You know what's still missing from your reply?
A single sentence that demonstrates why any of the statements I made about what scripture says are wrong, backed up by scriptural exegesis.
I have provided sound and solid reasons (since you have allowed reason into this discussion). Backed up by "scriptural exegesis"? Who made that the criteria? That's a flawed approach, and I've already stated the reasons for why that is. I'll repeat those reasons in the rest of my response in case they escaped your attention the first times through.
You're only talking in vague generalities, providing no specific scriptural evidence that my conclusions from scripture are not true.
They are only vague to you because the concepts of what I am talking about are outside your wheelhouse. I'm am including specific, not vague, criteria such as comparative religious studies, ethnology, anthropology, transpersonal psychology, semiotics, personal experience, etc., into the mix. And since to you those are not factors you are aware of, or choose to not look at despite my offering direct links to the material itself for you to read (not vague, just technical), you keep trying to get me to play the game doing something that is flawed and pointless in order to support a weak conclusion.
I have offered how, taking into account all of the aforementioned things, the scriptures can be understood in the light of what I am saying. That is not vague, but very specific.
Scriptural exegesis 101. If someone states a truth from scripture which is contradicted by other scripture, then that person's statement was wrong.
Scriptural truth will be in harmony with the rest of scripture.
BZZZZZ... Error. No, not at all. This is why I reject this approach. It's flawed. I've explained it before, but will explain it again. First I'll just repost what I said before. From Post #63 above:
Oh nonsense! That approach to the Bible presupposes there is some consistent theme you must piece together like a puzzle. And when you do that, you very quickly insert all manner of your presupposed beliefs into it, seeing what you want to see, since you are in effect deliberately trying to see patterns in the clouds! "Oh look, there's a bunny rabbit! Do you see it? It's right there... look, look....!" "Oh, I see it now! You were right! It is a bunny rabbit! It was there all along! How could I have not seen that!"
That is exactly what your approach is going to yield. Seeing faces in abstract shapes, projecting images of yourself onto the pages of the Bible and calling it "God's word", not taking any responsibility for your own points of view. That in a nutshell sums it all up.
Rather than this erroneous approach trying to "harmonize" scripture, trying to force fit the various, and sometimes contradictory points of view together, I take the approach of understanding it's various parts contextually. Here's a little of what that looks like:
- What's the author's personality like?
- What's his motivation?
- What's his experience with what he's talking about?
- How does that compare to what we know today versus what he would have known?
- How does it compare to my own experience?
- Who is his audience?
- What is their experience?
- What is their culture?
- What were its symbols?
- What do linguists have to say of his word choices and what does that say?
- What do other authors outside of him say, and who was his audience, culture, motives, etc?
- Is the author the book is attributed to actually the author, or is the text pseudepigraphal from another time, for other reasons?
- What does scholarship today show us based on the other sciences, such as anthropology, ethnology, linguistics, and so forth?
- How does it compare to what we see in other religions, understood through what we understand today?
- What is my personal experience with this area and what are my thoughts and understandings read in light of those?
- And the list goes on.....
You can see that I do is in fact just not willy nilly, say just "whatever" I want. I am looking at quite a lot, and all of it has actual support. All of this offers a context for understanding you are not engaging with. I've offered you some of the support, and you have done nothing but completely ignore it. Now THAT is intellectual dishonesty on your part.
This presumption underlies Christianity: 2 Timothy 3:16.
No it does not. It contradicts your very flawed interpretation of that verse. Christianity has always relied on other sources of knowledge. Your approach is very modern, and very flawed. It is what happens when uneducated preachers get ahold of the Bible and scream from the pulpit, "It's not my words but God's!". They are dumb, just plain dumb - as well as dangerous.
Whether or not you agree with that presumption is irrelevant to the topic; because if you want to claim the scripture does or does not say something, that fact has to be established by actually reading the scripture.
That I disagree with that approach is 100% relevant to have a reasonable and rational discussion about the topic. You throw out all the weight of evidence I bring to the discussion wanting me instead to take approach of seeing patterns in the clouds and arguing whether I'm seeing a horse or a bunny rabbit in your so-called "scriptural exegesis 101".
I can in fact say that what you read in scripture, in how you understand it, is not the only way to understand it. And that there is in fact better, broader-picture understandings than from what you can get ignoring anything outside the pages of the Bible itself. When you allow in knowledge from all the rest of our thousands of years of research and studies into other areas of life, what you read on the pages creates different images that appear to you.
