Fundie or Mainstream Christian

[General Mung Beans]

From this: http://www.creationtheory.org/Essays/Flavours.xhtml

Based on this, there are some things I agree on both from "Mainstream Christian" and "Fundamentalist". I do think for instance evolution is the way God used to created life as it is today but also that Bible is inerrant (as long as poetry is recognized as poetry and metaphor as metaphor and so on). I do think Christians should witness to other but not "street preacher" style and I think church and state should remain separate (indeed some people who you would otherwise call fundamentalists are strictly against involvement in politics and other "worldly matters"). I think the Bible can be questioned in the sense of ironing out difficulties and supposed contradictions and so on. So I find this article a bit too simplistic.

[Sela]

Out of curiosity . . . and a little bit out of cruelty I admit, I'd like your opinion on some New Testament verses. You claim you believe the Bible to be inerrant - which I interpret to mean that you think the Bible is an accurate reflection of what God spake and ordered as well as what Jesus did, correct?

If this is the case, then ho do you explain:

Luke 14:26, the principle of which is HEAVILY backed up in Matthew 10:34-36. The idea being as I read it that Jesus actively advises and in fact mandates that you must hate/forsake your family if you wish to be a follower of Jesus. Don't take my word for it or assume its out of context - go read it yourself!

John 14:12. Either its a no-true-scotsman fallacy, or Jesus is basically out-and-out saying that unless you can cure the lepers and return sight to the blind you aren't a true christian (as you aren't doing works as great or greater than he).

James 4:4. Seems pretty black and white - "Friendship of the world is enmity of God." This straightforward interpretation is backed up by the monastic orders of the barbaric past. If god ordained it, was he wrong about it? That would seem to speak out against inerrancy pretty heavily.

Matthew 19:24 + Luke 18:25. Jesus is pretty clear on what his idea of poverty is, seeing as to how he requires his followers to forsake all of their possessions (Luke 14:33). By that scale, wouldn't we ALL be considered 'rich'? Looks like no Christian living above the poverty line is ever getting into heaven!



Seriously, I don't know how you can defend the bible as inerrant.

[Sela]

In answer to your actual point, btw, the site itself neatly answers your charge. Within the same page actually Mike says:

" However, while distinct categorization is not possible, there are certain popular, generalized schools of Christian thought, and it is important that we recognize the differences between them." (emphasis mine)

You see? He *knows* it's not a one-size fits all, and he was pretty clear that he was just showing that there's more than the SINGULAR narrow-mould set "hardcore fundamentalist" belief which creationtheory.org is designed to rebut. The article is simplistic and it never claims to be anything more than that. . . a footnote to the reader to be sure not to assume everyone you meet is a fundamentalist, bible-thumping, slave-keeping, child-killing, young-earth-creationist moron.

[General Mung Beans]

Out of curiosity . . . and a little bit out of cruelty I admit, I'd like your opinion on some New Testament verses. You claim you believe the Bible to be inerrant - which I interpret to mean that you think the Bible is an accurate reflection of what God spake and ordered as well as what Jesus did, correct?

If this is the case, then ho do you explain:

Luke 14:26, the principle of which is HEAVILY backed up in Matthew 10:34-36. The idea being as I read it that Jesus actively advises and in fact mandates that you must hate/forsake your family if you wish to be a follower of Jesus. Don't take my word for it or assume its out of context - go read it yourself!

John 14:12. Either its a no-true-scotsman fallacy, or Jesus is basically out-and-out saying that unless you can cure the lepers and return sight to the blind you aren't a true christian (as you aren't doing works as great or greater than he).

James 4:4. Seems pretty black and white - "Friendship of the world is enmity of God." This straightforward interpretation is backed up by the monastic orders of the barbaric past. If god ordained it, was he wrong about it? That would seem to speak out against inerrancy pretty heavily.

Matthew 19:24 + Luke 18:25. Jesus is pretty clear on what his idea of poverty is, seeing as to how he requires his followers to forsake all of their possessions (Luke 14:33). By that scale, wouldn't we ALL be considered 'rich'? Looks like no Christian living above the poverty line is ever getting into heaven!



