Stoned Tablets from the Mount

No, not too stupid. Too prejudiced. Too closed-minded. I no longer will throw pearls before swine. Read a book. Take responsibility for your own learning. Nobody cares what you think or know beyond a very tiny circle. I am not interested in taking responsibility for your deficiencies.

[lostsheep]

Actually, I am not even aware of a tiny little circle who cares what I think, truly. Sigh...believe me (or not) when I say I have read and researched, as you suggest. We come to different conclusions: my lack of belief in god(s) is a sad conclusion, rather than a prejudice, as you suggest. But you cannot show me, or anyone, that my childishly worded explanations are any different at the core than those of highly educated apologists...because they are not.

[Sternwallow]

As usual, Bovina makes an insult then can't back it up with any substance.
The Bible says what it says and, until it is authoritatively revised, it is the sole definition of Christianity.

People who come along and imply that God likes His spokesman to wear red slippers and other non-Biblical speculation (trinity, sabbath day, limbo, purgatory...), do so without the necessary authority and so can be fairly ignored.

Bovina's choice of "scholars" does not imbue them with authority for changing the Word of God. Jesus could have done it, but He didn't; He endorsed it as written.

Lay off the shellfish, bad cow.

lostsheep wrote

Actually, I am not even aware of a tiny little circle who cares what I think, truly. Sigh...believe me (or not) when I say I have read and researched, as you suggest. We come to different conclusions: my lack of belief in god(s) is a sad conclusion, rather than a prejudice, as you suggest. But you cannot show me, or anyone, that my childishly worded explanations are any different at the core than those of highly educated apologists...because they are not.

You have neither read nor researched anything. You have, at best like the others here, read a couple of ignorant atheists like Dawkins or Hitchens, read a couple of magazine articles and had your prejudices confirmed. That is pretty much typical of humans no matter what side of an issue they come down on because serious thinkers are not found in abundance anywhere. You are solidly in the majority where that is concerned.

But we are not talking about your disbelief in God. That is what it is. We are talking about your inability to look at the Bible and see that it is a collection of books of ancient literature which must be read with some understanding of the history, literature and culture of the people who produced it. To be unable to do so is to be unable to read. If you really cannot keep the context of the work you are reading always in mind, you could not pass a course in ancient literature. I, like everyone else who has ever taught such a thing, I suppose, required students to demonstrate some really minimal understanding of the culture that produced the works we studied. But, of course, such ability is not a requirement of atheism.

Don't worry about it, though. You are in good company here and will never be challenged by anyone (except me and I have lost interest).

[Mog]

Don't worry about it, though. You are in good company here and will never be challenged by anyone (except me and I have lost interest).

She's lost interest? Really? Is the amount of bullshit that she spews getting to be too much even for her? It seems like the fact that she dedicates three pointless paragraphs to this arrogance shows the lie in her own words.

What Lily is refusing to understand, is that yes, we perfectly understand the context, but unlike her, we recognize that the context shouldn't be recognized as any excuse for what's going on here.

I mean, seriously, she wants us to think that God would intentionally choose never to buck the system. This isn't a question of context, this is about a god without the moral fortitude to do what is right despite having the ability to do so.

[ghoulslime]

Sternwallow wrote

As usual, Bovina makes an insult then can't back it up with any substance.
The Bible says what it says and, until it is authoritatively revised, it is the sole definition of Christianity.

People who come along and imply that God likes His spokesman to wear red slippers and other non-Biblical speculation (trinity, sabbath day, limbo, purgatory...), do so without the necessary authority and so can be fairly ignored.

Bovina's choice of "scholars" does not imbue them with authority for changing the Word of God. Jesus could have done it, but He didn't; He endorsed it as written.

Lay off the shellfish, bad cow.

I'd wager she marks her slaves the wrong way too.

[Philboid Studge]

lostsheep wrote

These passages are part of the OT, and since Jesus died, we are now all civilized (even Gawd).

Killy McGhee had to clean up His act or get tossed into the dustbin with His predecessors.

