That's right. When Biblical passages are nonsense believers tell us it's not to be taken literally. How about the geocentric model, for instance. Is the Earth the center of the universe of not? The writers of the Bible were clueless, plain and simple..

When I was in Sunday school, around ten years old, I was told the Bible tells us the Jews are the Chosen People of God. Who wrote the book, I asked the nun. She answered me emphatically, "The Jews."

Yes, but while still claiming that the words are writen/inspired by god, and that therefore although they interpreted by them, they still have more authority than the ideas of secular people. A great case of having your cake and eating it.

@Matias Of course man-made texts are subject to interpretation. Divinely originated texts are not, unless you believe that God is intentionally devious and malevolent.

@PBuck0145 Or you believe the texts are part of the human search for divinity rather then the divinity communicating to humans. It makes little sense to me the statement that they are not open to interpretation as everyone who reads or speaks of religious texts with authority are interpreting it for their own reasons and often gain. Who gets to claim the mantle of exclusive authority and translation? And if there is a intelligence intrinsic to the Universe why would it be so petty as to communicate in such a limited way that is so open to abuse and alteration? If there is a divinity it would I think have no need or interest in pandering to us. Rather the onus in on us to find, explore and reach out to it. Religious people are all such arrogant creatures to think we are so special a universe spanning intelligence hangs on our fate. Science and reason are the only true and useful ways to explore what religion calls creation. Irrelevant to the existence of God it is, has been and will continue to be our only tool of value to understanding anything.

@Matias one need only dissect a lie to see who benefits from it.

Atheists know full well that the texts need to be interpreted - that's why there are so many different religions based on the same shoddy texts - interpretation .

What point, excately, are you trying to make with your broad stereotyping, anyways?

Frodo lives!

But the certainty is different; the theist is certain that his magic beliefs are true, while the atheist is certain that he understands the laws of nature. The theist is using faith to make something true and the atheist has faith that his knowledge is true

@AwarenessNow
Yes. It helps people form identities, and know which tribe they belong to, whether it has anything to do with factual reality or not.

You can do that, learn a lot and have a great deal of fun doing so. But unfortunately I do not think that is the way most religious people view it, or that this post is intended, because I do not think that it is enough to defend the use of a certain limited number of texts as special. You can for example learn a lot reading Shakespeare that way but there is no justification in the view that the King James written a short while after deserves more respect. (And I don't think it is as good.)

@Fernapple I agree. Actually Shakespeare probably is a superior source of insight.

I think what matias is saying is that whatever religious tract we are reading, for any meaning to be gained it has to be read with liberal interpretations. Many atheists are hypercritical of anything that smacks of religion, and they tend to wholly reject a book if there are statements that seem untrue with a literal interpretation.

Because taking art and symbolsim seriously means, taking a personal interpretation of the art or symbolism and trying to claim that it therefore has more authority than secular ideas. Since although interpretation is really only the thoughts of the individual, it is sanctified by art/religion which are supposed to have priviledged access to truth. Although both are actually vague ways of expressing things and therefore unlikely to be accurate.

@Fernapple
Truth, beauty, pleasure, pain, etc. are all pretty slippery concepts, but to not take them seriously just because they can't be reliably expressed accurately is to not take life seriously.

@skado Yes but there are many books that give truth , beauty, pain etc. without being vague, and I do not dimiss any text merely because it is vague, (Shakespeare is vague and wonderful,) I only say that it is not good to give a text privileged status because it is vague and therefore enables flexible interpretation which can be used for dishonest intent. (See my answer to William Fleming above.)

And if you take life seriously then you do not play dishonest games with the truth, while since words are themselves abstractions I have never encountered an idea which could not be expressed plainly using them if the author has enough talent and care.

@skado, @hankster Yes but there are many books that give truth , beauty, pain etc. without being vague, and I do not dimiss any text merely because it is vague, (Shakespeare is vague and wonderful,) I only say that it is not good to give a text privileged status because it is vague and therefore enables flexible interpretation which can be used for dishonest intent. (See my answer to William Fleming above.)

And if you take life seriously then you do not play dishonest games with the truth, while since words are themselves abstractions I have never encountered an idea which could not be expressed plainly using them if the author has enough talent and care.

@hankster Any truth or even falsehood there is nothing which can not be expresssed plainly using words, since they are abstractions, and if you have to you can always invent new words. Remember being vague to pose a profound is the oldest cheap circus trick in the book.