Seriously, I don't know how you can defend the bible as inerrant.

I think in general you're taking these passages overliterally. Why couldn't Jesus use hyperbole when we humans can?

Specifically:

Luke 14:26-The passage includes the phrase "even his own life" which if taken hyper-literally might call for suicide or reckless behaviour. This passage means that one must put God first not that he should leave his family.

John 14:12 The "work" refers to saving men's souls which is the greatest work of all.

James 4:4 This is "wordliness" or love of the world over heavenly things since the world's things are tempoary.

Matthew 19:24 Again Jesus is using hyperbole and emphasizing the point that it is impossible for man to get to heaven by his own effort.

[Hillary]

Bible is inerrant (as long as poetry is recognized as poetry and metaphor as metaphor and so on).

So who decides which bits are poetry and metaphor and which bits are literal?

It's just a neat get-out clause to justify all the factually incorrect and morally reprehensible parts of the bible.

It's typical fundie goalpost-moving.

[Serafina]

So the bible is inerrant, but does need to be interpreted by humans? Humans are NOT infallible or inerrant - therefore, anything you read from the bible is, logically and (almost?) by definition neither inerrant nor infallible.

Actually, it's worse than that - the Bible is useless. Ultimately, you can read almost everything you want from it (you are a fine example for that). But you will inevitably draw external standards into your reading - ultimately, the bible just serves as a confirmation for an already existing idea. But since everything you read from the bible is not absolute (see above), that confirmation is of no use, since it is not even close to being a rigorous standard.
Hence, the bible is useless - except for bigots who want to confirm their prejudices. Un-bigoted people can get confirmation from somewhere else, so they don't need the bible.

[Darth Hoth]

Luke 14:26, the principle of which is HEAVILY backed up in Matthew 10:34-36. The idea being as I read it that Jesus actively advises and in fact mandates that you must hate/forsake your family if you wish to be a follower of Jesus. Don't take my word for it or assume its out of context - go read it yourself!

That one is explainable on linguistic grounds. Since Jesus was a Jew living in Galilee/Judaea around the early 1st century AD, he more probably spoke Aramaic (or perhaps a little Hebrew in his discourses) than Koine Greek, the language in which the New Testament was written. So any quote from him (and I will not go into the greater and vastly more complex issue of which of those critical science would consider genuine quotes, as opposed to later doctrine) would by definition be a translation (except when they use transcriptions, as for "Abba - Father!").

What is the matter here is that Jesus (probably, again; this is a hypothesis, not certainty, as ever with history) said one thing in his Semitic language, which, when translated literally into Greek meant "hate". Luke translated it that way. However, in its original language, it is a bit weaker; therefore Matthew's translation (10:37) speaks of "lov[ing] father or mother more than me" rather than "hating". So the point would, according to the commentaries I read, at least, would be that you must put Jesus first, but you can love other things also. It is literal vs idiomatic translation.

John 14:12. Either its a no-true-scotsman fallacy, or Jesus is basically out-and-out saying that unless you can cure the lepers and return sight to the blind you aren't a true christian (as you aren't doing works as great or greater than he).

Since he also thought that the Twelve Disciples had little/no faith, and they could (according to the Bible) cure the diseased by faith healing, it is more of the No-True-Scotsman, in my opinion.

James 4:4. Seems pretty black and white - "Friendship of the world is enmity of God." This straightforward interpretation is backed up by the monastic orders of the barbaric past. If god ordained it, was he wrong about it? That would seem to speak out against inerrancy pretty heavily.

That one is sufficiently vague that you can interpret it any which way without being dishonest, in my mind. If you want to attack inerrancy, there are much better passages.

Matthew 19:24 + Luke 18:25. Jesus is pretty clear on what his idea of poverty is, seeing as to how he requires his followers to forsake all of their possessions (Luke 14:33). By that scale, wouldn't we ALL be considered 'rich'? Looks like no Christian living above the poverty line is ever getting into heaven!

