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Miltank posted:The majority of Christians do not believe that God(not Jesus) is "a person of some sort" unless you go over their heads and make inferences about what they believe based on a layman's knowledge of theology. 2. There you go again trying to No True Scotsman the majority of religious believers' beliefs away from the "religion" you're trying to defend. No sale. 3. If you can't define what you mean by "excelling" if not in any of the ways the word is typically used to measure performance in one of a multitude of capabiliies, then you're talking nonsense. As in, there is no sense of the word that bears on any statement you can make relating to the world. steinrokkan posted:Specifically: Reason and free will are present in other things. That premise that they're only present in man is wrong, and therefore so is the conclusion that follows from it. There are also no "more perfect and abstract forms" of reason and free will that ours are delegated from; that's make-believe. Our reason and free will (to whatever extent that latter can of worm holds any meaning) are products of our neurology and are accidents of our evolutionary history. steinrokkan posted:Even ancient people knew that there was a relation between the physiology of the body and the functioning of the soul. They used therms such as humours, or ascribed changes in spiritual disposition to various changes in levels of physical suffering. They also understood diminished spiritual capabilities due to mental disorders. But in the end, they realized that man isn't perfect in that his soul could function independently and optimally. Furthermore, man is a collection of a limited set of essential properties modified by particular accidental properties of his person, and as such is inherently imperfect even without possible dysfunctions of his body. God, on the other hand, is the ultimate abstraction of all beings, and the origin of all substances. It is crucial to realize that as the origin of things, He is more general than any specific being. When people use terms such as "will" or "hand" in relation to God, they use concepts appropriate for the level of specificity they inhabit. So we have tendency to understand them as if we were describing things on our level, or below it. But in the case of God, we are talking about the most possible generalized meanings of these words. Man's soul can not function independently and optimally from the physiology of the body. You're working from a premise that is wrong, and therefore so is the conclusion that follows from it. Barlow posted:Personalism, a theological outlook that came out of Boston University in the early 20th century did think God had a personality. A number of other theological views like those of Paul Tillich or Process theology would disagree. The view that God has a personality did not come about in the 20th century as an innovation to a previous impersonal God view. Rather, the opposite was true. The earlier you go back in history, the more human-like conceptions of God became. In many mythologies, the distinctions between Gods and men were rather murky. In fact, in the common Western distinction between theism where God is a person, and deism where Sinnlos posted:Christianity encompasses an incredibly broad range of beliefs. Your arguments may carry water with regards to groups that subscribe to literal readings of the Bible, such as Baptists or Pentecostals. However, the largest single denomination in the world, Catholics, do not subscribe to this idea. Arguing that God is necessarily anthropomorphic does not work with Catholics as Catholicism views significant amounts of the Bible through the lens of metaphor. Incorrect, everything I've said about God being considered to be a person applies to the majority of mainstream Christian thought, not just the literalist subset. Including Catholocism. The Catholic God is an anthropomorphic god even after you run the literal embarrassments through the metaphorical filter. steinrokkan posted:Why are you hellbent on arguing things of which you are utterly ignorant? It is impossible for any created intellect to see the essence of God by its own natural power. For knowledge is regulated according as the thing known is in the knower. But the thing known is in the knower according to the mode of the knower. Hence the knowledge of every knower is ruled according to its own nature. If therefore the mode of anything's being exceeds the mode of the knower, it must result that the knowledge of the object is above the nature of the knower. Now the mode of being of things is manifold. For some things have being only in this one individual matter; as all bodies. But others are subsisting natures, not residing in matter at all, which, however, are not their own existence, but receive it; and these are the incorporeal beings, called angels. But to God alone does it belong to be His own subsistent being. Therefore what exists only in individual matter we know naturally, forasmuch as our soul, whereby we know, is the form of certain matter. Now our soul possesses two cognitive powers; one is the act of a corporeal organ, which naturally knows things existing in individual matter; hence sense knows only the singular. But there is another kind of cognitive power in the soul, called the