Morality is not determined by the church you attend nor the faith you embrace. It is determined by the quality of your character and the positive impact you have on those you meet along your journey
Wednesday, May 01, 2013
It must be pointed out.
But hey, don't let the facts interfere with your unquestioning faith.
After all where would we be without unquestioning faith.
What about your unquestioning faith that each and every statement in this unreferenced internet picture post is true? I'm not saying they aren't. I don't know either way. But, really, haven't you learned yet that you can't take everything you read on the internet on blind faith?
Well, one does not need to be a fanatic to know how the King James version was created. It was not as this cute little internet picture portrays.
Real history is far more complex and interesting. BTW, the 8,000 number is wrong. Not sure where they pulled that from. And fifty-four men were appointed to the task of creating the KJV.
But you can google all this for yourself. In fact, I'd prefer you did google it for yourself. Random posts on the internet should not be taken at face value.
And King James -- a pretty good scholar himself -- lent his name to a serious scholarly effort. The translators DID work from the best Hebrew and Greek manuscripts available at the time, and were entirely aware of a multitude of different wordings between the various manuscripts.
The graphic is just plain wrong on that point.
Still, the overall point of the graphic is correct: the original manuscripts have long since crumbled into papyrus dust, and the copies of copies of copies of those manuscripts have numerous changes from the original. Some of those changes were simple errors in copying. But other changes were entirely intentional.
You forget to mention how much has been lost in all the translations ... (feel free to correct me) from Hebrew to Greek to Latin to English. For example, "repent" doesn't mean what you think it does. It actually only means "re-think", or reconsider - which you can see by looking at it if you ever knew any Latin.
You also didn't mention the scandal of King James having HIS version of the Bible written so that he could control what the people were reading, and the tragedy of his version accommodating his insanity. For example, all his life he was completely obsessed with witches, and burned thousands of women at the stake. A lot of the King James Version mentions of women have thus been perverted by King James's war on women.
Well, you are a little muddled. The NT was written in Greek. There is no Hebrew or Latin at play here.
You are correct in that the Greek word "metanoye" is more properly translated as "re-think" or change your mind.
However, I'm going to need a cite for your claim that King James I was insane or was trying to control his people. He WAS trying to accommodate various religious factions by commissioning a new translation. There were tensions between the COE and the Calvinists that he was trying to alleviate.
As for burning "thousands of woman"--this is another charge I question. He only ruled for 22 years. The hunt for witches was endemic in Europe during this time, and I have no doubt that thousands of women were burned as witches throughout Europe. I simply question that James burned "thousands" of women for it in just 22 years with a population of only 4 million people, or that this was any special initiative on his part.
While I'll agree there are fundamentalist groups who cling to such dogmatic silliness- I doubt any person from Galilee said "ye" except when surprised- there are more than a few Christians and other students of history who are well aware of the KJV's textual provenance and still find the work valuable. They latter group, of course, tends to read the book rather than using it to beat their fellow man over the head therewith as is the former group's wont.
The same critical approach would likely apply to works by Plato, Homer, Aristotle, and Euclid, to name a few. In a few centuries will the few surviving copies of Newton's Principia or Copernicus' De Revolutionibus still exist? or will their insights be similarly derided?
It's not the book, in my view, but the (mis)-interpretations thereof (and I'll grant they are legion- pun intended) that create the problem. Historical studies would become quite difficult if all works of ancient and murky textual provenance were excluded.
If you believe the Bible is the inerrant word of GOD then you must believe that it is full of errors. The story of the Tower of Babel teaches that the languages will lead to confusion, so there can be no accurate translation into any language.
If literary treatment of appalling acts like murder, slavery, suicide and incest ensures works so comprised cannot be uplifting we'll have to include quite a few Shakespearean plays (and notable works by Dickens, Twain, Cooper, Hawthorne and many others) in that list.
"Fiction," argued Camus, "is the lie through which we tell the truth."
"Fiction," argued Ralph Waldo Emerson, "reveals truth that reality obscures."
"Fiction," argued David Foster Wallace, "is about what it is to be a human being."
Of course, no literary work speaks to all readers in its time and few manage to speak to some over great spans of time. Efforts to refute the above only serve to obscure meaning behind a cloud of remembered or related coercion. In my view, aggressive evangelizing for fear of a work becoming neglected almost guarantees even greater neglect in the future.
We get it Dave Lewis, you are a philosopher. Philosophy is what kids choose as a major in college because they can't do anything else. Philosophy is "navel gazing" elevated to high art. There's nothing wrong with it, however, there is nothing proactive about it.
Philosophy simply is man's way of sitting around and reading lots of stuff and observing the world and chiming in. It's a great pursuit, and a degree in philosophy can make one somewhat unemployable, but it is a wonderful, relaxing pursuit for those who like to read, and digest and think about things and don't need to pay any bills.
Thomas Carlyle claimed Shakespeare was divinely inspired, and Emerson poetically waxed: I am the owner of the sphere Of the seven stars and the solar year, Of Caesar's hand, and Plato's brain Of Lord Christ's heart, and Shakespeare's strain.
