I am a figurativist, which means I reject the first premise that scripture should be taken literally. However, what does it mean for something to be literal anyway? I'll take that literalism means that scriptures should be taken according to the most common usage of the meaning of the words of scripture. So whatever the scripture says, we must follow the most common usage of the words of the scripture, if it says to commit genocide, then we must commit genocide. However, literalism is problematic as if all scripture is interpreted according to the most common usage of the words, then it results in self-contradiction. If we are to accept that scripture is true, then literalism must be false, also including the fact that literalism stands condemned by science and secular ethics (I mean the acceptance of the second premise). Considering the truth of scripture, we must accept that there are parts of scripture which meaning is derived from the most common usage of the words i.e. literal, and there are parts of scripture which meaning is not derived from the most common usage of the words, instead it points towards a less common usage, i.e. figurative. Now how do we determine which is literal and figurative? There are 2 ways, eisegesis and exegesis. Eisegesis means to read the scripture according to what we believe, and exegesis means to read the scripture as the author means. Eisegesis is easy, but exegesis delivers the true meaning of the scripture even if it requires greater work in interpreting the scripture as one may be required to examine the historical context of that scripture. Now how does one perform exegesis? The answer is exegesis is often not done alone, but in groups of people, for example, the Church. To which point that it is possible that the intepretation of scripture becomes social eisegesis, but the synthesis of a group of people's beliefs is closer to the truth than the private and personal thoughts of a single man. That is all I have to say.
Big part of the video assumes the Bible deals mainly with propositions. It also seems to assume a modern reading or understanding the Bible according to modern assumptions about writing biographies, history, and narratives. So what’s the trilemma of modern, enlightenment, post-modern, deconstructionist, etc… ideological critiques;)
If you are claiming that a particular holy text should not be read as stating facts, but as a story, parable, or set of commands, you are falling clearly into the figurativist camp. That is not to say that you are wrong, you can certainly make the case that modern sensibilities are more prone to literalist interpretations, but that is not an assumption of the video, but rather one of the premises you can deny in the argument. It does pose more problems for the ethical claims in holy texts, as these are not propositions but commands to commit genocide, slavery, or rape. You might blame our modern sensibilities for thinking that genocide is wrong, but that still makes you committed to the claim that genocide is ok (which will get you thrown out of most dinner parties).
Without the speaker (god) to adjudicate if our interpretations of the utterances align with gods intentions, any claim on the correct interpretation is on a par with an anthetical interpretation. Theres nothing justifictory about assuming your interpretation is right prima facie
We should understand the texts in the contexts they were written in, which means using historical evidence to figure out what the authors were trying to do with their words. That means we can't just pick and choose which parts we want, and have to take things that were meant literally, literally, but also allows for thees complex multi-sourced historical amalgams to contain different kinds of literature to be taken in different ways. And regardless of how they are interpreted, the contents of such holy books are pretty much categorically either false, uncontroversially true (i.e. even the irreligious would agree), or literally meaningless.
I think it is hard to judge holy texts in the minds of the writers as, if religions are correct, those writers are writing the word of a deity, and it is unclear what that deity was thinking, or rather there is no context we could learn about to discover what they were thinking. Which leads to everyone having their own interpretation of what a given "god" meant, because they imagine that deity to be like them, since there can be no historical evidence to the contrary as such a deity is supposedly outside of time. This leads to serious mental gymnastics when dealing with particularly immoral or inaccurate passages, where someone takes one section as literal because they agree with it and another as figurative because they disagree with it. When you know nothing about the supposed author, you can make up anything.
or an exact reading of the Bible shows that Noah only took the general categories of animals, not every species. (Plus all fish and insects were exempt, which cuts down a lot)
@@SamGarcia I'm sympathetic to species being an artificial concept (less so to the rapid mutations required to have a sustainable not-inbreed population), but doing the math is still a worthy goal, if only to appreciate Noah as a miracle. (Also, not saving insects and plants seems like a good way to doom an ecosystem...)
Are you claiming that Noah was Dr. Who? :) A novel approach to be sure. Though I think he would be more concerned with the slavery and genocide, Dr. Who was strongly against genocide if memory serves.
