How can you be a True Christian™ if you don't take the Eden story literally?

[Koldo]

Thankfully necromancy exists! God bless it.


I am willfully and intentionally interpreting stories and symbols so that they are meaningful to me as an individual largely divorced from the context they originated in, or I seek out patterns that connect in creative ways to modern mythology and context.

You are not interpreting anything when you do this. You know the actual proper interpretation is completly different from what you are presenting. You are twisting the stories to fit whatever narrative you prefer.

What is the falsehood in understanding the figure of Christ on the Cross as the Fruit from the Tree of Life and Death?

It is a lie. What's the falsehood in a lie?

What is the falsehood in seeing difficult cycles in my life and channeling Sisyphus?

You can channel the Powerpuff Girls as far as I am concerned. No falsehood involved.

Where is the falsehood of seeing the Gnostic interpretation of Judas in Rowling's Severus Snape character and understanding that sometimes doing the right thing can lead to being stigmatized?

What do you mean by this?
That you can see a parallel betweens two different characters? No falsehood involved.

 

[Aupmanyav]

“And yet all, except such as God was pleased to guide, are bewildered in the drunkenness of their heedlessness!”

Oh, what wonderful translation in English! Shoghi got carried away in his flow.

 

[F1fan]

The "evidence"? That's all that stuff about his mission, his character, his writings and whatever else?

Yes, "eye of the beholder" quality evidence, which means subjective and questionable.

 

[Guitar's Cry]

You are not interpreting anything when you do this. You know the actual proper interpretation is completly different from what you are presenting. You are twisting the stories to fit whatever narrative you prefer.

Do I know the actual proper interpretation? Are the authors available to ask? Which authorities do I turn to in order to "interpret" mythology when they have a multitude of interpretations and perspectives based on their own traditions? And why shouldn't I reinterpret a story that includes fantastical elements if it is personally inspiring to me?

It is a lie. What's the falsehood in a lie?

How is it a lie?

What do you mean by this?
That you can see a parallel betweens two different characters? No falsehood involved.

And finding that parallel has personal meaning and provides inspiration. Afterall, Judas Iscariot is a complex character that has different qualities depending on tradition.

 

[ppp]

Are you suggesting that it was written by polytheists? Maybe, but the story features a god with the power to create universes.

I am suggesting that the story may have originated in the oral tradition of the monolatry era. And that it was an origin tale of the Hebrews. Not of humanity. It's not a cosmological treatise. It is the mythology of that people.

The NT is merely an incident of cultural appropriation by the Greeks.

 

[Trailblazer]

Well, to be clear. I think the evidence that @Trailblazer wrote about in her post were messengers of God. Not manifestations. I think. Not sure.

According to Baha'i beliefs, Manifestations of God are Messengers of God and vice versa. There are different kinds of Prophets, but that is another subject.

But regardless, IMO, the messengers/manifestations do not need to be perfect mirrors to be valid evidence for God.

I agree.

Also, I'm not a Bahai, so the way I relate to the idea of messengers/manifestations is not Bahai. YOU, my friend, are a messenger of God as far as I am concerned.

I believe we are all messengers, especially if we share messages that came from the Messengers of God...
We are messengers with a 'small m.'

 

[Trailblazer]

That was in response to, "Almost everyone that has debated against her has commented on her lack of evidence." It shouldn't surprise us that these two groups come to different conclusions about the same evidence. Those atheists are atheist because they are critically thinking empiricists skilled in evaluating evidence.

Atheists are not skilled in evaluating evidence for God. That is why they do not believe in God.

I realize that you think others should be convinced

No, I do not think others should be convinced.

You'd need to explain why not being a man justifies a double standard.

God is the un-created, the Creator of everything in existence. Humans are mere creatures, God's creation.... Humans are not on the same level as God so the same standards that apply to humans do not apply to God.

And what does that mean? That God can't be judged or that nobody can hold God accountable. I'd agree with the second, but not the first. A believer might say one shouldn't judge a deity because it's not smart or safe, but that wouldn't apply to an unbeliever who is only judging described behavior attributed to an alleged deity.

Go ahead and judge God. It won't hurt God, and I don't know what it is going to do for you.

A better god doesn't permit evil. It gives its creation the free will to chose between wholesome and life-affirming options but not to harm others deliberately.

A better God would do that in your opinion.

That's what I would do.

But you are not God.

How about you, or is that another thing that's off limits to think about?

You can think all you want about it, but you cannot change how God operates.
I do not think about how I would do things 'differently' since I believe God is All-Knowing and All-Wise, and since I am neither of those, I could not do a better job.