Hm, good one. It is also internally contradicted, when it is enough for Zacchaeus to give away half his property (Luke 19:8-9). Unless there is a difference between "disciple" and "salvation", which is not exactly impossible; this was not anything that came up in our studies.

Fundie fallback, as usual, is "Well, it's impossible for anyone to get through the camel's eye/into Heaven/whatever, but now that Jesus died for our sins we can be rich and get saved anyway! He was talking about before he died, obviously!"

That, or they dig up the contradictory Old Testament quotes which say those who have faith will prosper in this world, and riches are good.

[General Mung Beans]

So the bible is inerrant, but does need to be interpreted by humans? Humans are NOT infallible or inerrant - therefore, anything you read from the bible is, logically and (almost?) by definition neither inerrant nor infallible.

Actually, it's worse than that - the Bible is useless. Ultimately, you can read almost everything you want from it (you are a fine example for that). But you will inevitably draw external standards into your reading - ultimately, the bible just serves as a confirmation for an already existing idea. But since everything you read from the bible is not absolute (see above), that confirmation is of no use, since it is not even close to being a rigorous standard.
Hence, the bible is useless - except for bigots who want to confirm their prejudices. Un-bigoted people can get confirmation from somewhere else, so they don't need the bible.

I agree that my interpretation of the Bible (or that of other Christians) might not always be correct.

However what about all the people who said "I thought X was correct but when I read the Bible I could not help but realize Y was correct."? They changed their preheld beliefs/convictions/ideas due to what they believed was the correct interpretation of the Bible.

[Serafina]

However what about all the people who said "I thought X was correct but when I read the Bible I could not help but realize Y was correct."? They changed their preheld beliefs/convictions/ideas due to what they believed was the correct interpretation of the Bible.

They most likely already saw the bible as an authoritative source. And/or they were simply very irrational.

You can not approach the bible logically and conclude anything from it is factually correct. You can change your opinion, but that's it (and you can do that based on almost everything). Yet many Christians make that claim, that you can determine facts and "truth" from the bible, even tough that's utterly false.

The reason why you can't conclude anything from the bible to be "factually correct "or "absolute truth" (or even having a good accuracy regarding real life) was already described above: Due to the very nature the text was written, you can not read it without heavily interpreting it yourself. Furthermore, it's self-contradicting and incompatible with reality.

[roflcopter]

So who decides which bits are poetry and metaphor and which bits are literal?

You determine it the same way like you do in any other literary source.

[Serafina]

So who decides which bits are poetry and metaphor and which bits are literal?

You determine it the same way like you do in any other literary source.

And if you analyze it by that method, it's clear that none of it is literal. It's also clear that most of it was taken from older myths, that many books were not written by whom the bible claims to be written (moses never wrote any of the books he supposedly wrote) and so on.

Hence, fundies don't do that. They just assume it's literal and use "that part is not literal" as a cop-out if they have to.

[Shroom Man 777]

Then why treat it as anything else but just any other literary source?

[roflcopter]

And if you analyze it by that method, it's clear that none of it is literal.

I disagree. And I think virtually all Bible scholars (most of whom are not Christians by the way, much less "fundamenatalists") are with me on that. For example, most scholars think that the Gospels are real, honest, historical accounts of Jesus' life.

[Serafina]

And if you analyze it by that method, it's clear that none of it is literal.

I disagree. And I think virtually all Bible scholars (most of whom are not Christians by the way, much less "fundamenatalists") are with me on that. For example, most scholars think that the Gospels are real, honest, historical accounts of Jesus' life.

bolding mine
I challenge you to provide actual evidence for that. And not some half-baked guy babbling about it, someone with an actual, accredited, relevant university degree.
"I think" doesn't cut it. The burden of proof is on you when you claim that something is actual an historical account.

[roflcopter]

Burridge, R. A. (2006). Gospels. In J. W. Rogerson & Judith M. Lieu (Eds) The Oxford Handbook of Biblical Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 437

By the way, I took this reference from Wikipedia. But since this is a relatively non-controversial issue that anyone with any degree of knowledge in biblical studies should be aware of, there's no reason to cry foul when they have no reason to make it up.

