Foul the Christian

[Orlion]

This is what it comes down to: whether we're smart enough to read what someone has said, and then pick out the non-poisonous mushroom.

As a general rule, I don't eat mushrooms found in books I'm reading... not after last time.

[Avatar]

The right mushroom can be a wonderful thing...

--A

[Linna Heartbooger]

Oh, bah, rus! I think that actual hard-core "Sola Scriptura" folks' take is that ALL the Bible* is necessary to interpret any one verse of the Bible.

A "Sola Scriptura" person, I think, would be driven all the more to rely on larger and more contiguous chunks of Biblical context because in theory, (though in theory only!) scripture is "all they have."

* Which, in actual practice, means 'all the Bible that the given reader has in their "working vocabulary" so far.' And, yes, I know that easily transforms into an argument for the usefulness of church tradition...

ali- the thing that bugs the heck out of me is that it sounds like Jefferson just chopped out whatever didn't jive with his Deism! I mean, doesn't he make a great example of someone just using the parts of the Bible they like to prop up the beliefs they happen to have right now? (even with all the homage he pays to the words of "the Jesus who he can imagine")

[Cambo]

ali- the thing that bugs the heck out of me is that it sounds like Jefferson just chopped out whatever didn't jive with his Deism! I mean, doesn't he make a great example of someone just using the parts of the Bible they like to prop up the beliefs they happen to have right now? (even with all the homage he pays to the words of "the Jesus who he can imagine")

Depends. Did he leave every single word attributed to Jesus in there? Because a lot of that, you'd have to stretch to fit into Deism. "No-one gets to the Father except through me" and all that stuff.

[Fist and Faith]

There's no reason anyone should feel obligated to accept, or embrace, the whole Bible. The guys who put it together back in the day could have left some of it out, or included other writings. It just happens that they put it together the way they did. The Bible doesn't belong to anyone more than it belongs to anyone else, so nobody can demand that everybody try to include it all in one, whole worldview. If some part of it does not reflect what you know to be true, then feel free to ignore it. If someone has convinced you that all of it must be included in your worldview, then go ahead and include it all. It's up to you.

[aliantha]

This is what it comes down to: whether we're smart enough to read what someone has said, and then pick out the non-poisonous mushroom.

As a general rule, I don't eat mushrooms found in books I'm reading... not after last time.

I can explain about that mushroom.



Linna -- Among the things Jefferson cut out of his book were the supernatural occurences. The miracles, and even the resurrection itself. So I don't think he was interested in a full view of the Bible; I think he was interested in the story of Jesus and what the guy actually said. I think he was trying to create a moral code that *anybody*, Christian or not, could follow -- leaving out all of the arguments about whether miracles happen and about whether God touches our lives in the present day. I believe that Deists believe in a clockwork universe -- God set it going and has left it alone since then.

[High Lord Tolkien]

Linna -- Among the things Jefferson cut out of his book were the supernatural occurences. The miracles, and even the resurrection itself. So I don't think he was interested in a full view of the Bible; I think he was interested in the story of Jesus and what the guy actually said. I think he was trying to create a moral code that *anybody*, Christian or not, could follow -- leaving out all of the arguments about whether miracles happen and about whether God touches our lives in the present day.

Hey now! That's where I was going with my "Jesus the man" thread.
And judging by the amount of crap that thread generated I can see why Jefferson never published his book.

[aliantha]

Hey now! That's where I was going with my "Jesus the man" thread.

Proving once again that great minds think alike...

[High Lord Tolkien]

Hey now! That's where I was going with my "Jesus the man" thread.

Proving once again that great minds think alike...

I wasn't going to go there but....yeah, duh!

[Worm of Despite]

Seeing this thread when it was active in 2006 and active in 2011 tells me two things:

2006: even-handed, elucidating discussion and a great progression of the topic with respect to everyone.

2011: a door opens slightly. Rus walks in. Aliantha, Fist, couple other people. They all pick up banjos and begin dueling. It never stops.

EVER.

[Fist and Faith]

Hey, don't accuse me of anything. I've been very good, and haven't addressed rus at all.

[Worm of Despite]

Good boy. You get a treat!