Such a crazy topic because “literally” nothing else in life gets treated this way. Imagine seeing a Home For Sale sign and wondering whether the house is actually for sale or maybe the sign is pointing to some higher truth. Then repeat for everything on Earth lol
I don’t think I see it the same way. Think about a song or a poem. Nobody would hear every word Michael Jackson sang and think he wasn’t speaking metaphorically at least some percentage of the time.
@@josephfunari6594 yes same as in film and literature the difference being the outcome of entertainment versus religion. Media can inspire, but usually not. Religion sometimes makes sense, but usually not. Very important differences!
@@gking407 At a core level, aren’t pieces of art communicating truth claims? The purpose of telling a child the tortoise and the hare fable isn’t just entertainment, it is to teach the underlying story about the importance of hard work.
Does it make sense to say something can be figuratively (but not literally) true? For example, if I say "God created the world in 7 days", but I *mean* "God created the world in 7 epochs of time*. Maybe this counts as truth-telling (I say x, I believe x figuratively, I want others to believe x figuratively), and what I mean to convey can be true, but the way I've conveyed it is merely figurative, so I'm not sure it makes sense to say the claim itself is true, as the claim is ambiguous - it's literally false, but when taken to me something other than it actually means, that other thing is true. But the conveyance itself isn't true!
I think that does make sense. There are many people that disagree that this is the right way to interpret a given holy text, but it does make sense. If I say "stop pulling my leg" I don't literally mean for you to stop tugging on my foot, I mean something figurative, to stop joking or messing around. It seems phrases like he was crying crocodile tears can have real meaning and be true even if he is not a crocodile. The bigger challenge for the figurativist is not the semantics of the issue, but historical claims that appear to back up the argument that the authors literally believed what they were writing, or the challenge that you can make the text say whatever you want if you call anything you disagree with figurative and anything you agree with literal.
As an atheist who comes from a family with 3 generations of atheism my stance on religion probably isn't the most charitable. The way I look at the only way one could take their religion seriously is by taking ALL scripture of it literally. Otherwise you're just treating your religion like a buffet, selectively choosing to believe whatever is most convenient for you and deciding that the parts you don't like are just metaphor or unimportant. Thus, the only people who take their religion fully seriously are those who straight up deny all science that proves their religion wrong or modern ethics that condems horrific acts of barbarity and cruelty. And as as Carneades said, this is quite the bullet to bite. Sadly there isn't much I can or would even want to do with this point of view. As a dutch citizen I don't feel particularly threatened by the religious, and neither do I see any value in confronting the religious with my view on them. I'd rather just live and let live.
I think I'd have to deny P1. P2 I pretty much accept. For P3 I'm skeptical but wouldn't outright deny it; I'll concede that scriptures may have spiritual or other figurative truth (and maybe some but not all literal truth), but I'm not sure that this qualifies "truth" in as strong a sense as in the other claims. I guess I'm some sort of a "soft" figurativist then.
I also find interesting the related question of whether a literal interpretation is meaningfully consistent since words are given meaning by people. This seems especially relevant given that most holy books are read by many people in translation to a language other than the books' language of origin. This seems fairly tangent to the topic of the video though.
Actually, this is a strawman. Biblical literalists argue that the Bible should ALWAYS be taken literally... AS WRITTEN. In other words, the form of grammar used and the context are not to be ignored.
I was raised a literalist, but have matured into a figurtivist. The key realization I have is on historical perspective. Moder day, we are indoctrinated with the scientific method of objective observations with applied logical consequences. Scientific Method is not the mode of thinking in an ancient oral culture (writing and text is limited), which many religions originated in. Does this mean that oral cultures just 'made everything up'? No, but assuming historical uniformity to modes of philosophy is a fallacy.
I am confused. Are you saying that we interpret holy texts literally due to a presiding paradigm driven by science which expects a literal interpretation of everything? If so that is an interesting claim. I think that a challenge is that I am skeptical that there is a right answer, that there is an objective interpretation of any given text. Which is more of a challenge for the underlying idea of a religious text in the first place, if there is no objective interpretation, then what is the point of studying the text?