[Bakustra]

Burridge, R. A. (2006). Gospels. In J. W. Rogerson & Judith M. Lieu (Eds) The Oxford Handbook of Biblical Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 437

By the way, I took this reference from Wikipedia. But since this is a relatively non-controversial issue that anyone with any degree of knowledge in biblical studies should be aware of, there's no reason to cry foul when they have no reason to make it up.

Clarify this. That's misleading if you mean that the Gospels are intended to be biographical, which is indeed a noncontroversial opinion. However, it seems to imply historicity via eyewitness testimony, but the generally-agreed earliest gospel is Mark, written about 70 CE and the only potential earlier source, Q, lacks any biographical detail on Jesus from reconstructions.

[Serafina]

Burridge, R. A. (2006). Gospels. In J. W. Rogerson & Judith M. Lieu (Eds) The Oxford Handbook of Biblical Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 437

By the way, I took this reference from Wikipedia. But since this is a relatively non-controversial issue that anyone with any degree of knowledge in biblical studies should be aware of, there's no reason to cry foul when they have no reason to make it up.

Sorry, but NO.
Are they real? Partially - Jesus most likely existed as a jewish preacher and was likely executed. However, we know that numerous accounts are simply not true. E.g., one time he was cast down a cliff (or supposed to) at a specific village. Yet there is no such cliff at that village, nor did the village exist during Jesus time (i will dig up the sources for that later).
Are they honest? Only for a narrow definition of the word, the simple fact that they contradict each other says otherwise.
Are they historical? That's mostly covered above. However, they are at best unreliable historic accounts, at worst tales told after the fact. They get some things right (such as Pilates), but you have to confirm everything with other sources, simply because some things are just plain wrong.

Even your own "source" Wikipedia confirms that. If you want to use arguments from actual sources, do so - just quoting the name of some books doesn't count as a source, and Wikipedia is not a source either.

[Bakustra]

On the contrary, significant sections of Luke and Acts have been found to be historically accurate with regards to places and people at the time. Even though there are disparities, that doesn't mean that the authors intended for them to be fictional, as you said. I disagree with roflcopter on whether they were meant to be literal, as many historians of the time departed from literal recording to better communicate their messages (such as Tacitus, as an example), so I think it likely that the authors of the Gospels did the same thing. This says nothing about the reality one way or another of the miracles performed- all the relevant sources date from about 40 years after the death of Jesus at minimum.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Burridge, R. A. (2006). Gospels. In J. W. Rogerson & Judith M. Lieu (Eds) The Oxford Handbook of Biblical Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 437

By the way, I took this reference from Wikipedia. But since this is a relatively non-controversial issue that anyone with any degree of knowledge in biblical studies should be aware of, there's no reason to cry foul when they have no reason to make it up.

The problem is that you have not read the source, and as a result have no idea what it says, and thus cannot extrapolate the conclusions you do from it.

Think of this contradiction--A bible scholar who does not believe in god, believing the gospels are accurate accounts of the life of Jesus. No. There is a difference between someone who got their degree in religious studies, and someone who got their degree in divinity. That text is more than likely referring to the later and not the former.

[roflcopter]

-snip-

tl;dr, you concede your original assertion that "none of it is literal", which is all I objected to. Whether they are generally reliable or not is another topic.

Even your own "source" Wikipedia confirms that. If you want to use arguments from actual sources, do so - just quoting the name of some books doesn't count as a source, and Wikipedia is not a source either.

Then what kind of source would suffice to you? You've said to quote "some with a degree on the matter", so I did.

As for Wikipedia, I already explained why this objection is meaningless.

[Serafina]

Then what kind of source would suffice to you? You've said to quote "some with a degree on the matter", so I did.

You didn't quote the text, you just quoted the name. That's also know as an "appeal to authority" - in fact, it's impossible for me to be sure whether that guy is actually agreeing with you!

tl;dr, you concede your original assertion that "none of it is literal", which is all I objected to. Whether they are generally reliable or not is another topic.

