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Thursday, July 18, 2019
Adult Sabbath School: Personal Freedom and The Downside of Too Much Allegory in Christian Theology
25 comments:
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On the flip side, we only know what the Gospels wrote that Jesus said. Plus we are 99.99% sure He was not speaking to His local audience in Greek.
- Thursday, July 18, 2019 at 7:46:00 AM PDT
- DennisCDiehl said...
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Some will insist they can believe the theology of the NT AND not take the story of Adam and Eve as literally true. This is not possible. One MUST take it literally true as all in NT did when formulating their theology and beliefs.
In the same way, one cannot really believe in evolution and Creationism. Actual scientific discovery does not mix with religious prejudices and Bible literalism. A theology driven scientist, while able to worship as they please, cannot bring those beliefs into the lab. They are faith based inhibitors to scientific discovery. They cloud the scientific method of discovery. IMHO of course and that of millions if not billions of others. - Thursday, July 18, 2019 at 7:55:00 AM PDT
- Anonymous ` said...
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The modus ponens is:
Proposition 1: If there is not a literal Adam, the Bible and its message is completely undone.
Proposition 2: There is not a literal Adam.
Conclusion: The Bible and its message is completely undone.
The logical structure of the syllogism is fine. The problem is that the veracity of Proposition 1 has not been established. It is an assumption. And the veracity of Proposition 2 also has not been established. So the syllogism collapses under the heavy weight of assumption.
For example, Adam may have been allegorical. We cannot know if Job thought of Adam as a metaphor or a real person. The context of his usage does not elucidate this issue. For Job, the term "Adam" could be the personification of early mankind - like wisdom is personified in Proverbs. The same is true of the other scriptures cited. This fault in reasoning is like anthropomorphism - believing God has a body because of some literary devices. In fact, Diehl's entire train of logic is rife with the kind of literalism that would make a blazing fundamentalist proud.
It is a sophomoric "sleight of hand" to try to use assumption-based arguments within an acceptable syllogism as a logical substrate for the invalidation of Christianity. It comes to mind I have witnessed a lot of this before - from pulpits in the Worldwide Church of God. - Thursday, July 18, 2019 at 8:09:00 AM PDT
- Anonymous ` said...
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Diehl:
You cannot make the world what you want it do be by declaration. What you are presenting is a festival of tendentious assumptions. - Thursday, July 18, 2019 at 8:13:00 AM PDT
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Dennis, even Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 do not literally agree with each other. The ancient Jews weren't morons. They understood that the Bible was true, not that it was a factual science textbook. The notion of a literally true Bible is mostly a product of frightened American Protestants in the last 150 years who have seen science make mincemeat of the idea of Bible-As-Science-Book approach that began to grow after there Protestant Reformation essentially made a god out of the Bible to replace the Pope in Rome. Neither Catholicism nor Judaism, nor honest Protestantism, require a belief in a literally factual Bible. This isn't a marginal opinion, either, as the great Jewish scholar Maimonides said essentially what I have said above, as have a handful of Popes and by now more than a few Protestant scholars.
There are good reasons to disbelieve the Bible, but it's intellectually dishonest and naive to insist that your literal reading of the Bible is the only valid reading. - Thursday, July 18, 2019 at 8:26:00 AM PDT
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Luk 13:28 - There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when ye shall see Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets, in the kingdom of God, and you yourselves thrust out.
- Thursday, July 18, 2019 at 8:31:00 AM PDT
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"IMHO of course"
Now that's the funniest thing that I've read here in weeks! - Thursday, July 18, 2019 at 8:33:00 AM PDT
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If we examine the records that exist on the planet, not written on clay tablets or papyrus, but in the geology, in the ice sheets, in the excavated remnants of human activity, in biological records that exist in our genes, in dendrochronology, etc...
And then if we look at the bible, with its stories of creation, of Adam, Eve, and a talking snake, a flood of water high enough to cover "the mountains of Ararat," the rise of the Jewish people descending from a single patriarch, their enslavement and eventual freedom, their wandering and dying in the wilderness, and their systematic conquest of the Levant culminating in wealth and glory...
Each of these records a totally different story.
One of these is a human tale. Within its own texts it tells the story of how it came to be. For centuries already, textual scholars have noticed how the details of the bible point them having been written, and rewritten, and rewritten again, each time differently. Then each version was fused back together, unifying all the disparate elements into a single narrative. Then it was redacted, and redacted, and redacted some more, eliminating portions that had become undesirable, while expanding those portions that reflected then-current theological fashions.
The other is a natural tale, inscribed upon the face of the earth by billions of years of geologic and hydrologic forces, in fossils, in pottery sherds, in refuse heaps, in caves, and in the living things that still exist around the globe. It is a story that has been written only once, and has never been tampered with. But it is a long story, and an unfinished one that is still being written today.
It's very easy for one of these stories to be allegorical. It isn't even possible for the other not to be literally true. Just for example, it would require massive feats of landscape reengineering and vast eons of time to force geology to tell any other story than that of it's literal past.
So, if you're going to take one literally, and relegate the other to allegory, which is which? - Thursday, July 18, 2019 at 10:19:00 AM PDT
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The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he doesn't exist.
Keyser Soze - Thursday, July 18, 2019 at 1:19:00 PM PDT
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Dennis needs to escape from the cave and give up his god Carl Sagan.