I'll give you another analogy. Imagine you're displaying a picture on your screen and the resolution of it is only 500 pixels. Now imagine that same image displayed at 200,000,000 pixels. Which do you think provides a clearer picture? The Bible offers a low resolution picture. The rest of your knowledge and experience offers the clarity to the image. The difference between us is I accept allowing a higher resolution image on the screen I'm looking at, and you refuse that, trying to make sense of your low-resolution image without allowing that higher resolution available to you as a possible benefit to help you see it better. Do you fear clarity? Does it threaten your idea of what you think it is you've been looking at?
We've already established that factual conclusions can be stated from the Bible's content.
No we have not. I desomated your argument on that point. I do not want to have to repeat all of that again. You cannot go from a highly simplistic statement like the sky is blue, to complex teachings and expect them to be understood as easily. That is a completely false analogy. I went into detail showing why. You ignored the data. The term for this is willful ignorance.
Therefore, unless you can demonstrate using logical exegesis and facts from the Bible why what I've said is faulty, you have no basis to claim it is.
False criteria. I have demonstrated what I am saying using logic, research and experience. Your saying I have no basis for it is completely false. A lie. You cannot ignore these things. Why are you? Please answer that question. How do you justify ignoring all the things I am presenting? Answer that.
Just repeatedly claiming there is fault in what I said doesn't make it true. You need to evidence your claim.
My posts are laced with evidence from top to bottom. Why are you choosing to ignore that?
Coping out and saying you're too lazy too evidence your assertions doesn't justify your position. At that point you should either admit you don't know what you're talking about, or not make statements you can't back up to begin with.
I clearly know what I'm talking about. I'm talking from experience and research. Can you claim that yourself? If not, then you are speaking from a position of ignorance, not knowledge.
Maybe according to your own personal slippery definition of what "supernatural" is (I'm noticing a pattern here).
How is what I said slippery? Here's what I said, and it's not slippery at all. People who historically did not understand the causes of some extraordinary thing or event or phenomenon, might attribute supernatural causes to it. That does not mean the thing was not real or did not happen, but that attributing it to mythic sources is simply a matter of language. When I say I don't call tongues supernatural, I mean it is a natural, human experience evidenced the world over. You may call it supernatural because to you it appears magical. To me it does not. It's simply how we chose to speak of the same thing.
That's pretty straightforward and clear, isn't it?
But you are the one who took issue with my use of the word "supernatural" without asking me to first clarify what I meant by that term - Which would be the standard commonly accepted use of the term.
I thought I was pretty safe in my assumption of what you meant. And it appears I was, correct?
The reason I took issue with it, and you need to hear this, is because you start with a magical explanation of tongues, and from there you create this model of reality that fits that mythic explanation. You end up with unsupportable storylines of demons and devils imitating the "real thing" because only God loves you and give you real supernatural things, and if others have the same thing, they must be imposters, because your God is not their God!
It reminds me of when I was five years old and I met a girl who had the same birthday as me. When she said the date, my response to her was, "No, it can't be! That's MY birthday!". I did not understand two people could have the same birthday, because I thought mine was completely unique to ME. It was MY birthday, therefore other's could not share it. This is exactly your argument against other religions having "false" tongues because you think Christianity is unique, just like I did as a five year old thinking my birthday was unique to ME in the whole wide world.
That's why I make a deal of it. Your premise and logic following it is highly flawed, and you end up rejecting what is right in front of your face the very selfsame thing. In other words, all spiritual gifts are from God, and in allowing beliefs in your mythic storyline to override seeing other humans doing the same thing as you, you end up rejecting God. And that's not a good thing.
Is there value to speak of imposters? Yes, certainly! But they are those who pose as
Christians, who preach the right words, but their meaning produces division and judgement of others, such as calling them "false gifts" when they see them right in front of their faces. These are the imposters. These are those devils posing as angels of light. It is not those of other religions who worship in Spirit and in Truth in their own ways, but those who claim Jesus saying "Lord, Lord," but have no true faith in them which produces the fruits of the Spirit. "By their fruits you shall know them," says Jesus. Those who say they preach the truth but produce divisions and judgements of others are the ones to be careful of. They are wolves in sheep's clothing, religious predators. They are narcissists.