Charles H. Nichols wrote of the divinity that we have all heard in Emerson, in Phillips, in Garrison.
My point though was that claims of "divine inspiration" and considerations of a work as sacred come later and rarely from the authors themselves (although sometimes from the publishers).
Nothing like a little anti-intellectualism on a site devoted to, inter alia, the promotion of scientific education
Richard Hofstadter anticipated your critique: The case against intellect is founded upon a set of fictional and wholly abstract antagonisms. Intellect is pitted against feeling, on the ground that it is somehow inconsistent with warm emotion. It is pitted against character, because it is widely believed that intellect stands for mere cleverness, which transmutes easily into the sly or the diabolical. It is pitted against practicality, since theory is held to be opposed to practice, and the "purely" theoretical mind is so much disesteemed. It is pitted against democracy, since intellect is felt to be a form of distinction that defies egalitarianism. Once the validity of these antagonisms is accepted, then the case for intellect, and by extension for the intellectual, is lost. Who cares to risk sacrificing warmth of emotion, solidity of character, practical capacity, or democratic sentiment in order to pay deference to a type of man who at best is merely clever and at worst may even be dangerous?
Claiming "divine inspiration" and claiming to be the Word of God are two different things. I've heard many authors claim to be divinely inspired but I've never heard any of them refer to their resulting works as the Word of God. The two terms are not interchangeable. I also know people who consider some texts as sacred to them even though they may be totally secular in nature but they don't claim they are the Word of God, either.
You seem to be a bit confused on the Eric Clapton is God thing, too. A lot of people say things like that about people who are at the top of their profession or are people they admire but that doesn't mean they are claiming that person to be the Divine Creator, nor do they claim their body of work to be the Word of God. An example of that would be the Emerson poem you included - it's very nice and he obviously admires Shakespeare but he is not saying his work is the Word of God.
disclaimer - I am not religious, just trying to make a point.
Main Entry: divine inspiration Part of Speech: n Definition: an act or process that is purportedly inspired by a deity; inspiration endowed by God upon spiritually gifted persons
A lot of people say the Bible is divinely inspired (which begs the question as to the meaning of the phrase) but nobody but they know what they mean thereby. Perhaps they are just copying their fellows.
Here's another quote from Emerson: But wise men pierce this rotten diction and fasten words again to visible things; so that picturesque language is at once a commanding certificate that he who employs it, is a man in alliance with truth and God.
He saw (at least he said he saw) divine inspiration everywhere.
No, Dave, you are wrong. Truth is a lot of things but that does not necessarily equate to Word of God. Laws of physics, for example, are the truth but have nothing to do with the Word of God. Answers to mathematical problems are the truth but again, not the Word of God.
Let me give you a hint...The Word of God refers to sacred scriptures of a religion. The Quran is considered by Muslims to be the Word of God. The Holy Bible is considered by Christians to be the Word of God. Christians and Muslims do not consider a mathematics textbook to be the Word of God, even if it is all true.
And, has been mentioned before, divine inspiration is not the Word of God, either.
You feel this discussion has been ironic, I think it has been amusing. It's been like Chris Wallace trying to get Sarah Palin to admit she was wrong about Paul Revere warning the British and instead she just dug in her heels and insisted she wasn't wrong. You can't say it either, can you Dave? Honestly, I think you are not capable of letting your mind expand beyond dictionary definitions and Google searches. You have obviously accumulated a lot of knowledge about things over the years but it sounds as though you have actually learned very little. Because you are unable to translate your vast knowledge into actual wisdom, all your intellectualism leaves you being little more than a huge repository of trivia.
For one who self-admits to not being religious you seem to have some strong beliefs not only thereof but of the minds of believers themselves (an incredible feat).
To you, the phrase "Word of God" may not equate to truth, but that is how believers define it (as a simple google search try it, it won't hurt a bit will attest) and it would be those people who would apply the phrase to the Bible or other writings (which, as I recall, was the point of the post from which this thread descends).
On your distinction between Laws of Physics and the Word of God (I'm using both phrases according to their definitions, which may differ from your conceptions thereof (see below)) here's a few words:You would be hard-pressed to convince a physicist that Newton's inverse square law of gravitation is a purely cultural concoction. The laws of physics, I submit, really exist in the world out there, and the job of the scientist is to uncover them, not invent them. True, at any given time, the laws you find in the textbooks are tentative and approximate, but they mirror, albeit imperfectly, a really existing order in the physical world. Of course, many scientists do not recognize that in accepting the reality of an order in nature-the existence of laws “out there”-they are adopting a theological world view. Ironically, one of the staunchest defenders of the reality of the laws of physics is the American physicist Steven Weinberg, a sort of apologetic atheist who, though able to wax lyrical about the mathematical elegance of nature, nevertheless felt compelled to pen the notorious words, “The more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it also seems pointless.”