Yes, the accounts given in the Gospels are NOT literal. Bakustra already pointed that out - it was common to write in a non-literal style back in these days, even when talking about actual, real events. You are still referring to real events - but we have no guarantee that you are actually accurate. Especially since some parts are demonstrably flat-out wrong or even self-contradicting.
An example: I could write a non-literal account of Obamas presidential campaign. In a thousand years (or whatever), historians might be able to confirm that that presidential campaign actually happened, that Obama and McCain actually lived and so on. But just because i am talking about something that actually happened, i do not have to be 100% accurate! I could include many things that are not true, and these future historians would have no means of differentiating those from the parts of my accord that are actually true.

Just because we can confirm that some of the events, people and places in the Gospels actually existed, we can not conclude that they are literal, absolute truth. That should be obvious from the fact that they contain things which are physically impossible, but even without that such a conclusion would be quite a leap in logic.

[roflcopter]

You didn't quote the text, you just quoted the name. That's also know as an "appeal to authority

False. There's no appeal to authority here. You clearly don't know what the fallacy is about.

- in fact, it's impossible for me to be sure whether that guy is actually agreeing with you!

No, it's not - you can get the book and check the relevant page. Even if I provided the exact quote, you could still say that the guy from Wikipedia made it up. But there's no reason to assume that he did.

Anyhow, if you insist, I can quote other New Testament scholars who affirm it. Even Bakustra agreed.

Yes, the accounts given in the Gospels are NOT literal. Bakustra already pointed that out - it was common to write in a non-literal style back in these days, even when talking about actual, real events. You are still referring to real events - but we have no guarantee that you are actually accurate. Especially since some parts are demonstrably flat-out wrong or even self-contradicting.
An example: I could write a non-literal account of Obamas presidential campaign. In a thousand years (or whatever), historians might be able to confirm that that presidential campaign actually happened, that Obama and McCain actually lived and so on. But just because i am talking about something that actually happened, i do not have to be 100% accurate! I could include many things that are not true, and these future historians would have no means of differentiating those from the parts of my accord that are actually true.

Just because we can confirm that some of the events, people and places in the Gospels actually existed, we can not conclude that they are literal, absolute truth. That should be obvious from the fact that they contain things which are physically impossible, but even without that such a conclusion would be quite a leap in logic.

The way you originally phrased it seemed to imply that they were meant to be fictious. "It's clear that none of it is literal" is the quote. But now you affirm that in fact, there are events described in the Gospels with historical credibility. In any case, if that's not what you meant, then I apologize for the trouble, but it was poor phrasing on your past.

As far as physically impossible events go, we find this kind of things all over ancient historical documents, and that doesn't suddenly mean that we can dismiss all of it as "non-literal".

Moreover, I never said that they were "100%, literal, absolute" truth. All I said was, that, contrary to you, most scholars consider the Gospels to be honest attempts to write a biography of Jesus' life. Even if there are inaccuracies and figures of speech thrown in here and there, that does not give one a rational justification to label them entirely as fictious.

[Norade]

You didn't quote the text, you just quoted the name. That's also know as an "appeal to authority

False. There's no appeal to authority here. You clearly don't know what the fallacy is about.

You did not actually quote anything from the book and thus it is a simple appeal to authority. If you were to take a quote, and properly source it then it would actually mean something.

- in fact, it's impossible for me to be sure whether that guy is actually agreeing with you!

No, it's not - you can get the book and check the relevant page. Even if I provided the exact quote, you could still say that the guy from Wikipedia made it up. But there's no reason to assume that he did.

Anyhow, if you insist, I can quote other New Testament scholars who affirm it. Even Bakustra agreed.

The burden lies upon you to read the book and provide quotes with page numbers, not on her. So until you can do that go fuck yourself.

