Why would someone need to have thier own writings explained to them?
Because until proven otherwise that's the most reasonable option.
Exp: I don't know Bob, but I know that most people like being appreciated.
Therefore until proven otherwise it's reasonable for me to assume that Bob likes to be appreciated.
I know that it's a common Christian practice to view the Bible as one cohesive story beginning with Adam and culminating in Jesus Christ, but this perspective is an element of dogma.
You should understand that to anyone who isn't a Christian and who isn't subject to dogma that and it's just going to appear as something else: a collection of books written by different people, at different times, and different places, under different circumstances, for different purposes.
And in my opinion that's just a common sense perspective. One that isn't compelled to see it a particular way because of religious influences.
I believe miracles happen, I just don't believe they happen on the scale described in the Bible. If they did I think we'd find them recorded somewhere in human history, somewhere outside of folklore and myth.
We don't.
No, no person who's sincerely interested in understanding anything will ever make that claim. There's always more to learn.
No, but if claims are being made that run contrary to my own understanding of how the world works, I'd have to see some pretty convincing evidence before I'd ever change my mind about anything.
Something more convincing than claims made by someone who received those claims by someone who received those claims by someone who received those claims by someone someone else in a long chain of hearsay stretching back into antiquity.
That would be especially true if I knew that the people making those claims had an agenda, as do the people accepting them.
Or a mule talking, or a chariot of fire swooping down from the sky and carrying a man to heaven, or a woman being turned into a pillar of salt, or a city full of people, each spontaneously developing their own language, . . .
As a Christian you might want to ask yourself: if God was such a show off in the Old testament, why did Jesus instruct his disciples to keep his own miracles a secret in the Gospels?
Oh no. We can't take that Bible seriously. Lol.
I would suggest that I take the Bible a lot more seriously than you do, as evidenced by the fact that I've given serious thought and consideration to what it's trying to say.
All you've done is accept what men have told you about it. You've been told to read it literally, and since that approach appeals to you for some reason, you accept it without giving it any serious thought.
Earlier in this conversation I brought up the fact that Paul read some scripture as an allegory. Before that I pointed out that the Bible has God himself using allegory.
How does that fit into your allegory- equal-error theory?
IMO God doesn't want you to be a mindless drone, unquestioningly accepting directions from your religious leaders.
In the Bible, God says:
"Come let us reason together". Isaiah 1:18
I don't see anywhere in the Bible where He's supposed to have said anything along the lines of, "Stop thinking for yourself and just think what your religious leaders tell you to think."
In fact, as I recall Jesus Christ had quite a bit to say about that:
Matt. 15:14
Matt. 23:13
IMO, God doesn't want you to, "reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition" Mark 7:8
The way I read the Gospels it's the story of a man born into a time and place where religion had become big business, on a mission to redirect people away from organized religion and into having a personal relationship with God.
In order to do that you have to think for yourself at some point.
Not at all. I just don't see any reason to accept that a literal interpretation of the Bible qualifies as 'knowledge that supersedes man's intelligence".
There's way too much evidence to suggest that it's something else.
Superior to what? What you really seem to be suggesting is that people who read and interpret the Bible literally are somehow superior in knowledge, wisdom, and understanding then people who've actually put some genuine effort into achieving those qualities.
Btw, the part of your post above starting with "the problem I have . . ." goes on to attack assertions that arent actually inherent to the part of my post that you quoted.
I think the objections you're making here are objections you already intended to make at some point and you just decided to shoehorn them in there.
That isn't arguing in good faith.
You should respond to what people say, not pretend they said something that you already had a response for.
And you'll miss a lot of that information, probably most of it, if you settle for reading these stories literally and without trying to understand their message.
What you do have is the internet . . .
Maybe you were thinking of this?:
“When we condemn allegories,” Luther informed his students, “we are speaking of those that are fabricated by one’s own intellect and ingenuity without the authority of Scripture. Other [allegories] which are made to agree with the analogy of faith not only enrich doctrine but also console consciences".
I think anyone with a sincere desire to understand an allegory will probably come close to uncovering the allegory's true intention.
On the other hand, you have no chance of that if you just read the story literally.
And I'm not seeing how the verses that you linked to support that.
It might be easier to understand if you isolate the line or two that supports your point rather than linking to entire chapters of verse.
Again: it's hard to understand someone's point if they're trying to support it with an entire chapter that makes several different points.
If a literal understanding of the Bible is the proper one, why would the Ethiopian need Philip to explain anything to him? He could have just read it for himself and taken everything at face value.
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