While navel gazing in college I also studied a bit of Physics so I have some basis for my opinions thereof, with which, no doubt, you will disagree.
p.s. you are correct, I try not to let my mind add meanings to words beyond their definition- if a word doesn't fit I look for another that will.
p.p.s. no doubt, from your perspective at the far end of a digital stream of text, I truly am nothing more than a huge repository of trivia- indeed, the D Lewis comments on this thread might simply be the output of a text vomiting bot.....ah, the allure of the blue pill
As to your first paragraph, no, I do not have strong beliefs. I am not a religious person and I have no beliefs.
As to paragraph two, no, I did not say the Word of God does not equate to truth, I said truth does not equate to the Word of God. And no, the original point of the post was not about people applying the word "truth" to the Bible, it was that the Bible, which believers consider to be the Word of God, has questionable origins.
As to paragraph three - none of this has any relevance to the topic. You like to engage in non-sequiters, don't you? You also appear to be unable to speak for yourself - you must always stand behind someone else's thoughts and ideas as if that somehow validates you. Really, it sounds as if you are just unable to think for yourself and just adopt what other people have told you. If you align yourself with people you consider to be experts, that way you can never be wrong yourself.
As to paragraph four - I'm not the one who used the term "navel gazing". That is another person who, I'm guessing, finds you as annoying as I do.
p.s - Your unwillingness to consider something as more than a dictionary definition is one of the reasons you fail.
p.p.s - Yes, I probably do see you as nothing more than a repository of trivia. It's really a shame, too, that after an obviously extensive college education, a collection of trivia is all you have to show for it.
I won't be engaging you any further. To quote the eminent philosopher, Dave Lewis: "My work is done here. Q.E.D. one way or another."
I suspect you might be confusing the Word of You with what other people might believe to be the Word of God.
In similar vein, a passage might not be relevant in your mind, but there are other minds than yours in the universe, from some of whom I borrow what seems to me an apt sentence or passage. Is this an unusual practice to you?
Did I accuse anyone of using the phrase "navel gazing"? I found it humorous and ran with it.
Since we won't be engaging anymore (jilted at the altar again) I'll leave you (I knew you'd check again) with a little bit of Zen trivia:
The finger pointing at the moon is not the moon.
Your idea of a thing is not the thing.
now I'm off to cry having failed at the lowly task of navel gazing.
"...must believe it is full of errors"? Sorry, that is exactly OPPOSITE of the way logic is applied by the people who think of the bible as the literal word of god.
To them the bible is the true word of god and is NEVER wrong or to be questioned. Of course, they also believe it cannot be changed, too, which kind of eliminates their thinking as actual THINKING.
There are some in the "literal word of god camp" who think there is some room for wiggle, but not too damned many.
On the other hand, if you are saying that the way I THINK you are saying that - as the logical thinking of an open mind who can recognize stories like the tower would actually cause confusion - then, yes, I must agree.
@Leland: "...must believe it is full of errors"? Sorry, that is exactly OPPOSITE of the way logic is applied by the people who think of the bible as the literal word of god.
I don't see how one can believe the Tower of Babel story, and not believe the story caused confusion when translated.
I'm not saying the Tower of Babl causes confusion. I'm saying if the Tower of Babel is a true story, and God created languages to confuse the people, then there can be no literal, accurate translations of the Bible. The translations CANNOT be inerrant, OR literal. Which doesn't bother me much, and I still find it a valuable book - but not a prescription.
I'll side with Leland's cogent description of dogma- never wrong or to be questioned.
That, of course, is the problem of dogma. Semantics are thrown aside, logic is tortured and observed reality is ignored or reinvented entirely in order to adhere thereto.
The words in the NT, to someone who hasn't encountered the real Christ, would have need of proof, I suppose, on where the inspired scriptures came from. It's true, we don't have evidence or proof.
But for a person who's had a true encounter with Christ, that word "of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart".
When I had a true born-again encounter, (without judging and hypocrisy), I was shocked at how real God was, and how difficult it was to explain what I had experienced. There's this verse somewhere in the bible, where God asks men to prove him, meaning, he asks men to ask him to prove himself to them. I did and He proved Himself to me.
If the words can't be proven by it's original author, so be it, but, God can show Himself to seekers as the true author.
I agree with much of what you said. I believe you had a profound and loving experience with God. This wasn't exactly about belief in God, but the authority of the Bible. Unless God interprets the Bible for each person, the Bible has errors in it. It can't be inerrant if the Tower of Babel is true. and if the Tower of Babel isn't true, then we we've established the Bible isn't the inerrant word of God. I'm not saying the Bible is irrelevant and unreliable, I'm saying it can't be relied on to be inerrant in everything it says and shouldn't be taken literally. If the Tower of Babel is a true story, then perhaps so is Adam and Eve (but which version?), and many other things. If the Bible is not to be taken literally, then there is much wisdom to be found, as well as history.
I haven't encountered the real Christ and I never will. I don't believe you have encountered the real Christ either whatever you tell yourself.
Christ was very conveniently not able to write his words. Christ became the very lucrative source for his nearly limitless "interpreters". They make MONEY selling versions of whatever stories about him that are the most marketable.
