DBrant

Recently I've encountered numerous individuals who openly admit that they "pick and choose" from the Bible, assembling a set of beliefs that is convenient for them at the moment. This is referred to as "cafeteria christianity."

Here's how Gospelcom.net defines it:
And a quote from the Washington Post:
I would like to get some opinions, especially from Christians, about the following questions:

- Do you believe it can be justified to treat certain parts of scripture as fact, while treating other parts as "metaphor" or simply absurdity?

- If so, on whose authority do you decide which passages are supposed to be literal and which ones are metaphorical?

Metacrock

Meta => I get that response from atheists all the time, whenever I try to discuss my views on inspiration. The first thing you have to reaize is that I have a Masters degree froma major liberal seminary. That means I was trained (by professionals) to read the text using certain scholarly critical methods. I don't just "pick and choose" what I like! Had you bothered to read the link on my thread abut inspiration (where this came up--and I know you've seen it) you would find that I try to base this on a very careful application of those same critical principles.


In fact I actually did discuss some of that crteria in that article that I linked to. The fact of the matter is two fold:

1) you are basing your opinion upon a misconception which comes from lack of exposure to the major trends in Christian theology. In other words, you only know about the "fundies" (apparently). And you expect that the fundie view point is the only christian vew point, and I suspect this is because you have not bothered to make any kind of systematic study of theology itself.

If you had done so, there is no way you could assume thta its just arbitrary "picking and choosing." The critical methods are used to determine what is probably part of the original text and what kind of text it is. The kind of text matters; just as you don't interprit a deed to a house in the same way that you understand a poem, so you don't read a mythologically based narrative in the same way that you do a more expository missive to a chruch.

2) you are only thinking of the verbal plenary model of inspiration where in every word has to be correct and there can't be any mistakes. But that is not the only view.




Meta => Yes! of course it is! Because not all texts are written as factual acconts. The people in the late bronze age didn't write science text books, and they didn't have an academic understanding of history per se. For them history was narrative and that was mixed in with stories and mythology. They weren't particularly concerned with "the facts, mama, just the facts."



Meta => ON the authority of my own preisthood as a bliever, and upon the basis of historical critical and texutal critical methods What I like and what makes me feel good doesn't come into it. If it did I would just write off a lot more thins as methapor than I do.


here's that link again.

http://www.geocities.com/metacrock20...Models_rev.htm

beastmaster

But the OT *does* purport to be written as a factual account:

The OT does not purport to be parables, mythology, metaphor, or mere theologically inspired truths. It purports to be a historical factual record.

Clutch

The charge was not that it's arbitrary, but that it's unprincipled. Far from being arbitrary, the interpretations are quite carefully chosen to accord with one's antecedent moral and intellectual dispositions.I didn't see anything in the OP about the importance of "original text", so I don't know what this is supposed to show. Surely the point has more to do with which verses are taken as normative and which as superceded or otherwise secondary -- an issue that is completely unresolved by mere judgements about originality.

For example, what is the strength of Jesus' injunction to pray privately? Cafeteria answer: Well, if I like praying in an arena with 30,000 other people, arms in the air, laughing and shouting with tears streaming down my face, then what Jesus really meant was not to pray with the wrong attitude -- which I don't evince with my arena praying, naturally. But if I like praying only by myself, or silently, or with my family at dinner, then what Jesus really meant was just what he said: do it at home, don't make a big production out of it.

It's a matter of preferring some verses over others, and imposing figurative over literal interpretations of verses, in both cases on the strength of one's predilections. In this way the god that results, the god who intended the bible to be taken that way, is a god that the believer has in large measure created.

mike_decock

I think you're taking personal offense at an identification of a different group of Christians than yourself. I wouldn't call you a "Salad Bar" Christian. You definitely make more of an effort to choose what you believe based on critical study, rather than emotional need.

Even though your method is different (scholarly rather than arbitrarily emotional), I think the problem is that you (like the "Salad Bar" Christians) are defining yourself as a personal authority on what should be accepted, rejected, interpreted literally or metaphorically.

-Mike...

BadBadBad

So what is wrong with the old scholarly critical methods? What you believe and preach would have been heresy in the 15th century wouldn't it? For something that has been presented to us for centuries as God's truth, I guess we atheists just have difficulty with this as moving the goal posts on the standards for truth.

This is the question. Why do we have to be exposed to major trends in Christian theology? The Earth is not the center of the universe. The Earth is not flat. Genesis accounts of creation are false. These have all been presented by biblical scholars, such as yourself, for centuries as fact and assertions to the contrary as heresy, until long after science proved otherwise.

Now we have a trend in theology that finally but fitfully wants to interpret Genesis as mythology. Now, where's the misconception? What will be the trend in Christian theology if we eventually prove beyond any doubt that Christ never existed, or that omniscience or omnipotence is impossible? We just don't see this as a genuine effort by theologians to study the Bible and history and then dissimenate truth.

I read your article. You are claiming to read through the Bible and find truth and fact from the bulk of fallacy and fiction. There is no God. Jesus was not the son of God if he existed at all. Based upon that, I can find plenty of room to look at your serious scholarly methods and equate them to arbitrary. Your conclusion is forgone and your methods are designed to intentionaly reach the conclusion. The only difference between you and the early church is that your flock has been made aware of the church's lies and fraud. Now you're here to cover up, wipe the dirty slate clean and continue on like nothing ever happened.


You're authority as a priest and believer? What kind of authority is that? That hasn't proven very reliable throughout history. That's why you have so much work to do defining these new trends in theology in the first place. You could also include one of the key themes in your article. You base your beliefs on the authority of mass belief. Early christians believed it so it must be true. My mother wised me up on that when I was six with the bit about not jumping off cliffs with your friends. Tell us some more about your authority.

DBrant

from Metacrock's article:
So what kind of creation scenario do you believe in? Do you, then, believe in the Big Bang? Evolution?
I fail to see any point in the creation story except a Bronze-age attempt at explaining the origins of the Earth and the life on it. And I'm willing to bet that the authors of Genesis meant it literally, because it was written in a time when "myth" was science. The OT is an accurate representation of the sum of human scientific knowledge of that time period.

BTW, your article characterizes the Bible as a gradual progression from pure mythology (the OT) to more and more historically-accurate accounts (the NT). Isn't it convenient that the more knowledge humans acquired about the real world, the more laissez-faire God became about interacting with them? For example, when humans aren't watching, God can perform grandiose miracles like creating stars and sky canopies; but when humans are watching (recording accurate history and making objective observations of nature), God is limited to working in indirect and mysterious ways that can easily be mistaken for natural phenomena? As for the miracles performed by Jesus, well... David Copperfield can do better.

Isn't it also convenient that, when science renders a certain Biblical claim embarrassingly false, you're able to brush away the claim as "myth"?

Greg2003

But you sure do like your critical methods don't you? They make you feel good, even if the bible doesn't.

Why should anyone believe in a god who requires you to accept critical historical and textual methods that you have to go to seminary to learn just to understand the sacred document that is supposed to be his revelation to mankind? When did this god hand down the critical historical and textual methods?