
a) Dictated to humans by a creator
or
b) Invented by humans along with a creator, because there were no competing explanations for the origins of the universe at the time
I'm going to go with b) as it requires fewer leaps of logic. As I said, if information was divulged to humans by the creator of the universe which pre-empted later scientific or technological findings, then that would be a basis for looking at a) as a logically viable alternative as opposed to just an appealing one.
[EDIT] I get that there are plenty of shades of grey to consider between options a and b, but sometimes it's worth forcing a dichotomy in order to focus a debate. I am more than happy to drill down if there is interesting discussion to be had (as opposed to just making terms more vague in order to evade logic).
Azaran on 19/2/2015 at 15:22
Quote Posted by Tony_Tarantula
The text of the document itself seems to go against that agument. Jesus states in fairly opaque language that the rules as outlined in the New Testament were the original intent, but that humanity wasn't ready for them until the right point in history.
Well...
For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled. Matthew 5:18
Quote Posted by faetal
What does the average Christian know about bible scholar studies though? I'd say it's fairly realistic to say that the average Christian simply assimilates the parts of Christianity they agree with, while ignoring those which they don't. I'd need a lot of convincing to believe that the majority of Christians are keeping up to date with the provenance of scripture and the finer philosophical points of each piece of verse and its proper context.
Or they reinterpret inconvenient scripture to mean something else. Like when Jesus said the second coming was to happen in his generation (then for them "generation" all of a sudden becomes "human race"), or when Paul clearly said the end of the world was(
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Corinthians%207:29-31) to happen back then and his immediate followers should be ready
faetal on 19/2/2015 at 15:26
I think taking anything too literally from a collection of works which has undergone so much change over time is a bit ill-advised.
Azaran on 19/2/2015 at 15:28
Good point
DDL on 19/2/2015 at 16:29
I just want my seven-eyed sheep, damnit.
Actually, has someone made a plushy of that? I'll bet they have. *googles*
Apparently not! Market opportunity! brb, setting up a K/S
demagogue on 19/2/2015 at 18:11
Well, chatting about theology with the way bible text is being thrown around here is like playing chess with someone that just grabs their queen and knocks down the other guy's rook on the first move and declares victory because nothing is actually stopping the queen from doing that. A lot of fun that is.
The rules are pointing to something, but whatever it is, if you're not doing it by the rules, you're not actually doing it. So we're not talking about religion much if at all in this thread IMO. Of course, I think politicized religion isn't either, so I'm not about to defend it from the charges being thrown at it in this thread either.
I think it's good to think about religious practice like martial art's kata, or any other disciplined practice, jazz, chess, etc, with the right balance of respect and questioning of the dogma, but always with the view of improving your practice. A lot of good it does for an outsider to say kicking is pointless, so karate is wrong. You can decide to practice it or not, but if there's to be a practice at all, there's rules, and your critique should be in terms of them if it's going to be a religious one.
Of course you can critique things outside the rules, like the chess or karate examples, but they're sort of beside the point. If a religious practioner were really thrown by them, it probably means they're not practicing their religion right to begin with, trying to use biblical text to solve General Relativity equations or stochiastic genetic drift dating, or whatnot.
faetal on 19/2/2015 at 18:16
Is there a right way to practice religion? Seems the whole world can't agree on what it is.
Likewise, is there a correct way to critique religion? Personally, I'm fond of asking questions about things which I don't find logical. Plenty of intelligent adults are religious (my wife, for one, is a doctor of biochemistry and a catholic), so I'm guessing that unless they bypass their higher reasoning when it comes to their faith, that they would find these questions interesting themselves.
I'd argue with your analogy anyway. It's like you take the rook with your queen, but then you're told "in our version of chess, the queen doesn't move like that".
demagogue on 19/2/2015 at 18:37
They're definitely interesting. (Well they can be. A philosophy seminar is going to really get to some meaty stuff. We're sort of grazing on the salad here.) They're just not religious questions.
Is there a correct way to critique religion?
If you're going to go down a viable line of critique, then I think it's easy to say yes there is. If you want to do an historical critique, then you'd need to bring in historical evidence at some point, archaelogical or textual or whatever, otherwise you're not actually doing an historical critique. Same goes if you're making a critique from sociology, or theology, or phenomenology, or cosmology, etc.
Is there a right way to practice a religion?
There's a space of what you can and can't do to practice it I'd think. Again like chess or martial arts. Nimtzowich and Bruce Lee "broke" a lot of rules, but they were still playing their respective practices in the "right" way, within the space you could say internal debate happens, like the religious disputes I think you're mentioning. Well, Bruce Lee had to come up with a new name since it did break the existing practice somewhat, like his own protestant reformation.
Of course the guys that rank chess as a poor boardgame compared to Ticket to Ride or watching MMA a waste of time compared to watching football are going to be making arguments wholly outside the ken of their rules. But then should chess change its rules to be more fun than Ticket to Ride, or MMA to be more football like?
Edit. Let me put it this way. What do you want to accomplish with your line of critique? That question is open to anyone. I think that's the first question to answer before one even gets into their arguments. Do you want to change how a religion is practiced? Do you want people to simply stop practicing? Do you suggest they practice something else? And what and why? Etc.
Edit2. I think you have to explain more why you're arguing with my analogy, because it looks like you're repeating exactly what I said back to me. What about what you said is different from different versions of religions?
Of course someone can make their own version of chess with that stupid move, but no one would play it. OTOH, some moves can be meaningful in two different versions, like Christian discipleship can be a perfectly acceptable practice on the 8 fold path of Buddhism according to some Buddhists, even though Zen Buddhism wouldn't be an acceptable practice in most if not all versions of Christianity. Is there a point about that kind of diversity of versions you want to make?