Mog wrote

What Lily is refusing to understand, is that yes, we perfectly understand the context, but unlike her, we recognize that the context shouldn't be recognized as any excuse for what's going on here.

I mean, seriously, she wants us to think that God would intentionally choose never to buck the system. This isn't a question of context, this is about a god without the moral fortitude to do what is right despite having the ability to do so.

Oh honey, after all these years, you still don't get that the Bible is not an instruction manual. You and your ilk are fundamentalists. You are reading in exactly the same way all those creationists you deride read. Unfortunately, none of you read with real understanding. But as biblical literalists, you sure are brothers.

[ILOVEJESUS]

Lily wrote

Oh honey, after all these years, you still don't get that the Bible is not an instruction manual. You and your ilk are fundamentalists. You are reading in exactly the same way all those creationists you deride read. Unfortunately, none of you read with real understanding. But as biblical literalists, you sure are brothers.

What exactly is the bible Lily? Poetry, a fable? Is it able to be all things to all peoples? If so what is its purpose and authority? And what proof is there for your answer other than the opinion of someone else ( human) who has read the book?

[ILOVEJESUS]

oooops i did a quotsy whoatsy. Sorry.

ILOVEJESUS wrote

What exactly is the bible Lily? Poetry, a fable? Is it able to be all things to all peoples? If so what is its purpose and authority? And what proof is there for your answer other than the opinion of someone else ( human) who has read the book?

The very 1st week I was here, March 2006, I wrote:

Lily wrote

Uh oh. First problem. We need to be careful here. I do not think the entire Bible is literally true. I think the events related in the Gospels are true. Every educated Christian knows that the Bible is made of many books in a number of genres (poetry, history, etc.), written down over a number of centuries in several different languages by different authors. No literary consistency of the sort one would expect in a novel can be possible. Knowing that is fundamental to reading it correctly.

A couple of days later I wrote:

Lily wrote

I dropped in to say a few more words and find that a few won't do! I still have to speak to your larger point but I need to clarify with you something about the nature of literary genres. I have stated that the Gospels are narratives, that is to say, they present an account of certain events. The Iliad and the Odyssey are epics. That means that they have a different aim. No one who understands what an epic is, would assume that they are straightforward narratives, although they certainly could, and many do, treat historical facts.

A day or two later I wrote:

Lily wrote

(in reference to epics )
Likewise, much later historically we know that the Franks were defeated at Roncevalles (778 AD) by a larger army but not one numbering a half million +, as recorded in the Song of Roland. Nor was it the Saracens who attacked and ultimately killed Roland. Nevertheless, the epic does record events that took place and we are left to tease the real from the fictional with the help of other sources of information. We are in the same situation with the Old Testament. These texts, plus what we can learn from archaeology, historical records of neighboring tribes, kingdoms, etc, can and do yield reliable information about the past. We must, of course, always be open to having our assumptions corrected by new data that may come to light.

Still in March 2006 I wrote:

Lily wrote

Cop-out? I don't think so. If God had dictated the Bible, then, I suppose, it might be direct and forthright. But He didn't. It isn't the truth that needs to be interpreted correctly, I don't think. When we read "Thou shalt not commit adultery", that is pretty straightforward. Rather, it is trying to understand the truths embedded in narratives such as the account of creation (I don't even have the "science" in mind here but rather the whys of creation, why man fell etc.).

Beyond that, the Bible isn't a how-to manual. I think that we lose sight of that way too often in the way that we talk about it. It records the history of the Jews, their poetry, etc. That needs to be understood in its historical context. I mean, I used to teach medieval literature to undergraduates. I couldn't just throw Beowulf at them without a word of explanation about the culture it came out of and expect them to make much of it. Ditto Tristan or the Lais of Marie de France. One could just read them cold but one would miss so much that makes them worth reading and misunderstand quite a lot.

Here is the fullest, also from 2006:

Lily wrote

I see that you are quite new here and haven't had a chance to benefit from the wisdom I have freely and abundantly shared over the last year with the gang here. So, I will recap very briefly for you, what you need to know when we talk about the Old Testament.