Yes, the accounts given in the Gospels are NOT literal. Bakustra already pointed that out - it was common to write in a non-literal style back in these days, even when talking about actual, real events. You are still referring to real events - but we have no guarantee that you are actually accurate. Especially since some parts are demonstrably flat-out wrong or even self-contradicting.
An example: I could write a non-literal account of Obamas presidential campaign. In a thousand years (or whatever), historians might be able to confirm that that presidential campaign actually happened, that Obama and McCain actually lived and so on. But just because i am talking about something that actually happened, i do not have to be 100% accurate! I could include many things that are not true, and these future historians would have no means of differentiating those from the parts of my accord that are actually true.

Just because we can confirm that some of the events, people and places in the Gospels actually existed, we can not conclude that they are literal, absolute truth. That should be obvious from the fact that they contain things which are physically impossible, but even without that such a conclusion would be quite a leap in logic.

The way you originally phrased it seemed to imply that they were meant to be fictious. "It's clear that none of it is literal" is the quote. But now you affirm that in fact, there are events described in the Gospels with historical credibility. In any case, if that's not what you meant, then I apologize for the trouble, but it was poor phrasing on your past.

As far as physically impossible events go, we find this kind of things all over ancient historical documents, and that doesn't suddenly mean that we can dismiss all of it as "non-literal".

Moreover, I never said that they were "100%, literal, absolute" truth. All I said was, that, contrary to you, most scholars consider the Gospels to be honest attempts to write a biography of Jesus' life. Even if there are inaccuracies and figures of speech thrown in here and there, that does not give one a rational justification to label them entirely as fictious.

Most of the shit in the bible is clearly fictitious, such as Jesus rising from the dead three days after death, him walking on water, and curing illness when somebody simply touches his clothing. The flood, the two versions of the ten commandments, the two versions of Genesis, angels with flaming swords, the exodus, most of it is clearly bullshit and the rest is vaguely plausible if you squint at it funny and take it all with a grain of salt.

Good examples of bullshit from just Mark would be Herod supposedly slaughtering every child in Bethlehem age two or younger. If this happened we would expect there to be many other sources from the period noting this and yet we find none.

Also most scholars don't take the bible as a very good source for anything as it's so poor in its accuracy that you always need other sources to confirm that the bible is even playing the same game let alone in the same ballpark as reality.

[Serafina]

Well, Norade already covered most of it, so i will focus on the rest.

The way you originally phrased it seemed to imply that they were meant to be fictious. "It's clear that none of it is literal" is the quote. But now you affirm that in fact, there are events described in the Gospels with historical credibility. In any case, if that's not what you meant, then I apologize for the trouble, but it was poor phrasing on your past.

First of all, that quote was referring to the bible in general, not to the Gospels in specific. Of course, that only means that i referred to the Gospels, but you clearly failed at understanding my original statement.
Furthermore, you clearly don't get what "literal" means. I didn't say that the accounts in the Gospel are entirely fictitious, i said that they are not reported accurately. I even gave an example of how these things could work:
Suppose i write something about Obamas presidential campaign. I don't write it in a literal stile and include hyperboles, illustrations, allegories and so on in my account (say, i claim various miracles or some evil deeds by McCain). Future historians could find that that presidential campaign did, in fact, happen, and that it ended the way i described it, and that some of the places i am describing actually existed. However, they will get that confirmation from independent sources - because my account will NOT be blessed with high credibility. The mere fact that it is not written in a literal style means that it has to be taken with a huge grain of salt, and if i include actual miracles no one can take it seriously.

The point is that nothing in the bible is reliable. We know that many things in it are false, such as Genesis, the Exodus, the accounts about Israelite conquests, lot's of the historical accounts and so on. We know where these myths originated from, we know when they were ripped-off from other cultures or made up. We know that many historical places described didn't exist at all or at the time the Israelites where supposedly there (Jericho is a good example).
Plus, all that miraclesmagic is clearly made-up.
That is true for the old testament, and it is true for the new testament. Villages described didn't exist at the time or looked different than they were described. The social environment was likely different than described, certain events never happened. Jesus likely didn't have as many followers as claimed, and some of the conversion-stories given are most likely made up (no surprise, given that they involved magic).
Bottom line: You can't rely on anything in the bible to be true. Just because it happens to be right every once in a while, it's not a literal account.

[Norade]

Sorry for stealing your thunder there.