If you are a cheerful payer into the Christian marketing scheme, FINE! Just don't expect anything but amused tolerance from those not sucked into the racket.
For the longest time I claimed to be an atheist. (I was raised an Episcopalian and had a grandfather who was a bishop. I grew into agnosticism.) Then I realized that the argument I had been using against the existence of god - that of asking them to PROVE the existence of god - could just as easily have been used against my argument. Since I can neither prove nor disprove said existence, I choose now to call myself an agnostic.
I, for one, prefer to live as though there is no god, yet live as harmless a life as possible. I live by five words: love, understanding, compassion, forgiveness and tolerance. (And, no, I did not take them from Jesus. I chose those five deliberately because they fit the life I believe to be right.)
And I also choose to allow others to live as THEY choose - on ONE condition; they not attempt to control, or in any way affect, my life based on how they themselves believe.
Unfortunately, the overwhelming majority of those with whom I come in contact simply cannot accept that condition and argue with me (or TRY to, anyway) and swear at me when I am able to counter all their "irrefutable" arguments - that is, assuming I even let them GET to that stage. (Being sworn at because we are either agnostic or atheist is common for those of us who feel that way.)
It is that particular problem which causes me to say that as long as an individual has a personal faith and leaves me alone, I have no problem - provided it doesn't close their minds to other things. Many people, such as (apparently) yourself, have such a faith. I can't understand it and have stopped trying, but I have no problem with your type of belief.
The INSTANT they go against MY beliefs and try to order me to live my life like THEY say to, I have a serious problem!
And that almost invariably comes from ORGANIZED religion. Here in this country, that means the so-called christian religion. (In other countries it comes from other religions. But the effect is the same.) To be even more specific, it means the evangelical right which is trying to alter our government in such a way as to take it away from its designed and intended secular system; to change it to a christian government, just as ONE example.
Many of us feel that the bible (and many other religious writings) is the root cause of all of our primary evils in this world. Slavery. Murder in the name of god. Witch burning. War.The destruction of entire countries simply because it/they believed differently.
The list is almost endless.
Yes, there are good things in the bible. But there are good things in Orwell's "1984", too. Or "All's Quiet on the Western Front".
You started your comment with "The words in the NT...." Fine. But far too many are unable to take ONLY the NT. It is the OT which has most of the problems many of us argue against. Had the christian religion accepted the NT WITHOUT the OT, it would be a considerable more acceptable piece of work and far less deadly, but based on a quote supposedly made by Jesus (who by the way is revered by islam) which reads something like "I come not to supersede the old laws", too many today demand the OT be followed, too - complete with genocide, slavery, stoning and all the other things we recognize as crimes today.
So enjoy your reading. Enjoy your faith. But, please, don't try to convince the rest of us, because a lot of us have seen first hand what the bible can cause. Or the Qu'ran. Or the Torah. Or....
This post is perfect following the film on LGBT bullying. The truth that the bible isn't the inerrant word of god, even in its original language, can eventually end the misery caused by the evangelical church. The problem with catholics and apostolic churches is more complicated because their practice isn't based solely on the bible but on later/current 'revelations'. Nevertheless...
'Misquoting Jesus'by Bart Ehrman is a MUST READ. His work proving bible errors, additions, and subtractions is accepted and feared by evangelicals. It's shocking for a christian to learn that critical doctrines--risen christ, trinity--weren't part of Jesus' teachings or the original writings.
Several evangelical scholars have taken to debating Ehrman. It's pretty fascinating. Thank god for Youtube.
Funny how Christ never mentioned anything really useful things like germs or the equality of women. Or maybe he did and all those translators and interpreters nixed it.
What about your unquestioning faith that each and every statement in this unreferenced internet picture post is true? I'm not saying they aren't. I don't know either way. But, really, haven't you learned yet that you can't take everything you read on the internet on blind faith?
ReplyDeleteHave you been living in a CAVE? Only the most fanatical of people accept the KJV bible as accurate!
DeleteOf course, those CAN get violent about it - and sometimes do.
DO NOT be foolish enough to even THINK that the above posting is just rumor on the Internet!
Well, one does not need to be a fanatic to know how the King James version was created. It was not as this cute little internet picture portrays.
DeleteReal history is far more complex and interesting. BTW, the 8,000 number is wrong. Not sure where they pulled that from. And fifty-four men were appointed to the task of creating the KJV.
But you can google all this for yourself. In fact, I'd prefer you did google it for yourself. Random posts on the internet should not be taken at face value.
And King James -- a pretty good scholar himself -- lent his name to a serious scholarly effort. The translators DID work from the best Hebrew and Greek manuscripts available at the time, and were entirely aware of a multitude of different wordings between the various manuscripts.
DeleteThe graphic is just plain wrong on that point.
Still, the overall point of the graphic is correct: the original manuscripts have long since crumbled into papyrus dust, and the copies of copies of copies of those manuscripts have numerous changes from the original. Some of those changes were simple errors in copying. But other changes were entirely intentional.