@hankster Not at all, it means that you may put your own interpretation on anything, and may find texts which suit that use, but if you really want to find truth and widen your view, then you must attend to an authors own intentions. Because they are what someone else has to say, and the best authors who really have something worthwhile to say, will try their best to make it understandable to as many as possible, that is the nature of having something worthwhile to say.

@hankster Yes that is true, and certainly good art is never vague, which is probably where taste comes in.

@Fernapple
I don’t favor dishonesty... or certainty that I understand anything that appears vague to me.

@Matias Like Billy Joel said, you may be right....

@IamNobody He also said

“Son, can you play me a memory
I'm not really sure how it goes”. (The Piano Man)

Just as pertinent when discussing texts that are more than 1500 years old.

@Geoffrey51 ha ha ha... I could but "it's sad and it's sweet and I knew it complete when I wore a youngster man's clothes"

@IamNobody I'd rather read the Bible than listen to Billy Joel

@Count_Viceroy Wow.... Just wow (This very comment of mine has nothing to do with musical taste)

@Matias I said the vast majority of the religious. The erudite few are merely trying to have their cake and eat it too. They want to be considered both religious and enlightened.

@Matias Your personal attack does not contradict anything I said.

“These stories were always intended to be believed literally by the vast majority of religious teachers throughout history.”

Facts, of course, are not determined democratically. It matters not what any teacher or practitioner believed, even if the vote were unanimous. Anthropologists see that major components of all religions, many isolated from each other for thousands of years of early development, tell essentially the same stories. The nature of myth is known to be a universal emergent property of the mind of H.sapiens, and to carry symbolic representations of human drives and psychology. No matter what religious teachers and followers think, scientists have known for a very long time that religious imagery comes from the subconscious of H.sapiens, and has metaphorical interpretations that are universal and consistent across time and across cultures.

Nature never “intended” them to be taken literally, and ‘twas she who made them.

A quick study of history shows it is conservatives who "interpreted" texts to suit their agendas. Think of the abortion debate. Neither Testament mentions abortion but conservatives have decided "thou shall not kill" (or as they now want "thou shall not murder" because that allows them to justify wars of aggression and the death penalty) includes zygotes and they've decided life begins at conception in spite of Biblical teachings.

@skado Yes but I can not see that your two comments which seem to form an argument really address the same issue at all. The study of myth in order to understand human nature and parts of the human condition which are common across all cultures and history is one thing. Using those myths to supposedly give extra authority to interpretations of the human condition made by the interpreter is quite another.

Yes but I can not see that your two comments which seem to form an argument really address the same issue at all. The study of myth in order to understand human nature and parts of the human condition which are common across all cultures and history is one thing. Using those myths, which I think is what you mean, to supposedly give extra authority to interpretations of the human condition made by the interpreter is quite another.

@Fernapple
I haven’t made an appeal to authority. I’m just agreeing with Matias that scriptures need to be interpreted in light of history (and science), rather than being taken at face value. Neither the original post nor I have recommended using myths to give extra authority to particular interpretations of the human condition. Insight maybe, but never authority. The extra weight, or “authority” if that word is to be used, goes to the better scholarly practices rather than to any individual interpreter or interpretation. The perspectives of history and science are critical to any interpretation of ancient texts. They cannot be understood by the same mindset one would use to read a book written in our lifetime.

@skado Yes having read your posts for some time I feel sure that is true, and I have no problem with the study of mythology in the library. (I have done it, and of course you can study more and more quickly there.) My problem is with those people who attend chuches etc. supporting those institutions and helping to normalize faith, all of which can be damaging to more vunerable people and society as a whole, while confessing no belief, in other words merely to indulge their selfish interest in childish ritual. My conscience at least could not live with that.

( Yes of course we all go for weddings and funerals because of community, but other than that, you can get community from working in a charity shop and make a real worthwhile difference.)

@Fernapple
It’s true, people don’t generally go to church to study mythology, but they do go to church to live the mythology, and there is a benefit inherent in that act, in addition to the hazard that you and I are concerned about. It’s easy for us to see the hazard, but not so easy to see the benefit. To see the potential benefits one must either know, quite intimately, individuals whose lives are clearly buoyed for the better by their faith, even though they never proselytize or even talk about it, OR you must get at it academically through the study of myth, religion, psychology, anthropology, history, literature, art, etc. Only then can you understand what good a faith practice can do that other community activities cannot. Faith is not synonymous with bad faith, or corrupt faith, or popular faith, or imitation faith. While those get the headlines, and make money for Harris and Dawkins, and may well comprise the majority, they are not all there is.