Those aren't my values. God makes malice possible and deliberately doesn't intervene, and so that last sentence is also irrelevant in humanistic ethics.

Why would God intervene to prevent what He has allowed humans to do with their free will? That makes no sense at all, which is why God doesn't do it.

 

[dybmh]

According to Baha'i beliefs, Manifestations of God are Messengers of God and vice versa. There are different kinds of Prophets, but that is another subject.

thank you

I agree.

I believe we are all messengers, especially if we share messages that came from the Messengers of God...
We are messengers with a 'small m.'

love-it

 

[RestlessSoul]

I see the Genesis story of the Fall of Man as an allegory of Mankind, as his brain evolved, gradually acquiring moral awareness i.e. knowledge of good and evil, and the bittersweet nature of the cares and responsibilities that descend on the shoulders of an adult as he or she reaches that stage of development. We are all familiar with the concept of the innocence of childhood and are inclined to credit the other animals with similar innocence, from a moral point of view. We often yearn to recover that innocence - it makes things so simple. Yet we also know that now we are adults that path is not open and we must face responsibility for our decisions.

From this perspective Original Sin is that intrinsic moral weakness that Mankind has, which leads him to take the wrong path from time to time, in spite of knowing it is wrong.

Regarding the sacrifice of Christ on the cross and the Atonement, I have never believed a loving God would literally demand a blood sacrifice, nor that this would somehow be implacably required by some principle of heavenly mechanics. I incline to the Moral Influence view of Abelard: Moral influence theory of atonement - Wikipedia

It should be noted that alternative rationales for the redeeming effect of Christ's death have been part of mainstream Christian thinking for a thousand years or more. There is no single "right" answer, contrary to what some of the "exclusivist" sects might have you believe.

Very nicely put

 

[exchemist]

Very nicely put

Well it’s nice to know it’s not just me that interprets it this way. I’m far from versed in the theology, but this is more or less what I remember from my parents and the then parish (Catholic) priest, when I was growing up and trying to make a fit between religion and science. So I think it won’t be too eccentric an interpretation.

 

[RestlessSoul]

I don't think ancients understood any difference like we do since science has become that basis of knowledge.

I'm sure they understood lying at the personal level, like a wife asking her husband where's he's been all night, and she wants a true answer. But where it comes to understanding how the universe works, or the grand scheme of things, the embellished stories were the all they had.

This is a classic example of modernist exceptionalism and unjustifiable hubris.. Those people who understood so little about how the universe “works” steered their ships and planted their crops by observing the stars. That’s pretty much exactly what modern science is and does - it observes regularities in nature, and allows us to make predictions about how entities behave. In so doing, it may shed some light on the underlying principles which guide and animate the material world, but if what we are after is a full understanding of those principles, we need philosophy for that. But most of all, we need imagination; all the truly great minds in the history of science had that, as of course did all the great story tellers and mythologists. In order to further our understanding of anything meaningful, it is necessary to look beneath the surface of things. Our ancient ancestors were most certainly capable of doing that; even without microscopes or telescopes. You demean all humanity when you dismiss them for their supposed ignorance, while refusing to recognise how little we moderns also understand.

 

[RestlessSoul]

Well it’s nice to know it’s not just me that interprets it this way. I’m far from versed in the theology, but this is more or less what I remember from my parents and the then parish (Catholic) priest, when I was growing up and trying to make a fit between religion and science. So I think it won’t be too eccentric an interpretation.

I’m not much of a theologian myself, so I couldn’t tell you the Catholic or Anglican line on Genesis or for that matter, The Gospels. But it seems to me that these stories continue to resonate down the centuries not because they are literally true, but because like Homer and Ovid and Shakespeare and Milton (and Blake and Shelley and Keats), they continue to tell us something profound about the human condition. And, in the case of the Gospels, to offer excellent moral guidance - however poorly that guidance may have been followed in the Christian world.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

I don't think ancients understood any difference like we do since science has become that basis of knowledge.

I'm sure they understood lying at the personal level, like a wife asking her husband where's he's been all night, and she wants a true answer. But where it comes to understanding how the universe works, or the grand scheme of things, the embellished stories were the all they had.

Okay, what is the universe? Remember you are a critical thinker and skeptic, so you have to account for how you know, you know and not just claim you know, because you can think you know.
We can observe the following for knowing.
Person 1: I know the universe is natural.
Person 2: I know the universe is supernatural.

What follows from that is, if you accept the law of non-contradiction, that one of them don't know. So when you claim you know, you can't take for granted that you know, but you have to check. I.e. how do you know, that you know?

