Please Explain This

[sandy whitelinger]

"So do you believe that bats are birds? That there is a solid arch above the sky, with windows in it through which the waters above it sometimes falls? That showing sheep speckled sticks will cause them to bear speckled lambs? That there is a winged creature with 4 legs? I hope not, since these are all false. If you build your faith on believing false things, you are building on a foundation of sand. Would it not be better to take the Bible as a book about God, rather than science?"

This quote was offered in another thread and I asked for an explanation of it and all I got was some narrow-minded denegrators questioning of my Biblical knowledge. Can anyone explainthis quote? Perhaps the author meant that these interpretations are false but did not clarify. Anyone?

 

[Buttercup]

Where is this quote from? Some background would be nice.

 

[sandy whitelinger]

Where is this quote from? Some background would be nice.

Post 255

 

[Buttercup]

Post 255

Oh, ok....sorry. I wasn't sure what was going on with that.

I was a Christian for 25 years and I never recall reading that bats were birds or the speckled sheep part. I read the bible probably 5 times from front to back cover.

Could she be describing some of the dreams in Revelation?

 

[Walkntune]

That showing sheep speckled sticks will cause them to bear speckled lambs?

I believe this to be possible as I believe evolution is deterministic through conscious thought.
I don't think a stick bug just randomly looked like a stick and the others were picked off by predators by natural processes.I believe the disguise was deterministic for survival the same as poison in creatures for capturing prey.The needs and wants create the reality as a tree being covered by taller trees will twist and turn to get to its life source.I don't believe evolution is anymore random then if us humans were being observed from the outside. We would appear to be random but in reality all of our choices and actions are deterministic.

 

[Willamena]

It sounds like an attempt to ask if you believe literally things seemingly non-literal.

 

[McBell]

"So do you believe that bats are birds?

Deuteronomy 14:11-18

That there is a solid arch above the sky, with windows in it through which the waters above it sometimes falls?

Genesis 1:20

That showing sheep speckled sticks will cause them to bear speckled lambs?

Genesis 30:35-40

That there is a winged creature with 4 legs?

Leviticus 11:23

 

[McBell]

As I said in the other thread:

The atheist has not made a mistake.
The Biblist is either in denial or ignorant of the contents of the Bible.

So which is it?

​

 

[croak]

That there is a winged creature with 4 legs?

Don't bats and flying squirrels, among other animals, have wings and four legs?

 

[Willamena]

That there is a solid arch above the sky, with windows in it through which the waters above it sometimes falls?
Genesis 1:20

Where does it talk about an arch with windows? It just talks about fish/whales and birds.

 

[Buttercup]

[/i]Deuteronomy 14:11-18

This passage says nothing about bats being birds. It only mentions that they shouldn't be eaten.

11 You may eat any clean bird. 12 But these you may not eat: the eagle, the vulture, the black vulture, 13 the red kite, the black kite, any kind of falcon, 14 any kind of raven, 15 the horned owl, the screech owl, the gull, any kind of hawk, 16 the little owl, the great owl, the white owl, 17 the desert owl, the osprey, the cormorant, 18 the stork, any kind of heron, the hoopoe and the bat.

Genesis 1:20

don't see any reference to the arch in this passage:

20 And God said, "Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky."

Genesis 30:35-40

Sounds like selective breeding to me. No harm in that.

35 That same day he removed all the male goats that were streaked or spotted, and all the speckled or spotted female goats (all that had white on them) and all the dark-colored lambs, and he placed them in the care of his sons. 36 Then he put a three-day journey between himself and Jacob, while Jacob continued to tend the rest of Laban's flocks.
37 Jacob, however, took fresh-cut branches from poplar, almond and plane trees and made white stripes on them by peeling the bark and exposing the white inner wood of the branches. 38 Then he placed the peeled branches in all the watering troughs, so that they would be directly in front of the flocks when they came to drink. When the flocks were in heat and came to drink, 39 they mated in front of the branches. And they bore young that were streaked or speckled or spotted. 40 Jacob set apart the young of the flock by themselves, but made the rest face the streaked and dark-colored animals that belonged to Laban. Thus he made separate flocks for himself and did not put them with Laban's animals.

Leviticus 11:23

23 "But all other winged creatures that have four legs you are to detest."

Not so sure about that one but here's one explanation:

Whatever happened to the fowls (birds) with four legs? (Leviticus 11:20) Do we have any fossil evidence of four-legged birds? | Answerbag

 

[sojourner]

Where does it talk about an arch with windows? It just talks about fish/whales and birds.

Gen. 1:6ff: "...Let there be a dome in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters...God called the dome Sky." The Hebrew word is raqia, I believe -- a hard bowl.

 

[fantome profane]

Don't bats and flying squirrels, among other animals, have wings and four legs?

No, bats have two legs, like birds (but they are not birds), and “flying squirrels” have four legs but no wings.