You forget to mention how much has been lost in all the translations ... (feel free to correct me) from Hebrew to Greek to Latin to English. For example, "repent" doesn't mean what you think it does. It actually only means "re-think", or reconsider - which you can see by looking at it if you ever knew any Latin.
ReplyDeleteYou also didn't mention the scandal of King James having HIS version of the Bible written so that he could control what the people were reading, and the tragedy of his version accommodating his insanity. For example, all his life he was completely obsessed with witches, and burned thousands of women at the stake. A lot of the King James Version mentions of women have thus been perverted by King James's war on women.
Oh, don't get me started....
Well, you are a little muddled. The NT was written in Greek. There is no Hebrew or Latin at play here.
DeleteYou are correct in that the Greek word "metanoye" is more properly translated as "re-think" or change your mind.
However, I'm going to need a cite for your claim that King James I was insane or was trying to control his people. He WAS trying to accommodate various religious factions by commissioning a new translation. There were tensions between the COE and the Calvinists that he was trying to alleviate.
As for burning "thousands of woman"--this is another charge I question. He only ruled for 22 years. The hunt for witches was endemic in Europe during this time, and I have no doubt that thousands of women were burned as witches throughout Europe. I simply question that James burned "thousands" of women for it in just 22 years with a population of only 4 million people, or that this was any special initiative on his part.
No Hebrew bible stories? No Roman Christians? What are you talking about?
DeleteWhile I'll agree there are fundamentalist groups who cling to such dogmatic silliness- I doubt any person from Galilee said "ye" except when surprised- there are more than a few Christians and other students of history who are well aware of the KJV's textual provenance and still find the work valuable. They latter group, of course, tends to read the book rather than using it to beat their fellow man over the head therewith as is the former group's wont.
ReplyDeleteThe same critical approach would likely apply to works by Plato, Homer, Aristotle, and Euclid, to name a few. In a few centuries will the few surviving copies of Newton's Principia or Copernicus' De Revolutionibus still exist? or will their insights be similarly derided?
It's not the book, in my view, but the (mis)-interpretations thereof (and I'll grant they are legion- pun intended) that create the problem. Historical studies would become quite difficult if all works of ancient and murky textual provenance were excluded.
If you believe the Bible is the inerrant word of GOD then you must believe that it is full of errors. The story of the Tower of Babel teaches that the languages will lead to confusion, so there can be no accurate translation into any language.
ReplyDeleteCome, let us go down and confound their speech
I'd never thought to apply the Tower of Babel story to biblical translation. Very interesting!
DeleteReligion aside, the King James Bible has some of the most beautiful writing extant. It's said that Shakespeare may have contributed to it.
ReplyDeleteSo read it simply as a document of its time, and you'll be uplifted by the way the words are used.
You'll be uplifted by the many appalling things like the rules for selling your daughters into slavery, if actually read ALL the stuff in the "bible".
DeleteIf literary treatment of appalling acts like murder, slavery, suicide and incest ensures works so comprised cannot be uplifting we'll have to include quite a few Shakespearean plays (and notable works by Dickens, Twain, Cooper, Hawthorne and many others) in that list.
DeleteDickens, Twain, Cooper, Hawthorne... wrote FICTION!!!! The "Christian" bible as fiction isn't uplifting, it's just silly.
DeleteShakespeare, Dickens, Twain, Cooper, Hawthorne and many others don't claim to be the "Word of God".
Delete"Fiction," argued Camus, "is the lie through which we tell the truth."
Delete"Fiction," argued Ralph Waldo Emerson, "reveals truth that reality obscures."
"Fiction," argued David Foster Wallace, "is about what it is to be a human being."
Of course, no literary work speaks to all readers in its time and few manage to speak to some over great spans of time. Efforts to refute the above only serve to obscure meaning behind a cloud of remembered or related coercion. In my view, aggressive evangelizing for fear of a work becoming neglected almost guarantees even greater neglect in the future.
I agree, but some of their admirers did.
DeleteSaul of Tarsus would likely have gasped at the suggestion his letters were "the word of God." Those claims came later, and not from him.
In similar and more modern fashion, it wasn't Eric Clapton who ran around painting "Clapton is God" on city walls.
"I agree, but some of their admirers did."
DeleteCan you please cite your sources for that claim?
We get it Dave Lewis, you are a philosopher. Philosophy is what kids choose as a major in college because they can't do anything else. Philosophy is "navel gazing" elevated to high art. There's nothing wrong with it, however, there is nothing proactive about it.
DeletePhilosophy simply is man's way of sitting around and reading lots of stuff and observing the world and chiming in. It's a great pursuit, and a degree in philosophy can make one somewhat unemployable, but it is a wonderful, relaxing pursuit for those who like to read, and digest and think about things and don't need to pay any bills.
It's a good gig if you can afford it.
Dave Lewis @10:36 -
DeleteThose are nice quotes about "Fiction" but I'm not aware of any work of fiction claiming to be the Word of God.