- Thursday, July 18, 2019 at 1:42:00 PM PDT
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You cannot understand the bible unless you understand the Kabbalah and the Talmud. The OT is just part of the picture of what Judaism was and is, and Christianity is a Judaic religion.
- Thursday, July 18, 2019 at 1:44:00 PM PDT
- DennisCDiehl said...
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Anonymous said...
You cannot understand the bible unless you understand the Kabbalah and the Talmud. The OT is just part of the picture of what Judaism was and is, and Christianity is a Judaic religion.
Sounds too complicated and too much work. I thought there was a simplicity in Christ along with a burden that was somewhat light. (Matthew 11:30) Not that easy or light I guess huh?
- Thursday, July 18, 2019 at 2:35:00 PM PDT
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"Sounds too complicated and too much work. I thought there was a simplicity in Christ..."
Don't criticize the bible then, since it's too much work for you to understand it.
- Thursday, July 18, 2019 at 3:09:00 PM PDT
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" Let's start with the New Testament and work backwards. Jesus genealogy was traced back to Adam in Luke 3:38 "
Well, the geneology starts with Joseph. So apparently Luke 1:34-35 is out the window.
No virgin birth. "Those are your choices. You choose what you will believe."
True statement. - Thursday, July 18, 2019 at 3:31:00 PM PDT
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Too bad Dennis won't be in the kingdom. At least he'II make a good talking point at the water cooler. We'II miss you Dennis!
- Thursday, July 18, 2019 at 7:48:00 PM PDT
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No. Actually he needs to stop being the Dave Pack of atheism!
- Thursday, July 18, 2019 at 8:12:00 PM PDT
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Anonymous 7:48 It's posts like this that illustrate you are not ready for any sort of real leadership role, let alone living forever. First, you'll be bored with no one to show how Christian you are too. As everyone else thinks and acts like you do, your feeling of speciality will evaporate. I hope you get the afterlife you're looking forward to and are bored to tears afterwards. I hope intergalactic real estate development and the increase of government that will never cease is every thing you hope it to be. But hey... Those water cooler breaks where you shit talk atheists and all those who are ashes under your feet will make it all worth it.
- Thursday, July 18, 2019 at 9:50:00 PM PDT
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I'm also flabbergasted at the butt hurt of some "Christians" on this blog because one of the main contributors is a textual critic and a science proponent. In this age of disproportionate reactionary rhetoric where everything is a outrage, people need to really just read and listen more and comment less. If you don't like it or disagree with it instead of insulting the author, perhaps find a channel like Fox News, or your local COG congregation where you can all speak the same thing and listen to the same thing and never critically evaluate any piece of information or demonstrate any willingness to challenge your dogma.
If you want free and independent thought, it is here, but if you just have the need to dismiss and disparage someone you don't agree with just to feel more secure in your antiquated Bronze Age thinking you can jump in a lake. Not the lake of fire which you would wish upon all those who don't agree with you, but an actual body of water that might help you chill out. - Thursday, July 18, 2019 at 10:07:00 PM PDT
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It's true that Dennis won't be in the kingdom. But then, neither will anyone else, either.
Silly to still believe in ancient Mesopotamian gods in this day and age. - Thursday, July 18, 2019 at 10:32:00 PM PDT
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10:07 Why don't you start signing your posts "butt hurt"? You've used that phrase so often on here it really makes me wonder about you.
- Friday, July 19, 2019 at 2:26:00 AM PDT
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9.50 PM
I'm telling you you the way it will be. Shooting (especially smearing) the messenger doesn't change the reality.
10.07 PM
Your post brings back memories of 1967 hippy talk. We must be tolerant, and listen to others point of view, blah, blah, blah. Now that these neo hippies are in the drivers seat of today's culture, their so called tolerance has vanished. Their professed tolerance was one big self serving lie. - Friday, July 19, 2019 at 3:39:00 AM PDT
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I know a Lutheran professor of theology who says that taking the first 11 chapters of Genesis literally is heresy.
I usually agree with Dennis or at least understand where he is coming from. But I don't understand this attempt to impose an either/or decision. - Friday, July 19, 2019 at 5:48:00 AM PDT
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Hate the establishment, until you're in control of the establishment.
Hmmmm, sounds like a UCG/COGWA story to me.
Kevin - Friday, July 19, 2019 at 6:17:00 AM PDT
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Dennis, you said "...one cannot really believe in evolution and Creationism. Actual scientific discovery does not mix with religious prejudices and Bible literalism. A theology driven scientist, while able to worship as they please, cannot bring those beliefs into the lab. They are faith based inhibitors to scientific discovery. They cloud the scientific method of discovery. IMHO of course and that of millions if not billions of others."
That's a blanket generalization, and you're not really being fair to those scientists who have made this work. They show that it can be done, even to the point of their scientific discoveries strengthening their faith.
Check out "How I Changed My Mind About Evolution" and biologos.org. It gives another perspective to the either/or discussion... - Friday, July 19, 2019 at 1:25:00 PM PDT
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Reading your comment again, I agree that literalism and prejudice do inhibit a lot of things, even more than scientific discovery and inquiry.
To be theology-driven outside of those parameters, though, should not inhibit scientific discovery; and that was my point, not that such scientists are also biblical literalists/fundamentalists. - Friday, July 19, 2019 at 3:21:00 PM PDT