TRANSPONDER wrote: ↑Mon Nov 08, 2021 2:03 pm
theophile wrote: ↑Mon Nov 08, 2021 10:43 am
TRANSPONDER wrote: ↑Sun Nov 07, 2021 12:06 pm
theophile wrote: ↑Fri Nov 05, 2021 4:02 pm
TRANSPONDER wrote: ↑Fri Nov 05, 2021 3:05 pm
You are right that it ought to be a non -starter, logically and rationally. It is an axiom that if there were no theists, there would be no atheists. And the only reason we have active atheists is because we have active theists.
I don't actually think that discussions such as our purpose according to the bible is a non-starter. You may have mistaken my final comment. I genuinely think that we can and should discuss such questions, and that they are valid topics for a board such as this.
My suggestion was more that
if you're right, most of the posts on this board should be removed since they have to do with biblical interpretation, which is essentially literary analysis, which you said can't happen until God is proven to exist. (I disagree completely with that view.)
I would push my suggestion even further and ask why you even participate on this board if you think all conversations are non-starters until God is proven to exist. Is it to make that point to theists? i.e., to tell them to come back and talk to you once they have proof of whatever God-concept it is they're selling?
Well argued, but not good enough. Our purpose according to the Bible is a non -starter until the Bible is shown to be credible and reliable. I suspect you have strawmanned what I posted as " literary analysis, which you said can't happen until God is proven to exist.". Since I don't agree with that either, I doubt that I said (or at least meant) that.
To remove all doubt, the Bottom line is Bible credibility. Particularly the resurrection - claim, without which the rest is just moralising waffle. Despite the New Covenant, the OT is necessary to establish the God if the Jews, even if he dumped then and switched his support to the Greeks, or so the NT tells us.
Biblical literary Interpretation usually (if not always) turns out to be attempts to pretend it doesn't say what it appears to say, or trues to excuse the non -credible with excuses like 'they wrote differently, then'. In which case, logically, they can't argue from a Bible when they can't understand what it says either. Unless they believe that God is downloading the Truth into their heads. Which is something I Do rather believe they believe. While I'm here myself for discussion, I am not here to talk about irrelevancies such as first cause (because that doesn't tell you Which God) or metaphor or poetic symbolism, which is irrelevant if it means 'Not actually factual'. It is actually about Bible credibility and particularly the claims about Jesus. If it isn't a discussion relating that, I consider it irrelevant.
We may just have to agree to disagree. To me the credibility of the bible is more in the purpose that it sets us, i.e., how coherent and compelling its teachings are. And understanding that is purely an exercise in literary analysis and reason. Real-world correspondence or factuality, i.e., whether Jesus actually existed or whether events such as the resurrection actually happened, is irrelevant.
The teachings should stand or fall on their own accord.
Whether Jesus was a work of fiction doesn't devalue his teachings anymore than, say, the teachings of Nietzsche's Zarathustra are undermined by the fictional status of that character. Or the teachings of Yoda. We all know Yoda never existed and that the force is a fictional construct, but there is a teaching being expressed there that we can still work to understand and evaluate on its own terms.
But hey, maybe you find no value in anything that can't be shown to exist or to have actually happened, and you would devalue all works of fiction as meaningless / irrelevant.
Excellent textbook exposition of flawed and dogy theist thinking.
Agree to disagree translates as 'My case is as good as yours'. It isn't because logic requires the claimant make their case stick, not pretend it's equal points because they don't do logic. To ignore whether there's any reason to credit it as true, and pretend that only the teachings matter is at best only presenting personal opinions about what's a good way to live,
no better than any other philosopher or sociologist and has no more credibility and probably less because social morals have moved on, leaving the Bible to play catch up.
What else did you argue? Well....nothing much else in fact other than the grubby smear that if I don't credit the Bible as being any more authoritative than any other book (and probably less so) I (you imply) find no value in any book.
Hoo, boy.
Two points.
First, my "agree to disagree" was more based on what
feels like a different standard that the bible gets held to versus other texts for whatever reason, and a desire to not keep spinning on it. I don't honestly believe you find no value in any book that's not proven out first, but I made that as an extreme statement to push the point. But let's hold that for a second because the text I bolded above starts getting us closer I think. i.e.,
Why would we treat the bible any different than any other work of philosophy? I don't think we should (and maybe you don't either). We should hold it to the exact same standards, and value its teaching in the exact same way as we do, say, Nietzsche's, Marx's, Plato's, or anyone else's. The richness of none of these should be discarded because, say, Socrates never did what Plato said or Zarathustra never existed.
Second, my point is not to "ignore whether there's any reason to credit it as true." My point is more that the reasons we should credit it as true are not based in historical fact. Or in the proven existence of some entity.
There are other reasons to credit it as true. i.e., We value the philosophies I mentioned above because of the compelling views they convey of how the world works, how we should live our lives, etc., etc. It is regarding these kinds of things that we should hold the bible accountable. I get the go-to arguments of atheists are all about historical inaccuracy or unproven existence, but these are really beside the point and only end up closing down the discussion. We need to consider it from these other aspects before we dismiss it. And hey, if we understand it better, maybe we can ask again questions of existence. (But that may mean rethinking popular notions of God.)