sorry, i've been out of it for a while. my class this semester got hectic in a hurry, and i had to basically put everything else aside. so i didn't get a chance to contribute my replies to the last thread. so let's start one that's actually on topic.
Mr. Ex Nihilo writes:
Care to debate these ideas in a formal debating area?
no, but a pnt will do just fine. others, such as ringo and riverat would probably like to continue to debate as well, and a great debate will exclude them.
Fundamentalist Christians, on the other hand, accept the account of scripture as being literally true. The fundamentalist phenomenon has especially come to refer to any religious enclave that intentionally resists identification with the larger religious group in which it originally arose, on the basis that fundamental principles upon which the larger religious group is supposedly founded have become corrupt or displaced by alternative principles hostile to its identity.
Who's acting like a fundy, Ringo316?
i am, to a degree. my argument is rather simple: the authors of genesis wrote stories in simple, clear language. these story can be read literally and understood literally. although symbolic meanings were undoubtably ingrained and intended by the authors, there are two simple rules by which we can rule things out.
- any symbolic meaning that contradicts the literal text is wrong, and
- symbolic meanings require that the story is not understood as literally happening.
so, if the serpent in genesis is representative of satan, the story is an allegory or metaphor and not literally true. fundamentalists insist that the serpent is somehow literally satan, and that the story is true. you can't have both. the serpent can SYMBOLIZE satan, but it cannot BE satan. that would contradict the literal text, which describes the snake as being the smartest domestic (not wild) animal.
so the argument here is essentially whether or not it can be shown that the second and third chapters of genesis were meant to represent a kind of "fall of man" or contain anything that indicates "original sin" in the christian concept.
the argument is also what is literal and what is not. mr ex accuses me of overliteralization:
Mr. Ex Nihilo writes:
You are maintaining the literalness of many things you've pointed out in order to force your conclusion. For example, you cite passages which claim that God made evil in order to conclude that God's hands were responsible for them. I maintain the Scriptures are describing God "making" these evil events happen in metaphorical language, just like the psalm says
i'm maintaining that the bible should make sense when read literally to a certain extent. i am not overliteral to the degree of not understanding idioms, but the idea of god creating evil and evils seems to be central to some issues. while it is used as a figure of speech in some verses (some of the ones i cited previously), the ideas do reflect a certain philosophy of the society. while "god has sent an evil upon us" or similar phraseology is a figure of speech that indicates something bad is happening and is not neccessarily literally what they meant, there is something to be said of it:
why does the society have a convention that when something bad happens, god is doing it?
this is not being use, as suggested, as a metaphor. there's nothing metaphorical about it. it's not comparing one thing (like the conception of a child to knitting in the psalm). and if it was, the thing it's comparing it to... is god using evil. rather, this is a cultural idiom, like "covering feet" for "taking a leak" or "giving head" (depending on whether you do it alone, or someone does it to you) or "gave up the ghost" for "kicked the bucket." it's a colloqual usage of language.
so take a look at the usage of idioms and colloqualisms in the bible. why are they what they are? do they reflect an attitude of god being absent of evil and vice versa?
and some verses come out quite literally and say god created evil. if god created everything, then he is ultimately responsible for creating everything. right? so if he creates a situation that allows and indeed NEEDS evil, is god not responsible for creating evil? what do you think god means when he says "I create evil?"
quote:
Isa 45:7 I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these [things].
flip back to genesis for a second. did god create darkness? does this fit literally with what genesis say?
darkness is the opposite of light, so here, peace is the opposite of evil. so here, "evil" might mean "war." it might also mean crime, or any number of things that disrupt peace. the intention of the verse seems to be that god is at both ends of the spectrum simultaneously: alpha and omega, if you will. a and z, and maybe everything in between. that attitude that it reflects is one of a dualistic god, not god as part of a dualism. the attitude that you're using is one of god being just one thing to such an extent that he's not even aware of the other. this verse clearly refutes that, even on the symbolic level.
It seems to me that all people have apparently failed to do everything written in the Book of the Law -- and in this sense, because it cannot be maintained by anyone, the Law ends up being a curse.
what in the law cannot be done by man? actually, a more appropriate question is "what in the Book of Law CAN be done?" most laws (lowercase) are negative: don't do this, don't do that. someone who does one is punished, or atones, or whatever. very few of the laws are positive actions: do this, do that, etc. but this doesn't say law (lowercase). it says the "Book of the Law." so this not a debate about the ten commandments or the mosaic code.
first of all, the book of deuteronomy is probably refering to itself, not the other books. and i think it's refering specifically to the things it says about the construction of israel: one temple. basically, it's cursing israel, not judah. (am i still being overliteral, mr ex?)
but read literally, and interpretted literally, it would appear that this bit's the part that condemns man: the justfullness of god, not original sin. but that's overliteral: it doesn't allow for the things like atonement that the Book of the Law describes. but even as overliteral as that is, it's still the opposite of what you're saying: there's no fall needed here. a man's own actions condemn him.
Mr. Ex Nihilo writes:
You've pointed out the reference to the Ugaritic texts. However, you seem to be relying mostly on this interpretation. There are still others who maintain that Enuma Elish from the Babylonian texts also strongly influenced the creation event.
you misunderstood, i think. we look at the ugarits because their mythology is strongly similar to the hebrews in many many respects. i'm not arguing that hebrew myths neccessarily influenced the ugaritic myths or vice versa, just that they are sometimes the same. they could have easily had a common source. so what you pasted actually supports what i've been saying.
the point is simply that dragon myths regarding the primordial state of the earth are common in the area at the time. one such element is contained in genesis, in chapter one, and referenced in the psalms and job. when revelation calls upon the image of a dragon for symbolism, it's using this image, not the serpent in the garden.
This message has been edited by arachnophilia, 06-29-2005 07:08 PM
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