Metacrock

You skeptics need to try harder to understand what liberal theology is. None of your attacks on it ever really stack up. For example my theory of Biblical revelation is such that none of your concepts of Bible contradictions even matter. All your attacks assume verbal plenary inspiration but there are plenty of other concepts of revelation.

Rational BAC

Great post I think-------will have to read it in its entirety when I am not so sleepy.

Metacrock

Cynthia, thanks for linking for me. I didn't now the Sec web has such a thing against cut and paste. But OK thanks for the link. :wave:

Boomeister

I'm still confused. How do you determine what is divine revelation and what are made up stories?
How do you determine which religion has divine revelation and which one doesn't?


Boomeister

Steven Carr

Liberal theology is quite simple.It means rejecting what you cannot sell even to yourself while accepting anything which does not have rock-solid evidence against it.

Who cares what liberal theology can stomach and what it thinks is myth?

To quote the article'The mythological elements are more common in the early books of the Bible. The material becomes more historical as we go along. How do we know? Because the mythical elements of the first account immediately drop away. Elements such as the talking serpent, the timeless time ("in the beginning"), the firmament and other aspects of the myth all drop away.'

Really? 2 Peter talks about a talking donkey. The Gospels have Jesus holding conversations with Satan. Should I even bother mentioning Revelation?


'In Genesis, God was not trying to write a science text book.'

He wasn't even trying to write a factual book either.

Metacrock writes
'Given the foregoing, my criteria are that:
1) a religious tradition reflect a human problematic which is meaningful in terms of the what we find in the world.

2) the UTE be found to really resolve the problematic

3) it mediates the UTE in such a way as to be effective and accessible.

4) its putative and crucial historical claims be historically probable given the ontological and epistemological assumptions that are required within the inner logic of that belief system'

To translate this into English, Metacrock can believe that Jesus walked on water, but cannot believe that a serpent can talk. So he has chosen to believe one and not the other.

Metacrock

first, it would be a good idea to Dulles book. But failing that, the dialectical retirival model says it's insiprired when it transforms your life. So the whole thign is ptoentually "the word of God." In other words, it doesnt' make any difference if the stories are mostly made up or not. Follow the spiritual and moral practises and learn from the stories. Its' a new way of thinking. It's not about empricism. It's about spiritual practise.



The point about mythology is that the myths are "truth" without being litteral history becasue what they teach us is truth.


Moreover, for those things which we find as extra Biblical support, like the archaeologial confirmation that Festus was in Ephesus, we know that's historical. When we find that it can't be hitorical, like the six days of ceration, then can assume it's mythological.

Metacrock

Yea, liberal theology means that in the same way that liberal poltics means tax and spend.


Honestly Steve, I dont' see how you think you say such simplistic and prejudiced things and thing that people will repsect you. That's just plain purile.

Liberal theology is a tradition, it started 500 years ago and it's still going and it has a whole philsophical develpment running through many major thinkers. Its' very much a part of modern thought.








Do you ever try to like, you know, think about the things you say before you say them? I mean this is just incredulity. YOu think being incredulous really proves anything?







the talking donkey of 2 Pete is from the OT. Don't you get that?


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mirage

Sarcasm about drinking aside Metacrock, is this true, and if so why?

Javaman

I take issue with even the very beginnings of your essay
And some are simply contradictions. A single contadiction or inaccuracy is all that's needed to move away from divine authorship. But that doesn't seem to be what you're arguing. Next you step into the realm of deciding which passages/verses are 'literary devices' or 'misunderstandings'. That is the nature of Christian sects. Which parts are literal, which are allegory, which are simply ignored?
Mormons are Christians. Some are even Scotsmen.
Not with all types of Christianity. You should know better than to use 'certainly' here or at the very least, qualify 'Christianity'.
Admittedly anecdotally, most atheists that I interact with here and in the real world that were once Christians made the move away from christianity because they encountered the problems themselves. They weren't atheists looking to poke holes in someone else's beliefs, they were learning more about their own. I can't find the quote now but someone once said (paraphrasing), "Seminaries are where you make the best atheists." Kind of along the same lines as Cliff's National Bible Week Poster. (PDF)
Yes, yes. Problems abound.
This does not make sense. I would think you were aware of the nature of the compilation of the NT. What community is this of which you write? The revelations to Paul from a spiritual Jesus seem to have had the most effect on what Christians do and believe.
You are correct. Regardless of its roots, though, it is a doctrine practiced by Christians. It is one of the belief sets that we on this board argue against. That it is not your belief matters not. You don't want to argue for inerrancy, great! I promise to read more of your essay later.

SteveD

Bible inconsistencies don't matter to me at all. The whole thing is such an obviously mostly fictional folk history of the jews that I really don't understand how anybody can believe that it is the result of some divine revelation of the creator of the universe.

Actually reading the bible is what firmly convinced me that the god represented there does not exist.

Steve