spin

Some time back I made this statement:

I do have a respect for literalist reading of texts. People usually attempt to say what they mean.

I said this because so many people try to weasel out of what a writer commits him/herself to, and they claim that the writer is being metaphorical and that you shouldn't take the text as literal...

Next I find the statement taken out of context as a kind of sound bite. But before I look at the situation, I need to look at the background.

Sven wrote the following sentence in the OP:

My premise is an omnibenevolent and omnipotent God, as accepted by almost all Cristians.

This sentence could be taken two ways, if it weren't for the comma.

As Sven points out in a later post to LP675:

I meant: (God is omnibenevolent) as accepted by most Christians
You interpreted this as: God is (omnibenvolent as accepted by most Christians)

Sven is of course correct and LP675 didn't take note of the comma. Otherwise, he might justifiably choose the unintended meaning, ie that there were some special xian jargon behind "omnibenevolent", as Sven put it "I meant that most Christians think that their God is omnibenevolent. My premise was not their definition of 'omnibenevolent', only that they describe their god that way."

The result of this is as follows:

LP675, unrepentent, makes a lame attack on Sven based on misunderstanding.

It is not strange that someone's thoughts get taken wrongly and usually all is better when a clarification is given -- in this case Sven said what he "meant". But LP675 takes Sven to task for causing a lot of trouble, because LP675 didn't read what Sven actually wrote and later clarified. In doing so, LP675 takes me out of context and is too hasty in underlining what was pleasing rather than what represented my thoughts.

Let me restate the sentence with a more representative underlining:

I do have a respect for literalist reading of texts. People usually attempt to say what they mean.

The word "attempt" was there for a reason. People sometimes, perhaps often, fail to communicate what they mean, despite their best intentions.

Let me add a strange corollary:

People don't always attempt to understand what a writer says.

End of pontification. Ommmmm.


spin

LP675

1. No. I simply said your claim that ‘almost all Christians’ believe;
a. the flood is a myth
b. it never happened
c. it is irrelevant.

was nonsense.

2. Your claim that ‘almost all Christians’ believe the flood story is irrelevant (c), is the most ridiculous of your assertions. Even those Christians who believe the flood is a myth and never happened usually go to all sorts of lengths to affirm what profound theological meaning is conveyed in the story (ideas such as Sin , wrath and judgment etc). I think the vast majority of those who would describe themselves as Christian (in any real sense of the word i.e. a follower of Christ) and who believe the flood story is pure fiction, would still feel obliged to maintain the narrative contains important theological truth (and so is not irrelevant).

3. Christians who believe it is a ‘myth’ sometimes believe some sort of flood may well have happened (and so I contest (b )). I recall reading someone learned claiming there are as many as 8 technical definitions of ‘myth’, but regardless of whether that is true or not, when Christian writers use the word ‘myth’ they usually go to all sorts of perverse lengths to affirm that ‘myth’ does not equal ‘falsehood’ (so again it certainly isn’t irrelevant as (a) claims). And because they define ‘myth’ as, for example, ‘a story that has theological meaning for a community of faith’ they try to dance around and avoid nasty questions of historicity, usually saying; “well, it may have happened but that’s not the point of the story”

4. And finally I take exception to your assertion that ‘almost all’ Christians believe the ‘flood is a myth’, claim (a). This claim would be absurd even if you had said ‘almost all Christian in the western world’, but to say most of Christianity in the third world believes the flood is a myth, is a joke. Christianity in places like China (I think the fastest growing Christian church), or Africa (and most non ‘westernised’ countries) would largely bear more of a resemblance to what we label ‘fundamentalism’, than to what fundamentalist in the west label ‘liberal’ Christianity. And so the vast majority of fundamentalist Christianity would not believe the flood story (a) is a myth, (b) never happened or (c) Is irrelevant.

So because claims a, b, and c are all false, I concluded your statement was nonsense, which it most certainly is.

P.S. Lol perhaps I could have not bothered writing this and simply directed you to this link discussed in another thread!

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/prime...ll_040216.html

Hmmm. And check the next bit…
That’s gotta hurt…

Pentagram

Um, actually, most christians I know tend to see the Flood myth as just a myth among other similar myths from the old days. Of course, I live in a rather secularizised part of the world (Europe) where christians seem to have a rather limited knowledge of their faith. Most of them don't know the Bible very well and would be rather surprised if they met someone who took the Flood myth or the Genesis literally.

Btw, do fundies generally claim that the physical laws of the Universe were changed after the Flood to make it possible for rainbows to form...or do they claim it never rained before it...or do they claim that rainbows did form before the Flood and God decided to keep it that way as proof of the covenant.

Sven

Look in the thread I posted in my OP. He doesn't need citations because he has seen them himself and claims to be able to identify them as human - and that it is easy to discern the fake from the real ones. I asked for pictures of the ones he considers genuine, but so far he has presented none.

Sven

But have demostrated exact this.

You are apparently the only one who didn't understand my OP. Thanks to spin for making this clear.


No need to laugh. I honestly didn't understand your point. Please remember that I'm no native speaker (I hope this doesn't sound like a lame excuse), perhaps I miss some nuances sometimes.
OK. Then to you point. Have you any evidence that God was influencing all people, for example by threatening them with death?

OK, it seems like I couldn't follow your logic here. Sorry. Let me ask to clarify: You think that nobody lives a "sufficiently moral life"? Sufficient for what? To come into heaven? Or to avoid hell? Or what?

Where's your evidence that such a thing exists? I know a few people who would be total surprised to hear that they are supposed to have such a thing...