1. The Old Testament (OT) is a compilation of ancient texts written in 5 (this is slightly incorrect) or more languages over 1500+ years in a variety of literary genres (poetry, songs (Psalms, Song of Solomon), stories (Job), history, law, etc.

2. Properly interpreting the OT means treating each genre in the way needs to be treated. For example, we would not expect a story, written to illustrate a moral or philosophical point, to adhere to the same standards of historical or scientific accuracy that we would demand of an article to be published in a scholarly journal.

[To put this in the words of Richard Carrier (of Secular Web fame): Amateurs often disregard the crucial importance of field-familiarity, i.e. that one must have a long and deep acquaintance with a particular time and culture in order to make reliable judgments about the probable and improbable, the expected and unexpected, and all the other background assumptions necessary to understanding the significance of any particular fact or claim--in short, one must be cognizant not merely of the literary context of a statement, but its entire socio-historical context as well. And that is no easy thing to achieve.


Genesis covers a lot of ground! The early chapters explain the world and God's dealings in it and then, out of nowhere, Abraham appears (which signals the beginning of God's choice of a particular nation). Abraham lived in Canaan which was a wealthy flourishing culture with one odious practice (maybe others but one stands out)--human sacrifice. (Remains of newborns have been found buried in jars beneath the sanctuaries at Gazer and Mageddo.)

For Abraham, then, the idea of a god requiring child sacrifice was not the shocking, unthinkable act that it is to us. So he obeyed trusting that the promises that God had made to him would still be kept. And so it proved. Abraham passed the test with flying colors and, of course, human sacrifice was never required by the God of Abraham. This story rather explains that, too.

I can find umpteen hundreds of places over the years where I have written the same things. In fact, just yesterday I wrote:

Lily wrote

But we are not talking about your disbelief in God. That is what it is. We are talking about your inability to look at the Bible and see that it is a collection of books of ancient literature which must be read with some understanding of the history, literature and culture of the people who produced it. To be unable to do so is to be unable to read. If you really cannot keep the context of the work you are reading always in mind, you could not pass a course in ancient literature. I, like everyone else who has ever taught such a thing, I suppose, required students to demonstrate some really minimal understanding of the culture that produced the works we studied. But, of course, such ability is not a requirement of atheism.

Exactly what is it that you fail to understand? So far as I can see, I cannot express myself any more clearly than I have many dozens of times over the last 4 years. What more is required? Before you ask, do a search on "literary genres" and spend some time thinking about what I have written on this subject many dozens of times.

[Irreligious]

Lily, you are so full of shit.

[Sternwallow]

MODS!
I respectfully request that Bovina be demoted for deliberately posting extensive and multiple quotes from Lily.

If you mods agree, I will supply the shackles and chains.

[psychodiva]

ILOVEJESUS wrote

oooops i did a quotsy whoatsy. Sorry.

consider yourself punished

[anthonyjfuchs]

So...if the culture that produced a particular passage in the bible was a slave-holding culture...and the writer claimed that his slave-holding advice came from Lily's god-spirit...we should infer...what? That said writer is untrustworthy, because slavery is morally unacceptable? That Lily's god-spirit condones slavery if the culture It communicates with is a slave-holding one?

Why did Lily's god-spirit not simply put the kibosh on slavery from the get-go? It clearly has no problem telling people what not to do -- "thou shalt not kill" ring any bells? Or are the Ten Commandments also allegorical? -- so why not throw in a little "thou shalt not treat each other as property" for good measure?

Why allow a culture to continue with a morally unacceptable behavior like slavery? Was killing not also morally unacceptable as evinced by its prohibition in a Commandment, and was it not therefore prohibited outright? Then again, we saw just how seriously Lily's god-spirit took its own edict to refrain from killing: It told Moses not to kill, then told Moses to kill 3,000 of his own tribesmen, then rewarded Moses for killing his own tribesmen after telling Moses to tell his fellow tribesmen not to kill. Ridiculous.

Unless, of course, that whole episode is also allegorical. And if it is...well, the moral message is atrocious.