intellect; and this is not the act of any corporeal organ. Wherefore the intellect naturally knows natures which exist only in individual matter; not as they are in such individual matter, but according as they are abstracted therefrom by the considering act of the intellect; hence it follows that through the intellect we can understand these objects as universal; and this is beyond the power of the sense. Now the angelic intellect naturally knows natures that are not in matter; but this is beyond the power of the intellect of our soul in the state of its present life, united as it is to the body. It follows therefore that to know self-subsistent being is natural to the divine intellect alone; and this is beyond the natural power of any created intellect; for no creature is its own existence, forasmuch as its existence is participated. Therefore the created intellect cannot see the essence of God, unless God by His grace unites Himself to the created intellect, as an object made intelligible to it. Check your snotty-rear end attitude (remember that, statistically speaking, I know more about the Bible and Christianity than you). In your Aquinas quote, he says that the intellect is not the act of any corporeal organ. That we now know to be false, so any conclusion that follows from that premise carries no weight. Barlow posted:I doubt that Vessbot's arguements would even apply to them. Even the most devoted Evangelicals and Pentecostals would not argue that God was literally a man. Their views have issues, but even their cosmology and manner of interpreting scriptures is more complicated than that. quote:How can God exhibit emotions, reactions, intentions, and speech acts like the ones produced by our nervous system, without something significantly like it? http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3699201&pagenumber=16&perpage=40#post441491018 Chin posted:It seems to me like you're not seeing the difference between fact-checking (like asking a person to support a specific truth claim) and jumping into the midst of inherently irrational theology and trying to poke holes in their reasoning. But theology does not hold itself to be irrational. It plays quite hard at rationality, and factuality. So trying to poke holes in that reasoning IS challenging their truth claims. So yeah, I don't see the difference. Infinite Karma posted:What's the point of the whole "GOD IS AN AEP" tangent anyway? It's stupid to call God an ape regardless; we only call humans apes (which is factually incorrect) when we are trying to be intentionally insulting. If you browbeat a Chrsitian into admitting that God was, in fact, an ape, with the same supernatural qualities attributed to the God whose genus and species was indeterminate, would it invalidate any theological arguments that were previously valid? I am kind of trying to be intentionally insulting. To answer the question in your first paragraph, yes it would invalidate the theological arguments that are predicated on God not having any person-like qualities. In your second paragraph, you make the same mistake as LookingGodInTheEye (who, despite the flaws in his argument, I respect for being the only one to actually engage my points) so I'll paste my reply to him here: You however, didn't read (or if you did, didn't address) the part of my argument where I corrected your simplistic notion of "intelligence" as some sort of nebulous homogeneous concept that a creature could either have or not have, (or at best, have at various levels of strength) which doesn't account for the huge array of types of intelligence displayed by different animals, which are all accidents of their evolutionary history and environment. Based on that notion, you could say that humans have 100% intelligence, chimps 90%, dogs 70%, and worms 0.5%. Based on that misunderstanding, you bring up the billions of planets and likelihood of other beings developing intelligence, as if "having intelligence" is the only thing needed for them to be human-like, and nothing more specific than that. It's as if I made an argument (before worldwide travel) that since other humans on the planet could surely have the ability to learn the Cherokee language (they have the neurology for language after all, and it's a big big planet!), it's too big an assumption to make that there can't be a community in the Middle East that speaks Cherokee. My example of a unique human trait that you explain with selfish gene theory is not the best, but still stands. Competition and kin selection is of course widespread through the animal kingdom, but, again, in different forms. Murderous conquest, rape, and brotherly feelings for those close to you are not literally unique to humans, but still relatively so. Most fish, for example, don't guard territory by killing other fish. If the Christian god was a fish-based god, we would expect the Bible to contain lots of references to squirting out as much semen in your environment as you could. But we wouldn't reasonably expect it to talk about killing the men of neighboring tribes and taking their women as "wives." However, since in reality he's an ape-based god, we do.
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Feb 13, 2015 01:08
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You are remarkably dense, I can only hope it's willfull on your part.
