quote:

Originally posted by RJT The initial question reminds me a lot of Ken Ham (those of you who don't know who he is would do well to look him up - check youtube for hilarity) who has a habit of saying things like "I don't interpret the Bible, I just read it."

Hehehe.

Yeah, there are reasonable constraints on interpretation, but it kind of amazes me when people insist that something as big and varied as the Bible, written across such a long period of time by so many different people, must have a single, readily discernible meaning. I guess that kind of follows if you believe that God himself fixed every word of it, though.

quote:

You can argue that there is some static understanding of Christianity, but it would only be relative to the standards of whichever denomination (or really, any individual interpretation of faith) that you view as "correct" - in truth, you could make the same argument about any belief/political/moral system the world over.

Yeah. For any religion, there as many versions of it as there are believers.

This makes me think of when I was little and the only parts of the Bible I had read, if I remember correctly, were Proverbs, Genesis, and Revelation. I must have had a weird conception of Christianity, but I never wrote anything down so I don't know what exactly I believed.

quote:

Originally posted by chach What fathers of the church are you talking about in particular?

Origen, Tertullian, Augustine, Ambrose, Athanasius, Chrysostom, Justin Martyr, etc. The guys in the first few generations of interpreters after the Bible as we know it had been written but not yet fixed into a "canon." The ones I named are some of the better-known, but there are dozens of these guys.

quote:

You really couldn't be anymore vague.

Actually, the phrase "fathers of the church" has a pretty well-accepted meaning.

In all seriousness though - that misconception is a HUGE part of the reason I hesitate to discuss my own beliefs. On the one hand, I've got devout Christians of whichever denomination telling me that I'm going to hell because I don't believe what they do, and on the other, I have the atheists (and please don't think I'm pointing the finger squarely at you or anyone else on this forum) telling me I'm an idiot because I'm uncertain about exactly what it is I think exists and am unwilling to identify myself as a "non-believer."

Kind of a "you're damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation - so I keep to myself, and continue my own "faith investigation" on my own. And I think it's this kind of push towards an introspective faith that has increased my ire for both the sides of the argument.

___________________
last minute disco dot net

How many non-christian's miss Wam!

quote:

Originally posted by RJT On the one hand, I've got devout Christians of whichever denomination telling me that I'm going to hell because I don't believe what they do, and on the other, I have the atheists (and please don't think I'm pointing the finger squarely at you or anyone else on this forum) telling me I'm an idiot because I'm uncertain about exactly what it is I think exists and am unwilling to identify myself as a "non-believer."

I see non-belief as nothing more than an admission that I see no rational justification for beliefs about "spiritual realms" like those found in much of Islam, Christianity, etc. It's mostly an epistemological thing for me.

But still I need to be careful not to slip into thinking that my doxastic response to my experiences is the only sound response for any human to have to any set of experiences. That's ignorant and beyond arrogant, and that's why I've decided to cut out the polemic and the attempts at reducing other people's beliefs to a few irrational causes. It's inane and not productive, and I'm kind of mad at myself for doing it. Reading William James and his responses to that sort of simplistic thinking was kind of a catalyst for me.

So, I think the conversations should get more interesting.

It really isn't your fault though - that's simply the way the argument almost always seems to flesh itself out. I can draw a somewhat poor analogy between the international perception of Americans based on a handful of our incompetent, batshit insane leaders - I hardly think you or I are truly representative of the individuals who've created our foreign policy for the last 10 years, but there are plenty of folks out there who have a firm distaste for us for no other reason than the fact that we were born in America.

I think even on an epistemological level there are many different layers to this that can be thought through in a near infinite number of ways, but unfortunately that's also where things probably become more and more abstract, and less and less accessible to either side of the debate.

___________________
last minute disco dot net

Obligatory loljesus post

___________________
April 10: Late Night Suffern Train
June 09: Sohan's Double Fudge Brownie Mix
GUIDO FISTPUMP ANTHEMS MIX
lol@theinternet

quote:

Originally posted by spc

In born-again Christian circles, one of the most popular metaphors is Jesus "knocking on the door of the unsaved person's heart."

The bible has so many contradictions in it, and so many acts of violence and hate, that it's strange that it's still such an important book today...

___________________
Signature Suspended as it was deemed offensive

quote:

Originally posted by RickyM The bible has so many contradictions in it, and so many acts of violence and hate, that it's strange that it's still such an important book today...

Many of those are only contradictions given a rather narrow reading of the Bible.

Literal interpretations of the Bible are ill advised.

___________________
last minute disco dot net

Also, it's kind of hard to tell what a "literal" interpretation of the Bible would give you, since in the past couple thousand years people have claimed to be staunch "literalists" and yet still drawn entirely opposite conclusions from the same text.