Thomas Carlyle claimed Shakespeare was divinely inspired, and Emerson poetically waxed:
DeleteI am the owner of the sphere
Of the seven stars and the solar year,
Of Caesar's hand, and Plato's brain
Of Lord Christ's heart, and Shakespeare's strain.
Charles H. Nichols wrote of the divinity that we have all heard in Emerson, in Phillips, in Garrison.
My point though was that claims of "divine inspiration" and considerations of a work as sacred come later and rarely from the authors themselves (although sometimes from the publishers).
Nothing like a little anti-intellectualism on a site devoted to, inter alia, the promotion of scientific education
DeleteRichard Hofstadter anticipated your critique: The case against intellect is founded upon a set of fictional and wholly abstract antagonisms. Intellect is pitted against feeling, on the ground that it is somehow inconsistent with warm emotion. It is pitted against character, because it is widely believed that intellect stands for mere cleverness, which transmutes easily into the sly or the diabolical. It is pitted against practicality, since theory is held to be opposed to practice, and the "purely" theoretical mind is so much disesteemed. It is pitted against democracy, since intellect is felt to be a form of distinction that defies egalitarianism. Once the validity of these antagonisms is accepted, then the case for intellect, and by extension for the intellectual, is lost. Who cares to risk sacrificing warmth of emotion, solidity of character, practical capacity, or democratic sentiment in order to pay deference to a type of man who at best is merely clever and at worst may even be dangerous?
now back to my navel
Claiming "divine inspiration" and claiming to be the Word of God are two different things. I've heard many authors claim to be divinely inspired but I've never heard any of them refer to their resulting works as the Word of God. The two terms are not interchangeable. I also know people who consider some texts as sacred to them even though they may be totally secular in nature but they don't claim they are the Word of God, either.
DeleteYou seem to be a bit confused on the Eric Clapton is God thing, too. A lot of people say things like that about people who are at the top of their profession or are people they admire but that doesn't mean they are claiming that person to be the Divine Creator, nor do they claim their body of work to be the Word of God. An example of that would be the Emerson poem you included - it's very nice and he obviously admires Shakespeare but he is not saying his work is the Word of God.
disclaimer - I am not religious, just trying to make a point.
Main Entry: divine inspiration
DeletePart of Speech: n
Definition: an act or process that is purportedly inspired by a deity; inspiration endowed by God upon spiritually gifted persons
A lot of people say the Bible is divinely inspired (which begs the question as to the meaning of the phrase) but nobody but they know what they mean thereby. Perhaps they are just copying their fellows.
Here's another quote from Emerson: But wise men pierce this rotten diction and fasten words again to visible things; so that picturesque language is at once a commanding certificate that he who employs it, is a man in alliance with truth and God.
He saw (at least he said he saw) divine inspiration everywhere.
I think you just proved my point - divine inspiration and the Word of God are not the same thing.
DeleteThe word of God (google it yourself) is truth...which has made for a wonderfully ironic discussion.
DeleteNo, Dave, you are wrong. Truth is a lot of things but that does not necessarily equate to Word of God. Laws of physics, for example, are the truth but have nothing to do with the Word of God. Answers to mathematical problems are the truth but again, not the Word of God.
DeleteLet me give you a hint...The Word of God refers to sacred scriptures of a religion. The Quran is considered by Muslims to be the Word of God. The Holy Bible is considered by Christians to be the Word of God. Christians and Muslims do not consider a mathematics textbook to be the Word of God, even if it is all true.
And, has been mentioned before, divine inspiration is not the Word of God, either.
You feel this discussion has been ironic, I think it has been amusing. It's been like Chris Wallace trying to get Sarah Palin to admit she was wrong about Paul Revere warning the British and instead she just dug in her heels and insisted she wasn't wrong. You can't say it either, can you Dave? Honestly, I think you are not capable of letting your mind expand beyond dictionary definitions and Google searches. You have obviously accumulated a lot of knowledge about things over the years but it sounds as though you have actually learned very little. Because you are unable to translate your vast knowledge into actual wisdom, all your intellectualism leaves you being little more than a huge repository of trivia.
But thanks for playing...
For one who self-admits to not being religious you seem to have some strong beliefs not only thereof but of the minds of believers themselves (an incredible feat).
DeleteTo you, the phrase "Word of God" may not equate to truth, but that is how believers define it (as a simple google search try it, it won't hurt a bit will attest) and it would be those people who would apply the phrase to the Bible or other writings (which, as I recall, was the point of the post from which this thread descends).
On your distinction between Laws of Physics and the Word of God (I'm using both phrases according to their definitions, which may differ from your conceptions thereof (see below)) here's a few words:You would be hard-pressed to convince a physicist that Newton's inverse square law of gravitation is a purely cultural concoction. The laws of physics, I submit, really exist in the world out there, and the job of the scientist is to uncover them, not invent them. True, at any given time, the laws you find in the textbooks are tentative and approximate, but they mirror, albeit imperfectly, a really existing order in the physical world. Of course, many scientists do not recognize that in accepting the reality of an order in nature-the existence of laws “out there”-they are adopting a theological world view. Ironically, one of the staunchest defenders of the reality of the laws of physics is the American physicist Steven Weinberg, a sort of apologetic atheist who, though able to wax lyrical about the mathematical elegance of nature, nevertheless felt compelled to pen the notorious words, “The more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it also seems pointless.”