As an orthodox Muslim, I believe that this “trilemma” is false. Objection to P1: It is a false dichotomy to say scripture is either figurative or literal. Isn’t it possible for the scripture to explicitly mention that the following verse is figurative? It is possible. Furthermore, the prophet and scripture can clarify what is literal and figurative, so there is no need for cherry-picking. In conclusion, P1 is a false dichotomy. Objection to P2: Ignoring the fact that during the Middle Ages theists were at the forefront in philosophy, science, etc., and were inspired by their respected scripture, it is possible that you are being dishonest in interpreting a verse in a False way or taking them out of context (note: I am talking about Islam and don’t know about other religions). Furthermore, you can’t judge a scripture by another moral standard, what if a theist is a DCT? What if moral nihilism is true and there is no such thing as moral or immoral? There is no definitive consensus so far surrounding meta-ethics. However, I did like the discussion in the video, Thanks!
The first thing that we must look at is what do we mean by a literal meaning? Is it the meaning set initially to the words ? Or is it the meaning that is set by the usage of the word? I think that any text should be understood upon the laws of logic, laws of language and the context and property of the text itself, For the case when we can understand the text in both non metaphorical meaning and metaphorical meaning according to the language properties, then we have to look at logic , if there's no problem in the "non metaphorical meaning " then we go to the understanding of the first people whom accepted the text ! For the claim of contradiction with ethics, ethics is something relativistic! For the claim of contradiction with science, this can be looked in the following way Let's consider a holy book that is believed to be 100% from God - the paragraph A is understood in the B way - the science says C If B and C are not contradictory positions, then no problem If B And C are contradictory positions then: If B is the only way to understand A , and C is true 100% then A is false If B is the only way to understand A, and C is considered to be true but with a place to doubt, then B is to be taken true not C If B is not the only way to understand A, and C is 100% true then A must be understood as C if possible! If B is not the only way to understand A, and C is considered true with doubt, then that an open area to search
@@Lamster66 As for my personal position of believing that the Bible has been manipulated by the writers for generations, but I believe that it contains some original parts that are not manipulated! The idea of more reasonable is not in itself reasonable, as for the miracle by definition is the event that goes against the laws of nature ( not the laws of logic ) As for example the Virgin Mary has begotten her son Jesus without a father The Jews claimed that she committed a sin , because according to their knowledge and everyone else that getting a child without a father is impossible according to the laws of nature! So there is no relationship with science here it's not something discoveredin the last century! Even Mary herself didn't accept the idea that she will has a child without a father! But if we look at logic, there is no impossibility in that events, it's just that we are not used to it ! It's called a miracle! If miracles were possible in the laws of nature then they are not called miracles in the first place! Another important thing, is that the sources of knowledge are three Mind , and senses and the narration of a truth teller Mind is tested with logic Senses are tested with experience Narration is tested with the high quantity and quality of roots of narration The logic of a true religion is: The scripture is true because it's from the messenger of God The messenger of God is a true messenger because he is followed with miracles after his claims A miracle is what's not possible in laws of nature A miracle is a sign for the messenger because it's from God for someone claiming that he is messenger ,because God tells the truth
@@Lamster66 reasonable has two usages one for things that are related to experience the other for things possible in mind even if they are not possible in common laws of nature The core debate will not result in anything only if we talk about a saved scripture that is original and claimed to be the word of God , anything other than that is more likely to be worthless The only holy book saved with originality is the Quran, high quality and quantity roots of narrations spread all around the world, the bible is not saved, so debating texts in it will not give any conclusion! I can agree with you about the idea of more likely if we talk about texts claimed to be authored by humans without dictating there original source, or using a not valid source ! or we talk about a text with more one meaning!
I am not a literalist, but the “ethics” part of “false according to science and ethics“ is problematic. For example, taking the Bible literally means how the South instituted slavery, with the slaves being like livestock, was wrong.
So you think slavery and genocide are ok if they are done in the right way? Genocide is ok if you are just killing Amalekites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites? Slavery is ok so long as you treat your slaves well? You can avoid the ethical concern if you accept such claims, but I think few people really think genocide is ever ok, let alone obilgatory. It is a big bullet to bite to encourage genocide.
