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Intellectual honesty and the bible.

Satans_Serrated_Edge

Satans_Serrated_Edge

Deicidal
First off, lets leave an atheistic/rationalist perspective out of this, and for the purpose of discussion assume the bible is 'true'.

Who is more intellectually honest, the fundamentalist (the bible is literal) or the moderate (the bible is figurative)? Why?

Discuss.
 
A

angellous_evangellous

Guest
I would have to say "neither" on the sole basis of their fundamentalism or moderate reading of Scripture.

I am sure that we can find folks that are intellectually honest on both sides of the aisle, provided that the "biblical interpretation" does not over-ride humanism.

It seems to me that the generalization of "figurative" is more likely to be intellectually honest.
 
9-10ths_Penguin

9-10ths_Penguin

1/10 Subway Stalinist
Premium Member
Satans_Serrated_Edge said:
Who is more intellectually honest, the fundamentalist (the bible is literal) or the moderate (the bible is figurative)? Why?
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Either. Or neither, depending. It depends on the point of view of the person reading.

Intellectual honesty is a matter of approaching the material in good faith. As long as the person is trying to derive meaning from the text rather than to shoehorn the text into a meaning that was decided ahead of time, either one can be intellectually honest.

I've heard people (usually atheists or other non-Christians) say that it's "intellectually dishonest" to adopt anything other than a literalist view of the Bible. I disagree.

While it would be dishonest to simply disregard passages because you don't like what they say, it's still possible to appreciate passages as poetry, metaphor, or in other non-literal ways while still being honest in your approach to the material. I think it all comes down to why the person has decided to interpret a given passage non-literally (or literally, for that matter).
 
A

angellous_evangellous

Guest
Categorizing reading as literal and non-literal is rather sophomoric and demonstrative of a lack of knowledge of hermeneutics.
 
9-10ths_Penguin

9-10ths_Penguin

1/10 Subway Stalinist
Premium Member
dogsgod said:
I thought fundamentalists take The Bible literally, that God created the universe and there really was an Adam and Eve.
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Yeah, some people do, but I was thinking more of the people who take a strictly literalist interpretation of the Bible in order to justify throwing it away (edit: or to make Christians out to be hypocrites).

I've heard atheists on several occasions make claims about how the fact that some passage in the Bible isn't literally true, it should be discarded completely... either that passage specifically or the whole Bible.

You haven't seen people argue that if the flood didn't happen or if they don't like slavery, they shouldn't be Christians?
 
Quagmire

Quagmire

Imaginary talking monkey
Staff member
Premium Member
I think the most intellectually honest move would be for the literalists to admit they don't really understand what it says, and the allegorists to admit they don't really know what it means".
 
A

angellous_evangellous

Guest
The lack of other options is baffling to me.

We have poets, artists and novelists and religious leaders and philosophers -- if they are truly seers -- they have the gift of putting into words the truth of the passionate disquietude of the human soul and the human experience.

By existentially playing their game - participating in the artist's experience - listening to the music, doing the math, losing oneself in the novel and having our feelings shaped by the truth - we better know ourselves.

This literal / non-literal approach is near-sideded and childish.
 
K

Kov03

New Member
Satans_Serrated_Edge said:
First off, lets leave an atheistic/rationalist perspective out of this, and for the purpose of discussion assume the bible is 'true'.

Who is more intellectually honest, the fundamentalist (the bible is literal) or the moderate (the bible is figurative)? Why?

Discuss.
Click to expand...
To me the Bible is a abstract just like just like a painting that is abstract. Some of it is intelligible but much of it is not.
But within the Bible you can find principles to apply to one's life to bring you closer to God and awaken your soul.
By applying these principles and searching more parts of the Bible may become clearer to one.
 
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F

footprints

Well-Known Member
Satans_Serrated_Edge said:
First off, lets leave an atheistic/rationalist perspective out of this, and for the purpose of discussion assume the bible is 'true'.

Who is more intellectually honest, the fundamentalist (the bible is literal) or the moderate (the bible is figurative)? Why?

Discuss.
Click to expand...

All views of the bible hold equal weight be this the so called fundamentalist view, the so called moderate view, or the so called atheist view, convieniently left out of the whole truth.

Of course, when belief patterns enter the picture, each belief will only ever see the projection of their own perception, and decry all views which oppose it.
 
Caladan

Caladan

Agnostic Pantheist
I think the study or reading of some scriptural historiography can do wonders, for example some Biblical narratives have not been taken literally by the people in first Temple era Judah, while the same stories are taken at face value by modern fundamentalists, or literalists if you will.
context is the winning formula in this issue. one important notion should be that being a member of a religion does not mean you need to embrace a single standard. the idea that literalists are being 'true to their faith' is an implication that we should settle for only one standard of religious interpretation.
 
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