I guess that's what I get for skimming. When I see a rus and Fist post in close proximity I figure history is repeating.

[Fist and Faith]

[Linna Heartbooger]

The way y'all talk about conflict, it sounds like you think it's a bad thing!

Depends. Did he leave every single word attributed to Jesus in there? Because a lot of that, you'd have to stretch to fit into Deism. "No-one gets to the Father except through me" and all that stuff.

Right. That would be a great counter, in theory.

But from the description in the Wikipedia article Ali posted, it seems that Jefferson could NOT have. He would have had to cut the text of the words that the "big four" gospel authors attribute to Jesus pretty drastically.

HLT- I was thinking of your thread too in this context. I should like... go read some of it. Wanted to be involved in the discussion at the time, but it kinda passed me by...

[rusmeister]

Seeing this thread when it was active in 2006 and active in 2011 tells me two things:

2006: even-handed, elucidating discussion and a great progression of the topic with respect to everyone.

2011: a door opens slightly. Rus walks in. Aliantha, Fist, couple other people. They all pick up banjos and begin dueling. It never stops.

EVER.

Well, Foul, I guess the question is whether the things we discuss are important, and important enough to conflict over. I'd say they're all-important. In "When Harry Met Sally", there's a point when they're talking (about sexual relations) and he says "It doesn't mean anything." and she rages at him "It means EVERYTHING!!!", and she's right, of course, for either the marital act (whether one is married or not) is a meaningless physical act of self-gratification, or it is a thing whose meaning transcends the physical act.

If they ARE important, then they are worth fighting for. To say that this is not worth fighting for is to say that it is not important. The meaning of our lives. Is there truth or not? Is abortion a harmless discarding of tissue or the murder of human babies? And so on.

As Linna said, conflict, in and of itself, is not the bad thing. Fighting on the wrong side is.

[rusmeister]

If, as you say, I am incapable of knowing the import of a man's words by hearing them, or by reading them, because of all my inherent prejudices and so on -- then how in blazes can I be capable of picking the right authority to tell me what the man said? How am I supposed to decide which of the divinely inspired interpreters (and they *all* say they're divinely inspired!) is telling the truth -- or is, at least, closest to the mark?

You keep talking about the good kind of prejudice, rus. This is what it comes down to: whether we're smart enough to read what someone has said, and then pick out the non-poisonous mushroom. The number of layers of interpreters doesn't matter -- whether it's zero or ten million -- if we don't have the basic ability to discern the truth for ourselves. (In fact, the chance for going astray increases geometrically with the number of times the message is passed on. See the childhood game of Telephone.)

Once again, it all boils down to picking the truth each of us is most comfortable with. And until Jesus comes back (if, indeed, he was the Messiah), that's what we're stuck with. That's why they call it "faith".

This is a good question, Ali, and I hope I don't come across as flippant or high-handed. Obviously, you already have an answer, and so are not really asking me a question, but there IS an answer that shows the consistency and logic in my worldview. My last post, of course, was aimed at Christians, who DO accept things like the Nicene Creed and the Bible, but deny the institution that produced them.

It's not only a matter of reading. Reading, or even listening to what others say, are not the only things that can open truth to us. It is true that we must make decisions with our own minds, and so we DO choose - we call this 'free will' - where we decide that one authority is better than another, or more true than another, on the basis of what we know. All I am saying is that surely the most foolish thing we can do is to say that I know better than (without reference to) the rest of humanity on my own authority, as if we were the first ones to discover the truth, whatever it is.

But the reference to reading is a result of our history, which is a specific one - one in which Christendom dominated for two millennia, in which 500 years ago the idea sprang up of the individual reading a specific holy book and in that interaction between the individual and the book, the individual could, without error, discover all truth and correctly divine it.

I think the thing we're talking past each other on here is that we can certainly understand SOME things on our own. "Love your neighbor as yourself" may need some clarification - for people today esp. on what exactly 'love' means, but on the whole is pretty straightforward. "I am come to bring a sword" is not. Does the added detail of Christ writing in the sand have a special meaning for us or not? These things are not at all clear. Who is to arbitrate the correct meaning of "Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My Church" (especially when the context was speaking of Peter's faith)? So there ARE things that one cannot readily understand on their own.