There is no trilemma. The Bible is in some sense literal, in some sense symbolic, in some sense metaphorical, in some sense poetic, in some sense allegorical. Such has long been recognized and accepted. Nice strawmaning, with a little bit of presentism and chronological snobbery to boot. And of course let’s not forget the false dilemma.
As a literalist, I do deny 2. Why? Because ethics has to be defined by the text and thus both are identical. A religious text claims itself to be universal ethics. An outside ethics is defined by something else, whether another religious text or another subjective method. Science, rightfully understood, does not deny any religious claims, for example, to claim any age of the earth, whether 6000 years or billions of years **requires** time travel to fully be scientific, as the scientific method requires direct observation to confirm the hypothesis' truthfulness, and no confirmation power can be had without actually experiencing things.
If you are a christian and you accept the ethics and text as the same i feel like you run into a problem of grounding ethics at all. How do you know if something is truely not the will of god? If someone is found to have killed their son and you ask them why and they say its because it was a test given to them by god do you accept this? Or if a country engages in genocide to remove a population from a land that they claim is their right from god? It becomes impossible to have any understanding of the word good or moral if the actions of the god that claims to be the archetype are not grounded by those that experience the reality of the moral landscape.
No, Scientists respond to religious assertions with,"PROVE IT. Put your objective evidence up and let's test it and compare it against what we already have and know." Religious CANNOT do that and NEVER HAVE. No Zeus. No Thor. No god's. Ever. LITERALLY EVER in ALL of human history. They've got NOTHING. Just stories. Just traditions and superstitions. Just claim after claim with.... NOTHING. Scientists don't exist to prove the case of the religious FOR them. That's your problem and yours alone. Put up or shut up.
@@Pipes804 but you also run the grounding objection elsewhere and everywhere. Who says your experiences are reliable? For example, the Nazis' experience and anyone else's experience are completely different, and the Nazis honestly thought they were doing the right ethical thing. Also, the video already makes the point that not all literalistic treatments are simplistic. Even the instances you reference aren't the whole picture, because Abraham did not kill Isaac. So the real question is, is a test valid if it was stopped? And the population from the land you speak of that was genocided was committing things like burning children and other horrible things like the sacrifices you mentioned. The more relevant question then in that viewpoint, should a country that practices horrible things be invaded, like, well, again, Nazi Germany. (Of course, one can argue that it is merely propaganda, etc, but the point still stands)
@@SamGarcia the issue is special for christianity. The claim is that morality is affixed to the nature and being of god. If that nature is incapable of being understood then we are left in a state of moral deficit by design. In the case of issacs sacrifice it may be that god would never have allowed it to be actualized and yet do we know that? Jesus was indeed sacrificed. We also do not genocide people groups for the actions of some and even the examples in the bible can hardly be described as true justice unless you want to abandon understanding of the word. I have several questions that i have interest in for classical and fundamentalist theists. I would love to get your take on some of them if you want to talk some more.
I’m a partial literalist when reading the Bible. There are metaphors and figurative language. For example Jesus said that He is the Lamb of God but we all know that this is in reference to Him suffering for us. Atheists hate post below 👇
I think it's fair to say that at least some things in Christian scripture were clearly meant to be taken figuratively. I used to assume that Christian scriptures were intended to be taken literally, unless there was a clear indication to the contrary. This would make sense, I think, if we assume the authors wanted their message to be understood, but we can't necessarily assume that. The authors may have wanted to keep their knowledge within a select group, not making it plain in their writing, but rather using their writings as a mnemonic device for esoteric knowledge. Examples of what are now believed to be formerly esoteric knowledge that has since come to light include the Jewish name for God, "Yahweh", considered too sacred to be widely known, Polynesian religious beliefs about Io, and Scientology texts revealed only to select members.