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Feb 13, 2015 01:11
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Please cite a source for your claim that most Christians view God as a person of some sort but first define what you mean by "of some sort"
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Feb 13, 2015 01:22
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Miltank posted:Please cite a source for your claim that most Christians view God as a person of some sort but first define what you mean by "of some sort" A man, but made of light, with a wiener but a wiener which is also made of light.
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Feb 13, 2015 01:27
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Miltank posted:Please cite a source for your claim that most Christians view God as a person of some sort but first define what you mean by "of some sort" I have a feeling it has something to do with not understanding that when Christians refer to God in "Three Persons," they don't mean "persons" as we usually use the term in English. vessbot posted:Check your snotty-rear end attitude (remember that, statistically speaking, I know more about the Bible and Christianity than you). Delve into this comment a bit, would you kindly? Majorian fucked around with this message at 01:37 on Feb 13, 2015 |
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Feb 13, 2015 01:33
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How can you know more about something "statistically speaking"?
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Feb 13, 2015 01:40
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This guy has heard of trinitarianism(!) so I'm pretty sure he knows his stuff.
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Feb 13, 2015 01:43
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Wait, so if God is an ape, does that make King Kong scripture? Cuz I can get behind that.
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Feb 13, 2015 02:33
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Hang on now, the humanity of God is a really important thing. Don't be so quick to throw it away. But vessbot needs to read about neo-platonism. When you think about Trinitarianism think about Neo-platonism. Think about the abyssal One and emanations from the One. Some Plotinus .The first emanation from the One, is the nous. The nous is the source of all ideas, things, it is mind or spirit, that can look back at the One. It's a second principle that emanated from the first principle . The third principle, soul, is ambiguity.The ambiguity that defines all things that live. Now the rational part of the second principle (nous) is the Logos. They aren't identical. The Logos is the order and rationality part, think the natural law. Keep in mind these are foundational essential realities, not material things. Talk about souls is talk about foundational essential realities. If you don't know what's going on there you don't know what Trinitarianism is saying. Trinity is talking about essential realities. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Think about those things in light of Plotinus. Then read the Church Fathers: specifically Clement and Origen, talking about the Trinity, they have all this in mind. Then recognize that it's part of the discussion at Nicea, and that the specific ordering of the emanations in the first real split in the Church. Anyway, in Christianity it's the Logos (which gets some of the rest of the nous thrown in) that was flesh. Not the One, not God the Father. An emanation of the Father that shares the same foundational reality as the Father. It works like this Father -> emanates Logos / Son. From both Father and Son emanates -> Holy Spirit in all of us. At least on this side of Filioque. The second emanation was flesh in Jesus. The third, the Holy Spirit is flesh in us. Bar Ran Dun fucked around with this message at 18:16 on Feb 13, 2015 |
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Feb 13, 2015 02:36
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vessbot posted:Check your snotty-rear end attitude (remember that, statistically speaking, I know more about the Bible and Christianity than you). I find the view that atheism somehow confers intellectual superiority to be a pretty disturbing one. No one should ever claim their views instinctively make them wiser or better. Vessbot, you are also pretty mixed up and confused on basic theology. I'd suggest reading and introduction to the subject, something like Alister E. McGrath's "Christian Theology: An Introduction" might give you a sense of the diverse views in Christian theology and give you some grounding in arguing against it.
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Feb 13, 2015 02:46
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Or alternatively he stop making dumb theological arguments altogether because it has no meaning to him as an atheist
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Feb 13, 2015 02:50
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vessbot posted:I used to think that Daniel Dennett was being somewhat of a pompous prick when he said that religion, in order to survive, requires the maintenance of a veil of ignorance to shield itself from reality. After seeing the reactions to my posts here, I now fully agree with him. A defensive taboo is being raised against fact-checking religion, and being partaken in by non-believing academics who appreciate it. How would you "fact check" metaphysical claims?
