Christianity

[_Aristotle Smith]

I also know a thing or two about the Bible, and I don't espouse the Christianity that is lampooned. It's easy to dump on fire-breathing fundamentalists, why not take a little time to empathetically figure out what non-fundamentalist Christians actually believe?

[_Buffalo]

Honestly Buffalo…

Jack has been studying the Bible since she was a teen, and has been around the apologetics scene long enough to see all this before. She’s been trained in the languages that the scriptures were preserved in, and I’m pretty sure she knows how to do a decent exegesis of a passage. She has enough intellectual honesty to point out bad evangelical arguments, so I give her a serious listen if she says the same about atheist side of things.

Your picture is just a caricature, and any Christian who actually took their faith seriously could demonstrate that.

Take the picture with a grain of salt. Obviously it paints with a broad brush. It's supposed to be funny, and sting a little too.

[_MrStakhanovite]

Regarding #8: What is up with people's aversion to many gods? I mean, sure it might be false but why the aversion and disgust with such an idea as if it is dirty?

Insecurity about their own beliefs?

Probably has more to do with the history of Israel’s religion and the nature of it’s relationship with God, as opposed to that of it’s neighbors. Also, many of the early Christians were viciously persecuted by polytheistic empire, so that also may be a lingering effect.

The insult is, equating the Trinity with polytheism, which it is clearly not.

[_Buffalo]

I also know a thing or two about the Bible, and I don't espouse the Christianity that is lampooned. It's easy to dump on fire-breathing fundamentalists, why not take a little time to empathetically figure out what non-fundamentalist Christians actually believe?

The problem is that the Christianity it lampoons is largely Biblical Christianity. Fundamentalists may be loathsome, but they also adhere to the Bible more closely than more enlightened, liberal (small l) Christians do.

[_MrStakhanovite]

Take the picture with a grain of salt. Obviously it paints with a broad brush. It's supposed to be funny, and sting a little too.

Of course, but I don't think it gets the intended effect. I think it only makes people like Aristotle Smith and Jack more jaded about secular thinking and less inclined to listen.

[_Aristotle Smith]

I also know a thing or two about the Bible, and I don't espouse the Christianity that is lampooned. It's easy to dump on fire-breathing fundamentalists, why not take a little time to empathetically figure out what non-fundamentalist Christians actually believe?

The problem is that the Christianity it lampoons is largely Biblical Christianity. Fundamentalists may be loathsome, but they also adhere to the Bible more closely than more enlightened, liberal (small l) Christians do.

OK Buffalo, I have two questions for you:

1) When and where did a literal and non-allegorical reading of the Bible become accepted as the gold standard for biblical interpretation?
2) When did fundamentalism start?

If you can answer those two questions correctly, you will see why your above statement is just silly.

[_Buffalo]

OK Buffalo, I have two questions for you:

1) When and where did a literal and non-allegorical reading of the Bible become accepted as the gold standard for biblical interpretation?
2) When did fundamentalism start?

If you can answer those two questions correctly, you will see why your above statement is just silly.

It is quite easy to discern literal from allegorical. When Jesus says "a certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard," we're dealing with a parable.

When Paul says "Women should obey their husbands and keep quiet in church" we're not dealing with a parable.

Fundamentalism is in the eye of the beholder.

[_Ceeboo]

Great OP!

Them silly, stupid "Christians"!
I wonder if any of these "tiny brained myth followers" realize just how dumb you have to be to buy into all that ancient gargage? Probably not!


Peace,
Ceeboo

[Guest]

Insecurity about their own beliefs?

Probably has more to do with the history of Israel’s religion and the nature of it’s relationship with God, as opposed to that of it’s neighbors. Also, many of the early Christians were viciously persecuted by polytheistic empire, so that also may be a lingering effect.

The insult is, equating the Trinity with polytheism, which it is clearly not.

My little comment was just to suggest that people often hate the things that they fear. Catholics burning Protestants at the stake and vice versa. Religious intolerance in general. I think it happens in all societies.

From an outsider's point of view, Christianity does seem polytheistic. The Trinity, The Virgin Mary, a long list of Saints, Archangels and Angels, all deities that people are encourage to pray to. I think, for an anthropologist, they may at least be considered demigods.

[_Aristotle Smith]

OK Buffalo, I have two questions for you:

1) When and where did a literal and non-allegorical reading of the Bible become accepted as the gold standard for biblical interpretation?
2) When did fundamentalism start?

If you can answer those two questions correctly, you will see why your above statement is just silly.

It is quite easy to discern literal from allegorical. When Jesus says "a certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard," we're dealing with a parable.

When Paul says "Women should obey their husbands and keep quiet in church" we're not dealing with a parable.

Fundamentalism is in the eye of the beholder.

Care to take another crack at answering my two questions?

Probably not, so I'll just let you in on the answers. The first time and place where consistently literal interpretation of the Bible was taken as the Gold standard is late 19th century USA. Fundamentalism can't really be said to start earlier than 1909 when the publication of "The Fundamentals" was financed. "The Fundamentals" was published between 1910 and 1915, and is the origin of the term "fundamentalism."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fundamentals

Allegorical and other forms of non-literal biblical interpretation have always had a place in Biblical Interpretation, outside of fundamentalism. In other words, for the vast majority of all Christian history the Bible has not been read consistently literally. That's why your statement, "Fundamentalists may be loathsome, but they also adhere to the Bible more closely than..." is fundamentally flawed. By that light, every single Christian prior to the 19th century was somehow less Christian than fundamentalists.

Fundamentalism is a particular reaction to the Enlightenment, thus fundamentalism is literally impossible pre-Enlightenment. I guess there were no real Christians prior to the Enlightenment either.

As to your assertion that's it's easy to tell allegory from literal, it fails in three ways. First, you are supposing that all passages are either literal or allegorical, which of course ignores the scores of passages that Christians have interpreted to be both. And they have done this since the beginning. For example in Galatians 4:21-31 Paul interprets a passage allegorically (he's even helpful enough to say he's doing this) that I'm sure you would think is meant to be literal. Second, even if every passage could be categorized as either literal or allegorical, it wouldn't be clear which to choose from. Third, literal/allegorical doesn't exhaust all the possibilities of interpretation. For example Cassian (a medieval Christian, who was not trying to read around modern science) thought that every passage had four interpretive levels: literal, allegorical/typological, moral/tropological, and mystagogical.