I am a figurativist, which means I reject the first premise that scripture should be taken literally. However, what does it mean for something to be literal anyway? I'll take that literalism means that scriptures should be taken according to the most common usage of the meaning of the words of scripture. So whatever the scripture says, we must follow the most common usage of the words of the scripture, if it says to commit genocide, then we must commit genocide. However, literalism is problematic as if all scripture is interpreted according to the most common usage of the words, then it results in self-contradiction. If we are to accept that scripture is true, then literalism must be false, also including the fact that literalism stands condemned by science and secular ethics (I mean the acceptance of the second premise). Considering the truth of scripture, we must accept that there are parts of scripture which meaning is derived from the most common usage of the words i.e. literal, and there are parts of scripture which meaning is not derived from the most common usage of the words, instead it points towards a less common usage, i.e. figurative. Now how do we determine which is literal and figurative? There are 2 ways, eisegesis and exegesis. Eisegesis means to read the scripture according to what we believe, and exegesis means to read the scripture as the author means. Eisegesis is easy, but exegesis delivers the true meaning of the scripture even if it requires greater work in interpreting the scripture as one may be required to examine the historical context of that scripture. Now how does one perform exegesis? The answer is exegesis is often not done alone, but in groups of people, for example, the Church. To which point that it is possible that the intepretation of scripture becomes social eisegesis, but the synthesis of a group of people's beliefs is closer to the truth than the private and personal thoughts of a single man. That is all I have to say.
Big part of the video assumes the Bible deals mainly with propositions. It also seems to assume a modern reading or understanding the Bible according to modern assumptions about writing biographies, history, and narratives. So what’s the trilemma of modern, enlightenment, post-modern, deconstructionist, etc… ideological critiques;)
If you are claiming that a particular holy text should not be read as stating facts, but as a story, parable, or set of commands, you are falling clearly into the figurativist camp. That is not to say that you are wrong, you can certainly make the case that modern sensibilities are more prone to literalist interpretations, but that is not an assumption of the video, but rather one of the premises you can deny in the argument. It does pose more problems for the ethical claims in holy texts, as these are not propositions but commands to commit genocide, slavery, or rape. You might blame our modern sensibilities for thinking that genocide is wrong, but that still makes you committed to the claim that genocide is ok (which will get you thrown out of most dinner parties).
Without the speaker (god) to adjudicate if our interpretations of the utterances align with gods intentions, any claim on the correct interpretation is on a par with an anthetical interpretation. Theres nothing justifictory about assuming your interpretation is right prima facie
We should understand the texts in the contexts they were written in, which means using historical evidence to figure out what the authors were trying to do with their words. That means we can't just pick and choose which parts we want, and have to take things that were meant literally, literally, but also allows for thees complex multi-sourced historical amalgams to contain different kinds of literature to be taken in different ways.
And regardless of how they are interpreted, the contents of such holy books are pretty much categorically either false, uncontroversially true (i.e. even the irreligious would agree), or literally meaningless.
I think it is hard to judge holy texts in the minds of the writers as, if religions are correct, those writers are writing the word of a deity, and it is unclear what that deity was thinking, or rather there is no context we could learn about to discover what they were thinking. Which leads to everyone having their own interpretation of what a given "god" meant, because they imagine that deity to be like them, since there can be no historical evidence to the contrary as such a deity is supposedly outside of time.
This leads to serious mental gymnastics when dealing with particularly immoral or inaccurate passages, where someone takes one section as literal because they agree with it and another as figurative because they disagree with it. When you know nothing about the supposed author, you can make up anything.
The scientific theory about how many animals can fit on a boat :D
I am solidly in the Apostate camp.
The problem with holy texts lies not in how they are interpreted, but that they must be.
6:00 Obviously the boat is bigger on the inside.
or an exact reading of the Bible shows that Noah only took the general categories of animals, not every species. (Plus all fish and insects were exempt, which cuts down a lot)
@@SamGarcia I'm sympathetic to species being an artificial concept (less so to the rapid mutations required to have a sustainable not-inbreed population), but doing the math is still a worthy goal, if only to appreciate Noah as a miracle.
(Also, not saving insects and plants seems like a good way to doom an ecosystem...)
Are you claiming that Noah was Dr. Who? :) A novel approach to be sure. Though I think he would be more concerned with the slavery and genocide, Dr. Who was strongly against genocide if memory serves.
Such a crazy topic because “literally” nothing else in life gets treated this way.