As to the broken telephone scenario, then all tradition of all religions is equally vain if there can be no such thing as a reliable oral tradition that people guard religiously, with their lives. Sure, it's possible - it's not impossible to break the telephone, but what you're saying is that you cannot find an unbroken telephone. Ironic for readers of SRD who take the idea that Nassic could possibly have had anything at all to transmit after 4,000 years. And most Christians, or people asking about something related to the Christian faith, ask if such-and such is written in the Bible or not - an attitude which basically places no trust in people to faithfully pass down a tradition - even though they accept a tradition from their pastor or spiritual advisor.

So a sum-up on your sum-up would be that we do NOT have the ability to discern the truth on everything, even though there are SOME things we can and do know (such as that it is wrong to murder). Complex theological systems - like complex geological, chemical, or other systems, cannot be completely determined by one man without reference to a tradition. And if that tradition is spread out far enough over space and time, he will be unable to understand what that tradition is trying to tell him without an interpreter. If the ancient Jewish conception of marriage included the idea of betrothal for protection, then a 20th century westerner will not, merely by reading the Bible, discover this - and so he will imagine a young Joseph married to Mary for love, the only kind of marriage the modern westerner can conceive of - and he will be wrong. It is only by reference to other facts that we can discover the true nature of that marriage. Likewise, as I have said here several times (and hopefully you'll bear in mind some day), the modern conception of marriage assumes that Joseph and Mary naturally consummated their marriage after the birth of Jesus, and this is reinforced by the use of a poor translation of the Greek "eos" in the 17th century (Matt1:24-25). The English "until" implies "finishing at that point". The Greek "eos", like the Russian "poka" or the English "while", does not. So a great many people have thrown the tradition held in the West, even by Martin Luther himself, of the ever-virginity of the Theotokos (Mary) because of the individual reading a poor translation ON HIS OWN and drawing conclusions based on his own conceptions.

Some things ARE simple and obvious. A great many things are not. Defending one's ability to read the Bible and then correctly draw conclusions based on one's own limited understandings will inevitably lead to fallacy - as Fist has in his own reading of Genesis, as many have in their understandings of the nature and relationship of Mary and Christ, and only an interpreter that is MORE RELIABLE than we are can possibly get us out of such messes.

(Edit) Again, "picking something that we are comfortable with" must almost certainly be something that is not true, for we all would like the truth to bend to suit us, and are extremely prone to bending it ourselves. Comfort and truth are bound to clash, and although one can ultimately find comfort in the Orthodox faith, it is only after facing the most uncomfortable things about ourselves.

[Linna Heartbooger]

...So I don't think he was interested in a full view of the Bible; I think he was interested in the story of Jesus and what the guy actually said. I think he was trying to create a moral code that *anybody*, Christian or not, could follow -- leaving out all of the arguments about whether miracles happen

Alright, I think I kinda see what you're trying to say here. I think you're saying that Jefferson was mining the Jesus-story for the "gems" that he could accept from within his deistic worldview, and also create a document that would make them more accesible to like-minded individuals - without trying to wrestle with the frustrating and to-him-dubious contextual information.

I think that there's a problem though. (Of course!) Jesus is recorded as having said things ABOUT the miracles in the miracle stories... and those things can have bearing on us. I mean, just think of his commentary on the man born blind. It goes against all the "Why is this happening to me?" and "well if there is a God, he must be angry with me!" that spring up so freely in the human mind:

It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.

(Now maybe I should go find Jefferson's document, and check that - as I am just guessing - this passage is omitted.)

And even if someone thinks that Jesus' followers were uneducated theists and wanted to "see" miracles to feel good... (that's totally a danger for would-be followers of Christ!) there must be SOME reason they thought that various specific things they recorded happened.

and about whether God touches our lives in the present day. I believe that Deists believe in a clockwork universe -- God set it going and has left it alone since then.

Personally, I find the "clockwork universe" worldview rather depressing. I'd even go so far as to say I think that Deism is dishonoring to the divine image that is to be found in our humanity.