 

[ratiocinator]

Those people who understood so little about how the universe “works” steered their ships and planted their crops by observing the stars. That’s pretty much exactly what modern science is and does - it observes regularities in nature, and allows us to make predictions about how entities behave.

And by formalising that process, we have learnt a great deal more.

In so doing, it may shed some light on the underlying principles which guide and animate the material world, but if what we are after is a full understanding of those principles, we need philosophy for that.

But really how good is philosophy at achieving that? What solid, widely accepted conclusions about it has philosophy ever produced?

But most of all, we need imagination; all the truly great minds in the history of science had that, as of course did all the great story tellers and mythologists. In order to further our understanding of anything meaningful, it is necessary to look beneath the surface of things. Our ancient ancestors were most certainly capable of doing that; even without microscopes or telescopes. You demean all humanity when you dismiss them for their supposed ignorance, while refusing to recognise how little we moderns also understand.

Of course we need imagination but that has even more limitations. What knowledge has imagination alone produced? Yes, our modern scientific state of knowledge is limited but it is still far, far greater than that produced by philosophy, imagination, and mythology.

 

[exchemist]

And by formalising that process, we have learnt a great deal more.


But really how good is philosophy at achieving that? What solid, widely accepted conclusions about it has philosophy ever produced?


Of course we need imagination but that has even more limitations. What knowledge has imagination alone produced? Yes, our modern scientific state of knowledge is limited but it is still far, far greater than that produced by philosophy, imagination, and mythology.

Philosophy is what underpins the scientific method. It is philosophy that defines science and enables us to distinguish science from pseudoscience and superstition. I find I regularly have recourse to these philosophical principles on a forum such as this, where scientific and religious ideas are often intertwined and confused.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

And by formalising that process, we have learnt a great deal more.


But really how good is philosophy at achieving that? What solid, widely accepted conclusions about it has philosophy ever produced?


Of course we need imagination but that has even more limitations. What knowledge has imagination alone produced? Yes, our modern scientific state of knowledge is limited but it is still far, far greater than that produced by philosophy, imagination, and mythology.

Yes, but it has some limits that hasn't been solved by neither science, philosphy or religion and which they all share.
In no particular order:
The is-ought problem.
The evil demon probelm.
The problem of the thing in itself.
Agrippa's trillema.
"Man is the measure of all things: of the things that are, that they are, of the things that are not, that they are not."

In short science is a limited human behaviour, that is good for where it works, but it doesn't work on everything and there are problems, which it hasn't solved, that still persist to this day.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Philosophy is what underpins the scientific method. It is philosophy that defines science and enables us to distinguish science from pseudoscience and superstition. I find I regularly have recourse to these philosophical principles on a forum such as this, where scientific and religious ideas are often intertwined and confused.

Correct, but even science has a limit for what it can be used for. It is not a universal multitool, that works on everything.
In effect fpr philosophy as informing science, the trick is as follows.
Don't do metaphysics and ontology - haven't been solved.
Don't do morality - haven't been solved.
Stick to where objective evidence works and don't claim objective evidence, where there is none.

 

[ratiocinator]

Philosophy is what underpins the scientific method. It is philosophy that defines science and enables us to distinguish science from pseudoscience and superstition. I find I regularly have recourse to these philosophical principles on a forum such as this, where scientific and religious ideas are often intertwined and confused.

Perhaps, I should have made my point more clear.

Yes, certain ideas from philosophy are useful in many ways, but it can't, by itself, lead to conclusions about about the world as claimed. For that we need empirical evidence and science.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Perhaps, I should have made my point more clear.

Yes, certain ideas from philosophy are useful in many ways, but it can't, by itself, lead to conclusions about about the world as claimed. For that we need empirical evidence and science.

Well, please explain the difference between methodlogical naturalism versus philosphical naturalism/materialism/physicalism and how science is philosphical, because the word empirical is philsophy in the end.

Edit: What is your empirical evidence for useful for the bold one?

 

[RestlessSoul]

Perhaps, I should have made my point more clear.

Yes, certain ideas from philosophy are useful in many ways, but it can't, by itself, lead to conclusions about about the world as claimed. For that we need empirical evidence and science.

Any conclusions we make about the world, by whatever method, are necessarily uncertain. There is no fixed point, methodological, epistemological or ontological, to which we may anchor the ship of knowledge (paraphrasing Carlo Rovelli here). Empirical evidence and science, useful as they are, do not resolve fundamental questions about the nature of reality (or the reality of nature) without throwing up even more profound and bewildering questions.