Genghis Pwn

I mean, do you believe that Jonah literally lived inside of a whale? A human being living inside of a whale?

Jesus turned water into wine? Literally?

These are just myths. They were never meant to be taken literally. But they do illustrate moral points very effectively. That's what such stories and fables are for, in my opinion.

my dog earl

Thats the scarey thing about fundies, they actually believe these things no matter what scientific proof you throw at them.

mecca777

It sounds so obvious, doesn't it? I got caught up in a street debate with some imported US fundies at Christmas, and after it was over I actually had to remind myself that the man I had just spoken to - soft-spoken, very polite, seemingly intelligent and kind - really and honestly believed that God killed every first-born animal and child in the whole of Egypt, 3500 years ago, and that it was a morally perfect action which was justified. That when I challenged him about the talking snake and Balaam's ass, and he pointed out that God could make animals talk, he wasn't just saying it for the sake of argument; he was telling me exactly what he believed. And that because I didn't agree with him, he believed that I would be deservedly tortured for all eternity, another morally perfect act.

It knocked me for six, because you rarely meet people like that in the UK.

Genghis Pwn

LMAO!

Vylo

I remember once when fundi preacher came to our campus and became preaching outside the student center. Everyone thought he was quite out of his mind, but what I found interesting was why my one friend thought he was nuts. My friend thought we wasn't fundimental enough .

Turned out my friend takes every word of the bible for solid truth. Somewhat frightening I must say.

emotional

Talking about solid truth: does your friend believe the sky is a solid roof above our heads, protecting us from the waters above? And that the earth is a flat disc (the "circle of the earth" mentioned in Isaiah 40:22)? He should believe those things if he's really a literalist. But most those who call themselves literalists try to wriggle out of Bible cosmology, explaining how the firmament means an expanse, and how the "circle of the earth" means the Bible shows the earth is spherical. Kind of a shibboleth for literalism this is.

Taffer

I know what you mean. It isn't too long ago that I found out that the guy I'd been going to school with for over a decade takes the bible literally as well. I was rather shocked.

I know some theists that I respect and admire for their beliefs, but they don't take scriptures that literally. If they did, I'd have to respect them in spite of their beliefs.

Pyrrho

I disagree with you when you assert: "They were never meant to be taken literally." For example, I think the water to wine story is supposed to show the divinity of Jesus because of his miraculous abilities. Besides, if someone were to believe that a being could create the universe out of nothing, turning water into wine would be easy for it. Anyone who is unwilling to believe the water into wine story because it is ridiculous should be even more unwilling to believe that a being made the universe out of nothing, as that would be even more difficult to do.

Now, of course, some stories are meant to be parables, and are presented as such. But many ridiculous stories are presented as fact, along with lists of genealogies and laws. Many of these things cannot reasonably be regarded as being intended to be merely metaphorical.

In my opinion, those who regard the Bible as somehow divine but all literally untrue are the ones who are more fundamentally messed up. After all, they believe in a god who misleads people with stories that are not true, and imagine that such a book is informative. What is the moral to be learned from a law commanding us to kill all witches?

fishbulb

Magic was pretty common in the ancient world. Jesus wasn't the only person who could do miracles. Demonstrating the ability to do something like walk on water or turn water into wine would seem to be a necessary, but not sufficient, requirement to be taken seriously as a divine prophet.

Today, we might say that a disease went into spontaneous remission, but in the ancient world, if someone survived a usually fatal disease, and if someone else had previously said a few prayers and waved his hands around, that healer would undoubtedly have been credited with performing a miracle. Healing the sick, raising the dead, and other miracles would have been relatively common. (Not everyone who was pronounced dead 2,000 years ago would have been so pronounced today if monitored using modern instruments and medical techniques, so "rising from the dead" was probably a lot more common then than it is now. Even today, people come back from the dead in the sense that they are pronounced clinically dead and are recussitated shortly thereafter. That would qualify as a bona fide miracle circa 30 C.E., but today is't just a medical close call.)

No one will ever know if Jesus actually did these things (if he even existed) or was just said to have done them, but I seriously doubt that anyone at the time would have understood these tales to be metaphorical, nor would most people have had much of a problem in accepting them as plausible.

Kassiana

Genghis Pwn:
I mean, do you believe that Jonah literally lived inside of a whale? A human being living inside of a whale?

Jesus turned water into wine? Literally?

Kass:
Well, no, but I have to give two caveats on that.
1. I'm not a Christian.
2. I see my own myths as non-literal as well, so I'm biased toward the non-literal in all religions.

GP:
These are just myths. They were never meant to be taken literally. But they do illustrate moral points very effectively. That's what such stories and fables are for, in my opinion.

Kass:
Among other things, yes. I think they're also meant to show what the beings they portray can and will do for those who believe in them...e.g. with the water into wine story, that the Jesus form of the Divine can make something essentially flavorless and dull into something exciting in your life.