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Feb 13, 2015 03:15
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steinrokkan posted:When people use terms such as "will" or "hand" in relation to God, they use concepts appropriate for the level of specificity they inhabit. So we have tendency to understand them as if we were describing things on our level, or below it. But in the case of God, we are talking about the most possible generalized meanings of these words. I get what you're saying and it's true to an extent. When the Bible says God "stretched out his hand" or something was "the hand of God" it shouldn't be interpreted as God having an actual physical hand he was using, it's metaphorical. Sure. The problem with that is that there's a conversation between God and Moses in Exodus 33 where Moses asks to see God's glory. God agrees, but says no one can see his face and live. God then tells Moses to go into a cleft in the rock, and while he passes by, he will cover Moses with his hand until he has passed, at which point he will remove his hand and Moses can see his back, but not his face. This bit makes no sense if God doesn't have some sort of physical body. There isn't really any easy way to interpret this as metaphor, maybe his hand is clouds? Maybe sunlight is his back? Is staring directly into the sun "looking at God's face?" But staring at the sun won't kill a man, just make him blind, so that doesn't work well. SedanChair posted:a wiener which is also made of light. God is a character in a yaoi manga?
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Feb 13, 2015 04:02
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Irony Be My Shield posted:Or alternatively he stop making dumb theological arguments altogether because it has no meaning to him as an atheist If you are talking about Brandor: Its the only philosophy he understands.
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Feb 13, 2015 04:07
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Atheists, rethink your arrogance https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDa2rwwZHeE The universe is a big, strange place
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Feb 13, 2015 04:12
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Twelve by Pies posted:The problem with that is that there's a conversation between God and Moses in Exodus 33 where Moses asks to see God's glory. God agrees, but says no one can see his face and live. God then tells Moses to go into a cleft in the rock, and while he passes by, he will cover Moses with his hand until he has passed, at which point he will remove his hand and Moses can see his back, but not his face. And of course, there's the other problem of people in the Bible who do indeed see God's face and live (Gen 32:30, Ex 33:11). Look, I think this is actually a weak argument, not because it's flawed or incorrect, but because it's unconvincing to anyone who doesn't already agree with it. Yes, God is given plenty of anthropomorphic features, and it's hard to say all of them are meant to be strictly metaphorical. Further, we know from observational science that personality, emotion, desire, will, etc is all tied to the physical, and that there's no good reason to conclude that such a thing as the "soul" exists, much less carries the essence of a person. We can alter the physical brain and by doing so alter the person, so it's clearly tied to the physical brain. But for any theist, it's as easy as saying "well, God has a personality without having to have a brain" and that's that. A complete ignorance and denial of reality? Sure. But easy theologically.
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Feb 13, 2015 04:24
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If you had been paying attention you would have picked up that God does not have a personality.People try to understand God through relatable anthropomorphic characteristics, but this is not some revelation. People have thought this out for millenia.
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Feb 13, 2015 04:34
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Berke Negri posted:If you had been paying attention you would have picked up that God does not have a personality. News to me. Seems like you'd have to define "personality" really narrowly and also ignore a good chunk of the Bible (either by calling it "metaphorical" or dismissing it entirely) to assert that.
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Feb 13, 2015 04:53
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vessbot posted:1. Incorrect, the majority of Christians do believe that God (who is the same person as Jesus, according to trinitarianism) is a person of some sort. Not in the sense you seem to be trying to imply. Most Christian denominations that I know of hold god as being impossible to understand, you can know some stuff about him, rather a lot of weirdly specific stuff in some cases, but no sect claims to have 100% mapped the personality of god, or even really claims that god has a personality that would make any sort of sense to a human. I mean, I know you keep saying that Christians believe god is a person but it really isn't correct to my knowledge.
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Feb 13, 2015 05:48
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Is Jesus's morality actually "good"? Our models of what constitutes "good" acts and behavior are based on Jesus's teachings, but isn't that horribly arbitrary? If the Roman's master morality had won out would we not be framing morality in entirely diffrrent terms? What if Jesus told us to crush the weak and aggressively seek our own self-interest? Christianity has the popularity it has because of the powerful spreading it, usually in ways Jesus would not condone. You could say that, despite Jesus rejecting Satan's offer for control over the Kings of the world, his followers gladly took up the offer themselves, and made us give a poo poo about this Jesus. America Inc. fucked around with this message at 06:13 on Feb 13, 2015 |
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Feb 13, 2015 06:02
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Is Satan a better moral role model than Jesus in the modern era, and looking to the future?
