h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Or to put it another way, if nothing would persuade an atheist of the truth of christianity and the bible then does any of this debate matter?

The original question had a different, and in most ways more interesting, intent.

Noggin

I don't believe this was ever set up as a debate.

But then, belief is a very personal thing. One fundamentalist Christian I knew believed that it was literally true that "No man shall enter the kingdom of Heaven except through me". In other words, it didn't matter how good your life was, if you didn't believe in Jesus you wouldn't get to Heaven. This kind of fundamentalism was *one* of the things that turned me against Christianity.

I agree with Amy, though - to an extent. So much of the early part of the Bible was written long after the event that it's difficult to know what to take literally and therefore much has to be taken figuratively. Anything after the exile to Babylon is historically verifiable, before it less so. As for Jesus, I incline towards the Muslim view. He lived, he was a 'holy' man, but I draw the line at accepting him as literally the Son of God, product of a virgin birth - amongst other things. This isn't Christian-bashing, just what I believe.

The idea of Christ being the only way to Heaven is not merely a fundamentalist view: most denominations hold that as a basic tenant of their creed.

Amy, that may be true, but it doesn't exactly fit in with the loving, forgiving God that the Church wants us to believe in. Mind you, if you read the Old Testament literally, the loving, forgiving God is a jealous, vengeful, nasty God. Just look at some of the things that he asked Joshua and his armies (amongst others) to do.

Another thing to remember is that the bible is not *a* book; it is a collection of books. Compare and contrast the context and purpose of Leviticus, Kings, Proverbs, Matthew and Revelation and the point should be obvious.

It's my impression that Literalists do not, in fact, take the bible literally. They merely abstract it from its context and purpose, leaving them free to interpret it as they please, while claiming that their version involves no interpretation.

Noggin

A loving, gentle God does not denote a necessary lack of jealousy or even the ability to do what we might consider wrong. A mother may be loving to her children and very gentle to them at all times, but is also capable of acts which could be considered violent towards things she sees as hurtful to her children and she will rebuke them if they do wrong (she may kill the bee that stung them, she may even spank her child if he misbehaves, etc). I've never seen loving or forgiving as the sole discriptors of my God - if He is in fact as omnipotent and omniscient and omnipresent as we say He is, then it is possible that love and forgiveness can co-exist with a correct form of jealousy and vengence. To think otherwise would limit God, in my opinion, and a limited God is not a God at all.

If you read Joshua (and Judges, and a great deal of the historical old testement) carefully, you will also notice that even in these "nasty" or "vengeful" acts, God is not doing anything different than what He said He would do in the beginning: keep those who follow Him safe, and those who do not believe will suffer his anger/vengence/jealousy/etc. Every denomination that I'm aware of recognizes this apparent duality (thus fire and brimstone preaching and so forth as the natural extreme). I've never heard of a church that preached a God who was merely good and loving and forgiving. There would be no purpose to forgiveness if there was no possible wrath to begin with.

But we were talking about interpretations of scripture being either literal or figurative and why, weren't we?

Woo! Topic drift.

Noggin (btw, that's a spiffy name ):

Your second point's right on. Having known some Fundamentalist Pentecostals ("literalists"), they tend to not so much pick and chose which things they feel like believing in, but simply pull out obscure pieces of text and extrapolate a literal meaning from it out of context. That's where the whole idea of snake handling came from - some obscure text in John (I think) that was blown way out of proportion and totally out of context.

Your first point, however, I think, is a bit redundant. Of course the context and purpose of different books is going to be different: why write the *exact* same thing 66 times? Each book has its own purpose (or so I think), each one either introduces a new idea or looks at an established idea in a new light (ie: the Gospels look at Christ in 4 different ways).

That's just my layman's view, though; I'm not a theologian and don't pretend to be.

Thank you Amy But do you know where it comes from?

And I hope you enjoy your visit to our little corner of the world.

I think my first point *should* be redundant, but sometimes it's useful to state what ought to be obvious.

It's not even so much that literalists bring their own tradition of interpretation to the bible that bugs me - we all do, in a way, even nonbelievers like me - it's their failure to recognise that they're doing it.

Noggin

you guys have been busy while I was out!

" it's their failure to recognise that they're doing it"

Part of my point in asking the question was for people to say how and why people interpret things the way they do. So I guess I was also asking them to recognize that they do.

Unfortunately, I doubt you'll find too many people on *this* site that don't realize the things they think and do - we's smart'un's, we is.

Not sure - where does it come from? (I just think it's kinda spiffy cause the word noggin is a familial term for head and it's just funny to see in conjunction with nog ).

that's been my general impression (except places like the "inter-racial breeding" thread). I expect we may yet get some troubling things on this thread.

I'm just waiting for a few certain people to show up who I've locked horns with before. I'm not particularly looking forward to it as they've no idea how to run a civlized debate.

I can imagine it on both sides of the issue, as well. It's what I dread and it certainly made me hesitate about starting the thing.

If we're very quiet, maybe we can attract the people who know how to talk about things without getting bent out of shape...

Somehow I think I discarded the "quiet" card when I titled the thread.

*treading quietly in* I'm no expert but I know some people who are very well read.

I saw this on the last page " (I don't suppose for a moment that the walls of Jericho were knocked down by people walking round blowing trumpets!)"

This is very likely to be literal. Sympathetic harmonics. When a column of soldiers marches accross a bridge while marching in step they can cause it to crumble. Sound wave can also have the same effect on buildings not made of steel.

There are scientific reasons that this could be literal, *but* how whould it have looked to people before science caught up?

I have a friend who is a Johava's witness. They take everything literally. All except, that is, not possible. Like the previously mentioned doves. A Johava's witness belives that 100,000 or so enter heaven each year and that hell is a myth (some story that I've forgotten about hell being added by a writer's agenda).

Here comes the Link Man with the horse's mouth:

http://www.watchtower.org/library/jt/index.htm