Imagine seeing a Home For Sale sign and wondering whether the house is actually for sale or maybe the sign is pointing to some higher truth. Then repeat for everything on Earth lol
I don’t think I see it the same way. Think about a song or a poem. Nobody would hear every word Michael Jackson sang and think he wasn’t speaking metaphorically at least some percentage of the time.
@@josephfunari6594 yes same as in film and literature the difference being the outcome of entertainment versus religion. Media can inspire, but usually not. Religion sometimes makes sense, but usually not. Very important differences!
@@gking407 At a core level, aren’t pieces of art communicating truth claims? The purpose of telling a child the tortoise and the hare fable isn’t just entertainment, it is to teach the underlying story about the importance of hard work.
Does it make sense to say something can be figuratively (but not literally) true?
For example, if I say "God created the world in 7 days", but I *mean* "God created the world in 7 epochs of time*. Maybe this counts as truth-telling (I say x, I believe x figuratively, I want others to believe x figuratively), and what I mean to convey can be true, but the way I've conveyed it is merely figurative, so I'm not sure it makes sense to say the claim itself is true, as the claim is ambiguous - it's literally false, but when taken to me something other than it actually means, that other thing is true. But the conveyance itself isn't true!
I think that does make sense. There are many people that disagree that this is the right way to interpret a given holy text, but it does make sense. If I say "stop pulling my leg" I don't literally mean for you to stop tugging on my foot, I mean something figurative, to stop joking or messing around. It seems phrases like he was crying crocodile tears can have real meaning and be true even if he is not a crocodile. The bigger challenge for the figurativist is not the semantics of the issue, but historical claims that appear to back up the argument that the authors literally believed what they were writing, or the challenge that you can make the text say whatever you want if you call anything you disagree with figurative and anything you agree with literal.
Idk there are some pretty big boats out there
Big enough to condone genocide and slavery? Oops wrong objection, I mean how did the kangaroos and penguins get there? :)
As an atheist who comes from a family with 3 generations of atheism my stance on religion probably isn't the most charitable. The way I look at the only way one could take their religion seriously is by taking ALL scripture of it literally. Otherwise you're just treating your religion like a buffet, selectively choosing to believe whatever is most convenient for you and deciding that the parts you don't like are just metaphor or unimportant.
Thus, the only people who take their religion fully seriously are those who straight up deny all science that proves their religion wrong or modern ethics that condems horrific acts of barbarity and cruelty. And as as Carneades said, this is quite the bullet to bite.
Sadly there isn't much I can or would even want to do with this point of view. As a dutch citizen I don't feel particularly threatened by the religious, and neither do I see any value in confronting the religious with my view on them. I'd rather just live and let live.
I think I'd have to deny P1. P2 I pretty much accept. For P3 I'm skeptical but wouldn't outright deny it; I'll concede that scriptures may have spiritual or other figurative truth (and maybe some but not all literal truth), but I'm not sure that this qualifies "truth" in as strong a sense as in the other claims. I guess I'm some sort of a "soft" figurativist then.
I also find interesting the related question of whether a literal interpretation is meaningfully consistent since words are given meaning by people. This seems especially relevant given that most holy books are read by many people in translation to a language other than the books' language of origin. This seems fairly tangent to the topic of the video though.
Actually, this is a strawman. Biblical literalists argue that the Bible should ALWAYS be taken literally... AS WRITTEN. In other words, the form of grammar used and the context are not to be ignored.
I was raised a literalist, but have matured into a figurtivist. The key realization I have is on historical perspective. Moder day, we are indoctrinated with the scientific method of objective observations with applied logical consequences. Scientific Method is not the mode of thinking in an ancient oral culture (writing and text is limited), which many religions originated in. Does this mean that oral cultures just 'made everything up'? No, but assuming historical uniformity to modes of philosophy is a fallacy.
I am confused. Are you saying that we interpret holy texts literally due to a presiding paradigm driven by science which expects a literal interpretation of everything? If so that is an interesting claim.
I think that a challenge is that I am skeptical that there is a right answer, that there is an objective interpretation of any given text. Which is more of a challenge for the underlying idea of a religious text in the first place, if there is no objective interpretation, then what is the point of studying the text?