America Inc. fucked around with this message at 06:47 on Feb 13, 2015 |
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Feb 13, 2015 06:33
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Twelve by Pies posted:I get what you're saying and it's true to an extent. When the Bible says God "stretched out his hand" or something was "the hand of God" it shouldn't be interpreted as God having an actual physical hand he was using, it's metaphorical. Sure. First, interpreting God extending a protecting hand to Moses seems pointlessly literal. It's the exact thing I was writing about in the post you replied to. To make an analogous example: If I say that a state flexed its muscle to protect its citizen from persecution, I mean it used a degree of power in the realm in which it is endowed with it, not that it used power of actual muscle. Second, Catholics, starting with Augustine at the least, hold that there are three kinds of visions: Sensual, intellectual and imaginary (i.e. vision of the eye, mind and soul). Imaginary vision is subdivided into dreams, ecstasies and waking visions. Moses' story is interpreted as him experiencing imaginary visions of various kinds: "Secondly, as regards the imaginary vision, which he had at his call, as it were, for not only did he hear words, but also saw one speaking to him under the form of God, and this not only while asleep, but even when he was awake. Hence it is written (Exodus 33:11) that "the Lord spoke to Moses face to face, as a man is wont to speak to his friend."" What is important to point out is that according to the Catholic doctrine these imaginary visions are still inferior to pure intellectual comprehension because visions of the supernatural that transform it into corporeal counterparts are merely allegorical guidances that are meant to inspire the reason to understand the supernatural as it is in its true, non-corporeal nature.
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Feb 13, 2015 08:43
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LookingGodIntheEye posted:Is Jesus's morality actually "good"? Our models of what constitutes "good" acts and behavior are based on Jesus's teachings, but isn't that horribly arbitrary? If the Roman's master morality had won out would we not be framing morality in entirely diffrrent terms? Man, if Jesus was a completely different person, that would really throw a wrench into your religion, sheeple.
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Feb 13, 2015 08:45
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steinrokkan posted:Man, if Jesus was a completely different person, that would really throw a wrench into your religion, sheeple.
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Feb 13, 2015 09:26
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Twelve by Pies posted:I get what you're saying and it's true to an extent. When the Bible says God "stretched out his hand" or something was "the hand of God" it shouldn't be interpreted as God having an actual physical hand he was using, it's metaphorical. Sure. drat, what a difficult passage to figure out. Maybe put on some relaxing music, it will help your brain work. Oh no, Johnny Cash has just shot a man in Reno! Look out! Turn off your radio, and call the police before he kills again!
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Feb 13, 2015 09:33
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steinrokkan posted:First, interpreting God extending a protecting hand to Moses seems pointlessly literal. Yes and I straight up acknowledged that things like saying "God's hand" can definitely be viewed metaphorically. I don't know why you're acting like I don't know what metaphor is when I admitted in the very first paragraph of that post "Yes, I see how many verses that speak of these things are metaphor." The issue comes when God talks about seeing his back and face. This is a lot harder to interpret as metaphor since God is saying "You can look at my back." What does this mean metaphorically? How is God going to "pass by" Moses and let him see his back without a physical form? Especially considering it's God himself talking about looking at his face and back, so it's not just Moses making some poetic allegory. quote:Moses' story is interpreted as him experiencing imaginary visions of various kinds: "Secondly, as regards the imaginary vision, which he had at his call, as it were, for not only did he hear words, but also saw one speaking to him under the form of God, and this not only while asleep, but even when he was awake. Hence it is written (Exodus 33:11) that "the Lord spoke to Moses face to face, as a man is wont to speak to his friend."" Okay I see what this is getting at. Moses was having dreams from God (similar to what Pharaoh had that Joseph had to interpret), and in this divine dream God had a "dream body" that walked by Moses so he saw "God's" back, since God would have a body in the dream even if he doesn't have one in reality. The only issue I have is that there isn't really any indication that this event is a dream as opposed to other times when it's clearly stated as such (such as Peter's vision of the animals on the sheet), but it works well enough and can't really be disproved I suppose. edit: Black Bones posted:drat, what a difficult passage to figure out. Maybe put on some relaxing music, it will help your brain work. Sure I could go the route of "Moses made it all up lol" but I'm trying to approach it with the assumption that God actually exists and talk about it in the context of Christian/Jewish theology being true. Twelve by Pies fucked around with this message at 09:45 on Feb 13, 2015 |