Albeit, some days, I realize that some of my unspoken assumptions are more synched with the deistic worldview than the one I claim to hold. (if that makes any sense?)

[Linna Heartbooger]

If some part of it does not reflect what you know to be true, then feel free to ignore it. If someone has convinced you that all of it must be included in your worldview, then go ahead and include it all. It's up to you.

But what it's ACTUALLY just some person's crappy interpretation that doesn't match up with what you know to be true? What if some individual didn't understand a Bible story and told you it meant one thing, but you were smart enough to crisp-fry that straw-man argument on contact & discard it?

As an example, I think you've brought up how the Abraham-going-to-sacrifice-Isaac passage sounds disturbing. I think people have implied, "You should just have to have faith to accept a God who would do THIS; don't ask questions."

But you're more intelligent than to have an attitude that blindly says something like that. And presumably less easily compelled by group pressure. So you, quite reasonably, rejected that.

But I actually think that God WANTS people to be troubled by that kind of story, and say, "Wait a minute... what the?!?!?" ...and then investigate what the heck really WAS going on there anyways.

There's a loss when someone inclined to be bothered by a story like that just throws it out at face value instead of looking deeper than some (possibly incompetent) interpreter who they've encountered.

As Linna said, conflict, in and of itself, is not the bad thing. Fighting on the wrong side is.

Yeahhh... though when I was thinking about it later, I thought, "Wow, it's SO easy for ME to make a comment like that." I like to imagine myself more assertive than I am, and my very mode of speech is calculated to make it so that even after I disagree with someone, they usually still think I'm "nice."

[aliantha]

As Linna said, conflict, in and of itself, is not the bad thing. Fighting on the wrong side is.

Yeahhh... though when I was thinking about it later, I thought, "Wow, it's SO easy for ME to make a comment like that." I like to imagine myself more assertive than I am, and my very mode of speech is calculated to make it so that even after I disagree with someone, they usually still think I'm "nice."

It's a female thing. I do it too. And then I feel guilty later about what I've said, and go back to the person and apologize ("I'm sorry if I sounded abrupt" or whatever) and they look at me like, "why are you even mentioning it?"

[Fist and Faith]

If some part of it does not reflect what you know to be true, then feel free to ignore it. If someone has convinced you that all of it must be included in your worldview, then go ahead and include it all. It's up to you.

But what it's ACTUALLY just some person's crappy interpretation that doesn't match up with what you know to be true? What if some individual didn't understand a Bible story and told you it meant one thing, but you were smart enough to crisp-fry that straw-man argument on contact & discard it?

As an example, I think you've brought up how the Abraham-going-to-sacrifice-Isaac passage sounds disturbing. I think people have implied, "You should just have to have faith to accept a God who would do THIS; don't ask questions."

But you're more intelligent than to have an attitude that blindly says something like that. And presumably less easily compelled by group pressure. So you, quite reasonably, rejected that.

But I actually think that God WANTS people to be troubled by that kind of story, and say, "Wait a minute... what the?!?!?" ...and then investigate what the heck really WAS going on there anyways.

There's a loss when someone inclined to be bothered by a story like that just throws it out at face value instead of looking deeper than some (possibly incompetent) interpreter who they've encountered.

I'm gonna quote what I just wrote to somebody else, regarding my thought that Christianity is a fantasy. Although I don't usually have reason to state it that way, it's what I believe. I only stated it that way to try to make rus understand that it's silly for him to tell me I should be interested in it and research it myself. There's no motivation to do so. I've read some Classical mythology. Also Norse, which I enjoy more. And I've read some Christianity, to say nothing of being immersed in it my entire life just because of the culture I live in. But I don't give it more stock than the other mythologies, and there's no reason to imagine I'd bother delving into it to see if there's possibly a reason to not see this particular inconsistency in another way.

Is there anything of value for me to learn about the Abraham/Isaac story, despite the cruelty? There's no reason to think it's not possible. Cruelty is throughout many of the books and movies from which I've learned things. Not to mention history. But the Bible bores me to tears! So I don't much bother. If anyone wants me to learn something from it, or make me think it's more than a boring book of mythology, I'll read what you have to say.