As an orthodox Muslim, I believe that this “trilemma” is false.
Objection to P1: It is a false dichotomy to say scripture is either figurative or literal. Isn’t it possible for the scripture to explicitly mention that the following verse is figurative? It is possible. Furthermore, the prophet and scripture can clarify what is literal and figurative, so there is no need for cherry-picking. In conclusion, P1 is a false dichotomy.
Objection to P2: Ignoring the fact that during the Middle Ages theists were at the forefront in philosophy, science, etc., and were inspired by their respected scripture, it is possible that you are being dishonest in interpreting a verse in a False way or taking them out of context (note: I am talking about Islam and don’t know about other religions). Furthermore, you can’t judge a scripture by another moral standard, what if a theist is a DCT? What if moral nihilism is true and there is no such thing as moral or immoral? There is no definitive consensus so far surrounding meta-ethics.
However, I did like the discussion in the video, Thanks!
Is it meant to be written as figurtivist? Or is that a typo?
The first thing that we must look at is what do we mean by a literal meaning?
Is it the meaning set initially to the words ?
Or is it the meaning that is set by the usage of the word?
I think that any text should be understood upon the laws of logic, laws of language and the context and property of the text itself,
For the case when we can understand the text in both non metaphorical meaning and metaphorical meaning according to the language properties, then we have to look at logic , if there's no problem in the "non metaphorical meaning " then we go to the understanding of the first people whom accepted the text !
For the claim of contradiction with ethics, ethics is something relativistic!
For the claim of contradiction with science, this can be looked in the following way
Let's consider a holy book that is believed to be 100% from God
- the paragraph A is understood in the B way
- the science says C
If B and C are not contradictory positions, then no problem
If B And C are contradictory positions then:
If B is the only way to understand A , and C is true 100% then A is false
If B is the only way to understand A, and C is considered to be true but with a place to doubt, then B is to be taken true not C
If B is not the only way to understand A, and C is 100% true then A must be understood as C if possible!
If B is not the only way to understand A, and C is considered true with doubt, then that an open area to search
@@Lamster66
As for my personal position of believing that the Bible has been manipulated by the writers for generations, but I believe that it contains some original parts that are not manipulated!
The idea of more reasonable is not in itself reasonable, as for the miracle by definition is the event that goes against the laws of nature ( not the laws of logic )
As for example the Virgin Mary has begotten her son Jesus without a father
The Jews claimed that she committed a sin , because according to their knowledge and everyone else that getting a child without a father is impossible according to the laws of nature!
So there is no relationship with science here it's not something discoveredin the last century!
Even Mary herself didn't accept the idea that she will has a child without a father!
But if we look at logic, there is no impossibility in that events, it's just that we are not used to it !
It's called a miracle!
If miracles were possible in the laws of nature then they are not called miracles in the first place!
Another important thing, is that the sources of knowledge are three
Mind , and senses and the narration of a truth teller
Mind is tested with logic
Senses are tested with experience
Narration is tested with the high quantity and quality of roots of narration
The logic of a true religion is:
The scripture is true because it's from the messenger of God
The messenger of God is a true messenger because he is followed with miracles after his claims
A miracle is what's not possible in laws of nature
A miracle is a sign for the messenger because it's from God for someone claiming that he is messenger ,because God tells the truth
@@Lamster66
reasonable has two usages
one for things that are related to experience
the other for things possible in mind even if they are not possible in common laws of nature
The core debate will not result in anything only if we talk about a saved scripture that is original and claimed to be the word of God , anything other than that is more likely to be worthless
The only holy book saved with originality is the Quran, high quality and quantity roots of narrations spread all around the world, the bible is not saved, so debating texts in it will not give any conclusion!
I can agree with you about the idea of more likely if we talk about texts claimed to be authored by humans without dictating there original source, or using a not valid source !
or we talk about a text with more one meaning!
I am not a literalist, but the “ethics” part of “false according to science and ethics“ is problematic. For example, taking the Bible literally means how the South instituted slavery, with the slaves being like livestock, was wrong.