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Feb 13, 2015 09:34
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Why is everyone "acting" like I don't understand metaphors? I know lots about them, such as, apparently there can be only one peer Bible passage. Hands? Obviously metaphorical. Head and torso? Must be literal, the metaphor was used up a verse ago. Legs? Moses doesn't say! Who can solve this mystery
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Feb 13, 2015 10:10
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[THREE MEN ARE LIT BY A SINGLE BULB IN A SMALL CLOSED ROOM. TWO ARE SEATED AT A STEEL TABLE FACING EACH OTHER, ONE LEAFING THROUGH PAPERS. THE THIRD IS PACING AND SMOKING BEHIND HIM.] [MAN WITH PAPERS LEANS FORWARD] AARON: Listen Moe, it's a nice story. I wanna believe it, you know I do! But things, they don't add up. You gotta hole here we could drive a chariot through! First you say you weren't burning any bush, then you say you didn't get a good look at - [SMOKING MAN SLAMS THE TABLE WITH HIS PALMS] PHARAOH: We got you, you dumb bastard! What about his legs, huh? AARON: Hey Rams take it easy - PHARAOH: What about God's legs, Moses? What about his legs?
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Feb 13, 2015 10:37
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Twelve by Pies posted:Yes and I straight up acknowledged that things like saying "God's hand" can definitely be viewed metaphorically. I don't know why you're acting like I don't know what metaphor is when I admitted in the very first paragraph of that post "Yes, I see how many verses that speak of these things are metaphor." I am not a theologian, a Christian, or a Bible scholar, but an obvious metaphorical interpretation would be that God's "face" represents the full knowledge of the divine person, whereas the "back" is a more limited experience. Moses asks God for a divine revelation to convince him that God truly has the power and the will to support him in the Exodus. God says "look, if I were to give you a complete understanding you would lose your poo poo, but I will give you as powerful a religious experience as you can handle." The story is absolutely anthropomorphizing God, but it seems pretty clear than "God has a physical face/hand/back" is not the point that would be taken away by any reader who wasn't trying to do a close literalist reading. As for vessbot, if I write a story in which some character is made in the likeness of a real person, you would be insane to claim that the existing person is actually just a fictional construct. Yet an astute reader could draw parallels between the two beings, despite one of them being a material entity and one entirely conceptual, and perhaps use these parallels to become more informed about both the character and the real person. Furthermore, they could potentially draw some conclusions about my understanding of the real person, in the same way as the Bible is not an unmediated list of facts about God, but rather texts about humans' experience of and understanding about God. Obviously God will be anthropomorphized; the Bible is written by and for humans, and therefore will naturally focus on the aspects of God relevant to human reality. This would be true whether God was invented by humans or was in fact an omnipotent being, since the human authors by definition would be unable to understand and communicate the aspects of God that weren't relevant to us. Instead of reckoning with these sorts of issues, your argument ultimately begs the question by insisting on grounding theology in strict materialism. You presume that all human traits are determined purely by biological processes (though you also suggested that you believe in free will, which is hilarious if true), and therefore insist that any qualities we share with another being are necessarily material biological similarities. But Christians dispute the premise that materialism is sufficient to explain the universe, and in particular the human condition, so they're quite free to theorize about similarities between humanity and the divine that don't depend on biology or materialism. People are reflexively getting angry at you because you are trying to argue against religion by simply fiating that its premises are false. Finally, even if we were to grant your premise, it's trivial to claim that an omnipotent God could engineer evolution such that it eventually produced a species with some arbitrary mental qualities due to arbitrary biological processes. Accepting an omnipotent God, after all, means we have to recognize that even the fundamental physical constants (and contents) of the universe could be/have been adjusted as needed. Your whole argument is just a paper-thin "gotcha" that goes to pieces at the first glance.