No, what I'm in essence saying is that Paul was struggling to reconcile his believe in his version of a God with what was written in the OT. Any reader of the bible without a preconceived view of it can clearly see that the God of the NT and the God of the OT are entirely different deities. Because of this, discussions of the OT should be restricted to the OT. If you deny this, so be it. Then it's indeed fruitless to argue this point.

I think we have obviously different definitions of free will. I'll concede that your definition of free will is consistent with the flood etc. Can we agree on this? Then this point is settled.

Then please stop to use phrases like "Hahahaha" if there's the possibility that someone (I) indeed has problems understanding your points.

Julian

Here is some fun math to deflate the whole flood/young earth stuff. I did not write this and I cannot remember where I got it from as much as I would love to give the writer credit for some truly brilliant work:

Growth rates are tricky things to work with, especially population growth rates. They *never* grow at a smooth rate and often have prolonged periods of negative growth. Here's an illustration.

We start with 2 people, Adam & Eve, who appeared around 4004 BC according to a literalist's Biblical chronology. So this gives 6003 years for the population to grow from 2 people to 6 billion. That works out to an average annual population growth of 0.364%, which is far less than the current global growth rate of about 2%.

Assuming the 0.364% annual growth rate, then by the year 2500 BC there were only about 462 people alive in the world. If we assume 1/10 of them lived in Egypt, then about 46 people built the pyramids. Historians and archaeologists believe it took tens of thousands of workers decades just to build one pyramid.

By 2000 BC when Noah was building boats there were 2,906 people in the world. After God lovingly killed 2,898 of these people by leaving the faucet running, there were only 8 humans left --- Noah and his clan. Starting with these 8 folks, we’d need a 0.512% annual population growth rate to get to our current level. With this new starting population and growth rate, by 1500 BC when the Host of Pharaoh was chasing the Hebrews as they fled Egypt, there would have been 103 people in the world, about 10 of which lived in Egypt. The "Host of Pharaoh" was actually more like 3 guys chasing 2 Hebrews, one of which was Moses.

Moving ahead to 300 BC when Alexander was doing Great things, there were only 47,147 people in the world, maybe 10,000 of which lived in the territories he conquered. Alexander had more than that in his army alone. By the time Jesus lived, there would have been 218,232 people in the world, maybe 50,000 of which lived in the Roman Empire (the city of Rome by itself is known to have had a population of around 100,000 at that time).

Let’s go back to the original sinners, Adam and Eve. If we use today's population growth rate of 2% and start with the first couple 6007 years ago, then by 2500 BC there would have been more than 17 trillion people in the world, or about 2800 times more than there are now. And at that rate we would today have 9.17+E51 people on the planet (that's a 917 followed by 51 zeros). The total mass of humanity would probably exceed the mass of the solar system.

Doctor X

Julian:

Welcome to the Forums!

So . . . whilst there were about three Egyptians chasing two Hebrews . . . all the archaeological evidence of people living in other places in the world should be considered akin to dinosaur fossils--Big Daddy put it there to confuse us!

--J.D.

Ellis14

Well I once heard an evolutionist say that if God went to sooooo much trouble to make it look at though evolution never happened and the bible stories never happened, the least we can do is to oblige him and not believe!

Postcard73

If there were only three Egyptians and two Hebrews, then that might at least explain why evidence for the Exodus and Conquest has been so hard to find.

LP675

Well thank you Spin, you have been helpful as always. It is great to have impartial commentary on the debate, that way people don’t have to bother reading the posts or deciding for themselves. I thought you might enjoy my using you as a ‘citable fellow’ . I was esspecially entertained at the part in your post when you used the phrase “...what was pleasing...”. That was well great! (it invoked for me all sorts of images of the unscrupulous person gleefully going about their dastardly business).

I really wanted to move on, and found writing this post most dreary, but I had to try to defend whatever honor people might think I have and respond to your post.

In fact ‘the comma’ in question absolutely does not convey the meaning you seem to think it does.

We all are quite familiar with this sentence now:
Spin claims- “This sentence could be taken two ways, if it weren't for the comma.” And “LP675 didn't take note of the comma”.


However you are mistaken Spin, for two reasons.

The first mistake is that what Sven actually said could at face value grammatically be taken both ways:
(1) “my premise is an omnibenevolent God, in the sense that Christians accept.”
Or
(2) “”my premise is an omnibenevolent God, which is an idea accepted by most Christians.

Regardless of the comma, grammatically both interpretations are possible. Option (2) is decidedly tortuous a because of the use of the word ‘as’, implying the omnibenevolence was as a Christian accepted it. If Sven meant (2), the way I have phrased it is much clearer (using the words ‘which is an idea’..).

Secondly, even if we for the sake of argument accept that grammatically the better way to interpret the sentence is option two (and it certainly isn’t), you are still wrong.

(Sven Please read the following slowly, especially the part in bold, before replying!)
The sentence says his premise is ‘omnibenevolence’, and it is this very ‘omnibenevolence’ that is apparently accepted by all Christians. (So the ‘omnibenevolence’ in question is the same as that which is accepted by almost all Christians). A Christian understanding of omnibenevolence MUST BY DEFINITION be compatible with Christian doctrines such as hell.

So Sven’s premise that ‘almost all Christians accept omnibenevolence’ IS FALSE if the omnibenevolence is defined in such a way that ‘almost all’ Christians wouldn’t accept it. So the best way to interpret Sven’s OP would be in the way that the premise is not so obviously false.


And see point 5 of Sven’s OP with implicitly assumes omnibenevolence and hell are for the purposes of this argument compatible.

NOTE TO SVEN: I KNOW NOW WHAT YOU MEANT HOWEVER IT IS NOT WHAT YOU SAID! (I will reply to you separately).

The misunderstandings and crippled arguments are yours my friend…