So you think slavery and genocide are ok if they are done in the right way? Genocide is ok if you are just killing Amalekites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites? Slavery is ok so long as you treat your slaves well? You can avoid the ethical concern if you accept such claims, but I think few people really think genocide is ever ok, let alone obilgatory. It is a big bullet to bite to encourage genocide.
There is no trilemma. The Bible is in some sense literal, in some sense symbolic, in some sense metaphorical, in some sense poetic, in some sense allegorical. Such has long been recognized and accepted. Nice strawmaning, with a little bit of presentism and chronological snobbery to boot. And of course let’s not forget the false dilemma.
You do realize that there are many Christians that reject your view, right?
As a literalist, I do deny 2. Why?
Because ethics has to be defined by the text and thus both are identical. A religious text claims itself to be universal ethics. An outside ethics is defined by something else, whether another religious text or another subjective method.
Science, rightfully understood, does not deny any religious claims, for example, to claim any age of the earth, whether 6000 years or billions of years **requires** time travel to fully be scientific, as the scientific method requires direct observation to confirm the hypothesis' truthfulness, and no confirmation power can be had without actually experiencing things.
If you are a christian and you accept the ethics and text as the same i feel like you run into a problem of grounding ethics at all. How do you know if something is truely not the will of god? If someone is found to have killed their son and you ask them why and they say its because it was a test given to them by god do you accept this? Or if a country engages in genocide to remove a population from a land that they claim is their right from god?
It becomes impossible to have any understanding of the word good or moral if the actions of the god that claims to be the archetype are not grounded by those that experience the reality of the moral landscape.
No, Scientists respond to religious assertions with,"PROVE IT. Put your objective evidence up and let's test it and compare it against what we already have and know."
Religious CANNOT do that and NEVER HAVE.
No Zeus. No Thor. No god's. Ever. LITERALLY EVER in ALL of human history. They've got NOTHING. Just stories. Just traditions and superstitions. Just claim after claim with.... NOTHING. Scientists don't exist to prove the case of the religious FOR them. That's your problem and yours alone. Put up or shut up.
@@Pipes804 but you also run the grounding objection elsewhere and everywhere. Who says your experiences are reliable? For example, the Nazis' experience and anyone else's experience are completely different, and the Nazis honestly thought they were doing the right ethical thing.
Also, the video already makes the point that not all literalistic treatments are simplistic. Even the instances you reference aren't the whole picture, because Abraham did not kill Isaac. So the real question is, is a test valid if it was stopped?
And the population from the land you speak of that was genocided was committing things like burning children and other horrible things like the sacrifices you mentioned. The more relevant question then in that viewpoint, should a country that practices horrible things be invaded, like, well, again, Nazi Germany. (Of course, one can argue that it is merely propaganda, etc, but the point still stands)
@@SamGarcia the issue is special for christianity.
The claim is that morality is affixed to the nature and being of god. If that nature is incapable of being understood then we are left in a state of moral deficit by design.
In the case of issacs sacrifice it may be that god would never have allowed it to be actualized and yet do we know that? Jesus was indeed sacrificed. We also do not genocide people groups for the actions of some and even the examples in the bible can hardly be described as true justice unless you want to abandon understanding of the word.
I have several questions that i have interest in for classical and fundamentalist theists. I would love to get your take on some of them if you want to talk some more.
That is not how science works.
I’m a partial literalist when reading the Bible. There are metaphors and figurative language. For example Jesus said that He is the Lamb of God but we all know that this is in reference to Him suffering for us. Atheists hate post below 👇
I think it's fair to say that at least some things in Christian scripture were clearly meant to be taken figuratively. I used to assume that Christian scriptures were intended to be taken literally, unless there was a clear indication to the contrary. This would make sense, I think, if we assume the authors wanted their message to be understood, but we can't necessarily assume that. The authors may have wanted to keep their knowledge within a select group, not making it plain in their writing, but rather using their writings as a mnemonic device for esoteric knowledge.
Examples of what are now believed to be formerly esoteric knowledge that has since come to light include the Jewish name for God, "Yahweh", considered too sacred to be widely known, Polynesian religious beliefs about Io, and Scientology texts revealed only to select members.