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Feb 13, 2015 11:48
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LookingGodIntheEye posted:Okay, I'll concede that there is a unknowable alt-history component to my argument, but my main point is that Christianity was primarily promoted and spread to its current dominion by acts contrary to Jesus's teachings and people Jesus would have condemned, by the sword and by rule. If we take Christianity strictly by Jesus's teachings as an anarchist, non-coercive religion it's almost self-destructive considering how religions usually spread and dominate in history. Between Paul bending the rules and the Catholic Church holding Europe by the balls for the better part of a millennium and colonials bringing Christianity as a means of subordination and cultural destruction and modern-day Evangelicals and the Prosperity Gospel, Christianity thrives best on non-Christian behavior. The trouble is that the "NOn-Christian" behavior is really inseparable from the "Christian" behavior. This argument comes down to what is socially and morally acceptable to us today, not whether or not the claims in the Bible are true.
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Feb 13, 2015 13:56
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Mornacale posted:I am not a theologian, a Christian, or a Bible scholar, but an obvious metaphorical interpretation would be that God's "face" represents the full knowledge of the divine person, whereas the "back" is a more limited experience. Moses asks God for a divine revelation to convince him that God truly has the power and the will to support him in the Exodus. God says "look, if I were to give you a complete understanding you would lose your poo poo, but I will give you as powerful a religious experience as you can handle." The story is absolutely anthropomorphizing God, but it seems pretty clear than "God has a physical face/hand/back" is not the point that would be taken away by any reader who wasn't trying to do a close literalist reading. Okay, that makes sense. I wasn't really trying to present an "Aha, gotcha!" type argument, but those passages in Exodus 33 did stick out at me when talking about God's body as metaphor, so I figured I'd bring them up to see what the response would be. I admit I'm not the brightest guy around when trying to interpret allegory; while body parts that do things are easy to see from a metaphorical point of view (eyes, hands, mouth, etc.), the back doesn't really do a whole lot on its own, which made it for me difficult to see what exactly it would be a metaphor for.
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Feb 13, 2015 14:11
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Twelve by Pies posted:Okay, that makes sense. I wasn't really trying to present an "Aha, gotcha!" type argument, but those passages in Exodus 33 did stick out at me when talking about God's body as metaphor, so I figured I'd bring them up to see what the response would be. I admit I'm not the brightest guy around when trying to interpret allegory; while body parts that do things are easy to see from a metaphorical point of view (eyes, hands, mouth, etc.), the back doesn't really do a whole lot on its own, which made it for me difficult to see what exactly it would be a metaphor for. The central argument will always be from the theological tradition we are talking about (trad. Catholic and affiliates) is that God is fundamentally not capable of being fully comprehended or seen by man (in fact he can't be seen at all in the traditional sense, being incorporeal) by man and so you will always try to get a handle on him in a pretty rudimentary or broken way.
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Feb 13, 2015 14:18
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Twelve by Pies posted:Okay, that makes sense. I wasn't really trying to present an "Aha, gotcha!" type argument, but those passages in Exodus 33 did stick out at me when talking about God's body as metaphor, so I figured I'd bring them up to see what the response would be. I admit I'm not the brightest guy around when trying to interpret allegory; while body parts that do things are easy to see from a metaphorical point of view (eyes, hands, mouth, etc.), the back doesn't really do a whole lot on its own, which made it for me difficult to see what exactly it would be a metaphor for. On the other hand, you really have to pre-decide that the passage is metaphorical for it to make sense that way. That is, there is nothing in the text itself to suggest it meant anything other than "Moses saw a guy, who was God, from behind". Again, it's a satisfying answer for someone already inclined to believe it, but not convincing for someone on the other side of things. The standard for determining which Biblical things are to be taken as metaphor does seem suspiciously aligned with "whatever would be a big problem for our theology if it weren't".
