Are Religious Fundamentalists Theologically Correct?

[TheKwas]

Biblical literalism is a recent phenomen (that's right, people before the 19th century did not take the bible's word literally, although they did believe in its inerrancy), which has no real scriptural basis.

Which brings up the paradox: If the Bible did say it was the literal truth(as covenant argues), does that make it so (from a christian perspective)?

What would come first, the Biblical literalism or the Biblical declaration of biblical literalism?

Or maybe I should avoid this site when I'm high...

[Elfdart]

The idea of taking biblical texts literally has always been short bus retarded. Ancient peoples entertained themselves with riddles, cyphers, in-jokes, kennings and all sorts of other wordplay. Combined with music and chanting, that's how pre-literate societies were able to remember their stories over the course of hundreds of years. I doubt that ancient people in the Middle East really believed that a talking snake getting the first woman to eat a certain piece of fruit is the reason we don't live forever and women experience pain in childbirth. The story was about how people lose their innocence and get into trouble when they listen to thoughts that are based on selfish desires. Only the more modern fundie is that fucking stupid.

[Androsphinx]

The idea of taking biblical texts literally has always been short bus retarded. Ancient peoples entertained themselves with riddles, cyphers, in-jokes, kennings and all sorts of other wordplay. Combined with music and chanting, that's how pre-literate societies were able to remember their stories over the course of hundreds of years. I doubt that ancient people in the Middle East really believed that a talking snake getting the first woman to eat a certain piece of fruit is the reason we don't live forever and women experience pain in childbirth. The story was about how people lose their innocence and get into trouble when they listen to thoughts that are based on selfish desires. Only the more modern fundie is that fucking stupid.

There's a wonderful piece of medival exegesis on that story (I forget whether it was Christian or Jewish), which argues for its allegorical nature in the following manner:

1/ Snakes can't talk
2/ If you want to say that snakes -could- talk, but were cursed and lost that ability for tempting Man, why isn't this punishment mentioned in the text? It's worse than any other punishment the snake gets!
3/ Therefore snakes can't talk, and could never talk
4/ Therefore the story is an allegory.

I have used this argument to great success. It's one occasion when you can totally destroy an idea without challenging any axiomatic assumptions (literalism, inerrancy, etc)

[Rye]

Christians believe the serpent was Satan, given that it's one of his names given in revelation, where he's also variously described as the prince of lies, can appear like a creature of light, blah blah blah. Nevertheless, it's difficult to reconcile original sin without acceptance of the story.

[Androsphinx]

Christians believe the serpent was Satan, given that it's one of his names given in revelation, where he's also variously described as the prince of lies, can appear like a creature of light, blah blah blah. Nevertheless, it's difficult to reconcile original sin without acceptance of the story.

I guess it must have been a Jewish exegete then. Still, it -does- work!

[Darth Wong]

You can't use a logic-based argument on a hardcore fundie, because if you press a hardcore fundie enough, he will say something like the following:

You cannot disprove God with logic, because logic is man-made, and God is above logic.

Seriously, I've run into many variants of this exact argument. I'm not joking.

[General Trelane (Retired)]

As just one example of Fundamentalist departure from the Bible: the Rapture. The rapture is not in the Bible, if I recall it can traced to a 19th Century American preacher from New York, or somewhere in New England. Yet I've run into Fundies that believe it as Gospel. It's a lot of fun to ask them to look but the chapter and verse where it appears.

No, the word "rapture" is not in the bible, but the so-called Rapture is a fundie interpretation of the "mini-apocalypse" in Matthew 24. So yes, it is in the bible, and even worse, it is Gospel.

[General Trelane (Retired)]

Ghetto edit: actually, I'm wrong about the word "rapture" not being in the bible. Its Latin form is in the Vulgate (1 Thessalonians 4:17), but it's translated differently in English (e.g. NRSV uses "caught up").

[Rye]

You can't use a logic-based argument on a hardcore fundie, because if you press a hardcore fundie enough, he will say something like the following:

You cannot disprove God with logic, because logic is man-made, and God is above logic.

Seriously, I've run into many variants of this exact argument. I'm not joking.

The best one is EmpSolo's cathoholic "holy mysteries" euphemism. "So you see, children, God is both 3 separate entities AND one single entity at the same time!" "How?" "It's a holy mystery."