While navel gazing in college I also studied a bit of Physics so I have some basis for my opinions thereof, with which, no doubt, you will disagree.
p.s. you are correct, I try not to let my mind add meanings to words beyond their definition- if a word doesn't fit I look for another that will.
p.p.s. no doubt, from your perspective at the far end of a digital stream of text, I truly am nothing more than a huge repository of trivia- indeed, the D Lewis comments on this thread might simply be the output of a text vomiting bot.....ah, the allure of the blue pill
Dave,
DeleteAs to your first paragraph, no, I do not have strong beliefs. I am not a religious person and I have no beliefs.
As to paragraph two, no, I did not say the Word of God does not equate to truth, I said truth does not equate to the Word of God. And no, the original point of the post was not about people applying the word "truth" to the Bible, it was that the Bible, which believers consider to be the Word of God, has questionable origins.
As to paragraph three - none of this has any relevance to the topic. You like to engage in non-sequiters, don't you? You also appear to be unable to speak for yourself - you must always stand behind someone else's thoughts and ideas as if that somehow validates you. Really, it sounds as if you are just unable to think for yourself and just adopt what other people have told you. If you align yourself with people you consider to be experts, that way you can never be wrong yourself.
As to paragraph four - I'm not the one who used the term "navel gazing". That is another person who, I'm guessing, finds you as annoying as I do.
p.s - Your unwillingness to consider something as more than a dictionary definition is one of the reasons you fail.
p.p.s - Yes, I probably do see you as nothing more than a repository of trivia. It's really a shame, too, that after an obviously extensive college education, a collection of trivia is all you have to show for it.
I won't be engaging you any further. To quote the eminent philosopher, Dave Lewis: "My work is done here. Q.E.D. one way or another."
No beliefs? Another self-confessing nihilist?
DeleteI suspect you might be confusing the Word of You with what other people might believe to be the Word of God.
In similar vein, a passage might not be relevant in your mind, but there are other minds than yours in the universe, from some of whom I borrow what seems to me an apt sentence or passage. Is this an unusual practice to you?
Did I accuse anyone of using the phrase "navel gazing"? I found it humorous and ran with it.
Since we won't be engaging anymore (jilted at the altar again) I'll leave you (I knew you'd check again) with a little bit of Zen trivia:
The finger pointing at the moon is not the moon.
Your idea of a thing is not the thing.
now I'm off to cry having failed at the lowly task of navel gazing.
"...must believe it is full of errors"? Sorry, that is exactly OPPOSITE of the way logic is applied by the people who think of the bible as the literal word of god.
ReplyDeleteTo them the bible is the true word of god and is NEVER wrong or to be questioned. Of course, they also believe it cannot be changed, too, which kind of eliminates their thinking as actual THINKING.
There are some in the "literal word of god camp" who think there is some room for wiggle, but not too damned many.
On the other hand, if you are saying that the way I THINK you are saying that - as the logical thinking of an open mind who can recognize stories like the tower would actually cause confusion - then, yes, I must agree.
@Leland: "...must believe it is full of errors"? Sorry, that is exactly OPPOSITE of the way logic is applied by the people who think of the bible as the literal word of god.
DeleteI don't see how one can believe the Tower of Babel story, and not believe the story caused confusion when translated.
I'm not saying the Tower of Babl causes confusion. I'm saying if the Tower of Babel is a true story, and God created languages to confuse the people, then there can be no literal, accurate translations of the Bible. The translations CANNOT be inerrant, OR literal. Which doesn't bother me much, and I still find it a valuable book - but not a prescription.
I'll side with Leland's cogent description of dogma- never wrong or to be questioned.
DeleteThat, of course, is the problem of dogma. Semantics are thrown aside, logic is tortured and observed reality is ignored or reinvented entirely in order to adhere thereto.
Thus is the next Kuhnian revolution begged.
See my last paragraph.
DeleteI'm not understanding why you are sorry. I don't see what you said as contradictory.
DeleteThe fact that anyone with a brain could believe that it's the "inerrant" word of God is the part that always amazes me. lol....
ReplyDeleteThe words in the NT, to someone who hasn't encountered the real Christ, would have need of proof, I suppose, on where the inspired scriptures came from. It's true, we don't have evidence or proof.
ReplyDeleteBut for a person who's had a true encounter with Christ, that word "of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart".
When I had a true born-again encounter, (without judging and hypocrisy), I was shocked at how real God was, and how difficult it was to explain what I had experienced. There's this verse somewhere in the bible, where God asks men to prove him, meaning, he asks men to ask him to prove himself to them. I did and He proved Himself to me.
If the words can't be proven by it's original author, so be it, but, God can show Himself to seekers as the true author.