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Feb 13, 2015 18:24
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GAINING WEIGHT... posted:The standard for determining which Biblical things are to be taken as metaphor does seem suspiciously aligned with "whatever would be a big problem for our theology if it weren't". On the Bible being metaphor, one great example of this is Song of Songs. This is a text that was clearly written as an erotic poem about the love of a man and women. Most Christians historically viewed it as being about the love of God and the Church, Jews likewise saw it as about divine love. In the Islamic tradition Sufi poetry is often erotic poetry, but the idea is that it's always really about the believer and God. The literal meaning of a text matters far less than a faith communities interpretation of it.
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Feb 13, 2015 19:19
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Barlow posted:Well one of the reasons theology exists is to adapt religious traditions to modern needs, so it makes sense that aspects of scripture that are seen as irrelevant or problematic are reinterpreted. What this actually means is "to continually shift the goalposts of their factual claims."
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Feb 13, 2015 20:24
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GAINING WEIGHT... posted:On the other hand, you really have to pre-decide that the passage is metaphorical for it to make sense that way. That is, there is nothing in the text itself to suggest it meant anything other than "Moses saw a guy, who was God, from behind". Again, it's a satisfying answer for someone already inclined to believe it, but not convincing for someone on the other side of things. Theology is based on the assumption that knowledge that isn't dependent on sensuality, i.e. intellectual, rather than cognitive knowledge, to use the traditional terminology, takes precedence in studying any subject. So the standard method of interpreting the Bible is to interpret the parts that use language of cognitive experience as being less than literal if their literal reading contradicts elements of pure intellectual knowledge contained elsewhere in the Bible or learned through previous study of other allegorical passages. It's objectionable, but it's a consistent, structured method of reading the scriptures, and justified ideologically. E: Basically, the deeper you get into the Bible, the more abstract truths you uncover, and the more abstract truths you get, the more allegorical passages can be translated into abstract truths.
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Feb 13, 2015 20:40
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steinrokkan posted:E: Basically, the deeper you get into the Bible, the more abstract truths you uncover, and the more abstract truths you get, the more allegorical passages can be translated into abstract truths. I'm sorry, what?
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Feb 13, 2015 20:50
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vessbot posted:What this actually means is "to continually shift the goalposts of their factual claims." That is one valid way of seeing it. Whenever a new interpretation begins to gain ground, there are accusations like that flying around. Another valid way is that in the light of new research and information it begins to appear that the old interpretation has been wrong and thus it must be corrected. As an example, before the invention of flight it probably did no-one any harm to assume the Heaven is literally up there. It was unreachable for us anyway. Technological advances have pretty much confirmed that even if Heaven was literally up there, it's still undetectable and unreachable. It was always kind of the point but nowadays it's quite universally emphasized to just be a transcendental place or state of existence and we've come to understand for example the word "ascension" as metaphorical instead of sometimes using it literally.
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Feb 13, 2015 20:54
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CommieGIR posted:I'm sorry, what? Uh? If you start reading with acceptance of certain basic axioms passed in the text, you can use them to gain understanding of why certain passages are allegorical, and to further refine your knowledge of the general, abstract sacred doctrine. In turn, these refinements uncover new meanings previously hidden in the text. It is claimed by the Church that all passages of the Bible are consistent with each other, but one needs to understand that they are linked together in a hierarchical manner where some parts play a supporting role, and you need to know the method for determining purity and excellence of individual parts to establish this hierarchy.
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Feb 13, 2015 20:57
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steinrokkan posted:Uh? If you start reading with acceptance of certain basic axioms passed in the text, you can use them to gain understanding of why certain passages are allegorical, and to further refine your knowledge of the general, abstract sacred doctrine. In turn, these refinements uncover new meanings previously hidden in the text. It is claimed by the Church that all passages of the Bible are consistent with each other, but one needs to understand that they are linked together in a hierarchical manner where some parts play a supporting role, and you need to know the method for determining purity and excellence of individual parts to establish this hierarchy. Yeah. Right. So what about the Books that didn't make it into the Bible?
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Feb 13, 2015 20:59
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