 

[ChrisP]

I read the bible probably 5 times from front to back cover.

The kind of Christian I like... same goes for anyone who reads their religious texts thoroughly.

Addressing the OP, it seems like an analogy/parable/folk wisdom piece saying not to believe dumb sh.... yeah.

 

[Runlikethewind]

"So do you believe that bats are birds? That there is a solid arch above the sky, with windows in it through which the waters above it sometimes falls? That showing sheep speckled sticks will cause them to bear speckled lambs? That there is a winged creature with 4 legs? I hope not, since these are all false. If you build your faith on believing false things, you are building on a foundation of sand. Would it not be better to take the Bible as a book about God, rather than science?"

This quote was offered in another thread and I asked for an explanation of it and all I got was some narrow-minded denegrators questioning of my Biblical knowledge. Can anyone explainthis quote? Perhaps the author meant that these interpretations are false but did not clarify. Anyone?

Sounds to me like an argument against fundamentalist biblical literalism. Building one's faith on the false premise that every word in the bible is meant to be taken literally true as it is and not in some mytho-poetic, metaphorical, or analogical sense is doomed to failure.

 

[lunamoth]

"So do you believe that bats are birds? That there is a solid arch above the sky, with windows in it through which the waters above it sometimes falls? That showing sheep speckled sticks will cause them to bear speckled lambs? That there is a winged creature with 4 legs? I hope not, since these are all false. If you build your faith on believing false things, you are building on a foundation of sand. Would it not be better to take the Bible as a book about God, rather than science?"

This quote was offered in another thread and I asked for an explanation of it and all I got was some narrow-minded denegrators questioning of my Biblical knowledge. Can anyone explainthis quote? Perhaps the author meant that these interpretations are false but did not clarify. Anyone?

It's the damned if you do, damned if you don't argument, Sandy.

If you literally believe these interpretations the Bible, then of course you are an irrational, blind-faith, science-hating philistine.

If you have other understandings of these Bible passages, then you are not a true Christian.

So, which are you? Irrational, or not a true Christian? Huh, huh, huh???

 

[dmgdnooc]

It's the damned if you do, damned if you don't argument, Sandy.

If you literally believe these interpretations the Bible, then of course you are an irrational, blind-faith, science-hating philistine.

If you have other understandings of these Bible passages, then you are not a true Christian.

So, which are you? Irrational, or not a true Christian? Huh, huh, huh???

　
Maybe it should be noted that the Scripture is meant to be both interpreted and taken literally.
It is the Atheist position (and that of some Churches) that these are mutually exclusive activities.
It is not the Bible's position.
The Bible assumes that its readers will practice discernment in the reading and in the interpreting.
　
The Ethiopian of Acts 8 read a passage of Isaiah, he did not understand the Prophets words and required guidance of Phillip.
There are, as the Ethiopian remarked, several ways to read the passage, several ways in which to interpret the subject of Isaiah's discourse.
Interpreting the words as referring to Jesus requires understanding, they could, on the surface, be referring to someone else.
I deduce that interpretation is required, by the Bible, for an understanding of this passage from Isaiah.
　
When Jesus asked the Lawyer in Luke 10.26 'how readest thou?' he invited an interpretation of what was written in the Law.
Again, the Bible, in the person of Jesus, requires an interpretation from its reader.
　
I don't think I need to go further to prove the point.
Reading the Bible is not an exercise in either literal (only) or interpretive (only) understanding.
It requires both with the exercise of discernment.
　
　
That is, in a sense, the 1st lesson that the Bible teaches, the discernment of and dividing between the light and the dark; between the atmosphere and the water, the water and the land; the ability to differentiate between the different kinds of nature.
Based on the literal words and order of events, and requiring a context that allows the whole of scripture to be instructive, the above interpretation is sound.
The scripture teaches me that I am expected to interpret what I read.
　

 

[sandy whitelinger]

I believe this to be possible as I believe evolution is deterministic through conscious thought.
I don't think a stick bug just randomly looked like a stick and the others were picked off by predators by natural processes.I believe the disguise was deterministic for survival the same as poison in creatures for capturing prey.The needs and wants create the reality as a tree being covered by taller trees will twist and turn to get to its life source.I don't believe evolution is anymore random then if us humans were being observed from the outside. We would appear to be random but in reality all of our choices and actions are deterministic.

It happened through God's influence.

 

[sandy whitelinger]

It sounds like an attempt to ask if you believe literally things seemingly non-literal.

No. I was wondering how these strange interpretations came about.

 

[sandy whitelinger]

It's the damned if you do, damned if you don't argument, Sandy.

If you literally believe these interpretations the Bible, then of course you are an irrational, blind-faith, science-hating philistine.

If you have other understandings of these Bible passages, then you are not a true Christian.

So, which are you? Irrational, or not a true Christian? Huh, huh, huh???

I'm narrow-minded.