I agree with much of what you said. I believe you had a profound and loving experience with God. This wasn't exactly about belief in God, but the authority of the Bible. Unless God interprets the Bible for each person, the Bible has errors in it. It can't be inerrant if the Tower of Babel is true. and if the Tower of Babel isn't true, then we we've established the Bible isn't the inerrant word of God.
DeleteI'm not saying the Bible is irrelevant and unreliable, I'm saying it can't be relied on to be inerrant in everything it says and shouldn't be taken literally. If the Tower of Babel is a true story, then perhaps so is Adam and Eve (but which version?), and many other things. If the Bible is not to be taken literally, then there is much wisdom to be found, as well as history.
I haven't encountered the real Christ and I never will. I don't believe you have encountered the real Christ either whatever you tell yourself.
DeleteChrist was very conveniently not able to write his words. Christ became the very lucrative source for his nearly limitless "interpreters". They make MONEY selling versions of whatever stories about him that are the most marketable.
If you are a cheerful payer into the Christian marketing scheme, FINE! Just don't expect anything but amused tolerance from those not sucked into the racket.
@7:52
DeleteFor the longest time I claimed to be an atheist. (I was raised an Episcopalian and had a grandfather who was a bishop. I grew into agnosticism.) Then I realized that the argument I had been using against the existence of god - that of asking them to PROVE the existence of god - could just as easily have been used against my argument. Since I can neither prove nor disprove said existence, I choose now to call myself an agnostic.
I, for one, prefer to live as though there is no god, yet live as harmless a life as possible. I live by five words: love, understanding, compassion, forgiveness and tolerance. (And, no, I did not take them from Jesus. I chose those five deliberately because they fit the life I believe to be right.)
And I also choose to allow others to live as THEY choose - on ONE condition; they not attempt to control, or in any way affect, my life based on how they themselves believe.
Unfortunately, the overwhelming majority of those with whom I come in contact simply cannot accept that condition and argue with me (or TRY to, anyway) and swear at me when I am able to counter all their "irrefutable" arguments - that is, assuming I even let them GET to that stage. (Being sworn at because we are either agnostic or atheist is common for those of us who feel that way.)
It is that particular problem which causes me to say that as long as an individual has a personal faith and leaves me alone, I have no problem - provided it doesn't close their minds to other things. Many people, such as (apparently) yourself, have such a faith. I can't understand it and have stopped trying, but I have no problem with your type of belief.
The INSTANT they go against MY beliefs and try to order me to live my life like THEY say to, I have a serious problem!
And that almost invariably comes from ORGANIZED religion. Here in this country, that means the so-called christian religion. (In other countries it comes from other religions. But the effect is the same.) To be even more specific, it means the evangelical right which is trying to alter our government in such a way as to take it away from its designed and intended secular system; to change it to a christian government, just as ONE example.
Many of us feel that the bible (and many other religious writings) is the root cause of all of our primary evils in this world. Slavery. Murder in the name of god. Witch burning. War.The destruction of entire countries simply because it/they believed differently.
The list is almost endless.
Yes, there are good things in the bible. But there are good things in Orwell's "1984", too. Or "All's Quiet on the Western Front".
You started your comment with "The words in the NT...." Fine. But far too many are unable to take ONLY the NT. It is the OT which has most of the problems many of us argue against. Had the christian religion accepted the NT WITHOUT the OT, it would be a considerable more acceptable piece of work and far less deadly, but based on a quote supposedly made by Jesus (who by the way is revered by islam) which reads something like "I come not to supersede the old laws", too many today demand the OT be followed, too - complete with genocide, slavery, stoning and all the other things we recognize as crimes today.
So enjoy your reading. Enjoy your faith. But, please, don't try to convince the rest of us, because a lot of us have seen first hand what the bible can cause. Or the Qu'ran. Or the Torah. Or....
I'm curious to know from which version of the Bible "Assclown" originated.
ReplyDelete""for a person who's had a true encounter with Christ""
ReplyDeleteWhere exactly did this " encounter " take place ? Did you run into him at Walmart ?
I told her she shouldn't be eating those mushrooms she found next to the outhouse.
DeleteThis post is perfect following the film on LGBT bullying. The truth that the bible isn't the inerrant word of god, even in its original language, can eventually end the misery caused by the evangelical church. The problem with catholics and apostolic churches is more complicated because their practice isn't based solely on the bible but on later/current 'revelations'. Nevertheless...
ReplyDelete'Misquoting Jesus'by Bart Ehrman is a MUST READ. His work proving bible errors, additions, and subtractions is accepted and feared by evangelicals. It's shocking for a christian to learn that critical doctrines--risen christ, trinity--weren't part of Jesus' teachings or the original writings.
Several evangelical scholars have taken to debating Ehrman. It's pretty fascinating. Thank god for Youtube.
http://tinyurl.com/cjvcpcg
Funny how Christ never mentioned anything really useful things like germs or the equality of women. Or maybe he did and all those translators and interpreters nixed it.
ReplyDelete