@skado It has to be admitted, that in a world in which everyone who went to church/synagoge/mosque/temple only did so for community and the enjoyment of practicing mythology ritually, then there would little harm in religion, but while the churches also contain many who will be deluded into literal belief there is always still potential for harm. So that I have to ask, firstly can we ever reach a state where all who go to church go there only for community or will it always be a mixture, and secondly do we have to admit that no other way of creating community will ever exist ?

@Fernapple
Well, I think the first answer is easy: No. I can’t imagine a time when all humans will do anything in perfect unison. But I do think a general cultural shift is possible, if only because the history books are full of them. The second question may be a little more complicated. I’ll start by suggesting that “community” may not be the only thing some people maintain a practice for. Practice, after all, is something one does to build skill. So what skill is a religious practitioner (assuming the best) building? I think they are building the skill of taming their “demons” (psychological conflicts) and training their “spirits” (attitudes) how to embrace the unnatural task of maintaining goodwill toward large groups of strangers (which is necessary for life in a civilized society). So. Sure, we could transfer that kind of training to an office building instead of a church, and we could call the teachers facilitators instead of priests, and we could call the organization a Societal Training Center instead of a religious institution, but I don’t think Pliestocene Homo sapiens, short of becoming feral, will ever be without the need (as a group; not necessarily every individual) of special, regular training of some description, to counterbalance the evolutionary mismatch caused by the agricultural revolution and the onset of civilization. What does need to change is that people need to be educated out of the antiquated superstitious explanations, and come to understand that scientific explanations actually serve the same purpose even better.

@skado I think that that is a good and useful summation. Though the reservation that I am left with, is the thought that. If, "they are building the skill of taming their “demons” (psychological conflicts) and training their “spirits” (attitudes) how to embrace the unnatural task of maintaining goodwill toward large groups of strangers (which is necessary for life in a civilized society)." Then does it not seem sad that a lot of religious teaching is concerned with the business of opposing open mindedness, and maintaining closed minds. Which is exactly the opposite of what is wanted, I would have thought.

@Fernapple
Yes, it’s very sad, not to mention destructive. I do think an altogether unacceptable percentage of believers, as well as teachers have missed the point, or are at least poor practitioners of the faith they claim. But it’s not hard to find the seeds of the plan I outlined in their scripture. So somebody, or a group of somebodies over the generations, evolved a powerful mythological vehicle for maintaining social cohesion, which functioned at two levels. Deep practitioners understood the symbolic meanings of the stories, but the less educated masses could only take them as literal truth. In both cases it served social cohesion, until science came along and made the literal interpretations untenable. But just because our car has three flat tires doesn’t mean the wise thing to do is throw the car away and go back to walking. New tires would be smarter. Science only opposes the superstitious explanations of natural phenomena (which were the best they could come up with at the time). Science does not deny that the human mind evolved in an environment that is now radically changed by the invention of civilization, and that this constitutes a dangerous evolutionary mismatch, which is the most common killer of species, or that religion was and is a major ballast against this kind of extinction threat. We can call it any name we like, and it desperately needs to be brought up to scientific standards, but we are not free of the need of that ballast. We are not born with an innate talent for functioning in herds that number in the millions. We have to train ourselves and our offspring how to do that. The only thing better than a fictional story to do that would be a true story, but the training must continue, if we are not to go feral or destroy ourselves completely. Science tells us what is. Religion, in its uncorrupted form, tells us how to live in outsized, stationary herds.

@skado Yes but whether it is a good thing or not, religion, due to the conflict between the age of reason and literal belief, is fading fast, at least in the west. At the end of the day what good can a few die hard mythologists do to create community, while sitting in the corner of a vast empty room sentimentally telling stories to no one but themselves.

And to some degree they will have only themselves to blame. In the age of universal education the failure to educate that no longer great uneducated mass of people, into a higher allegoric understanding, lies entirely at their door. Whether it is fuelled by laziness, class prejudice or the corrupt wish to obtain power and wealth by deluding the more vulnerable members of society, it still leads inexorably to decline.

Your first sentence is an oxymoron! Only the writer knows whether or not she is speaking literally!

@Gmak Yes but with old religious texts you can be reasonably sure, if only because in those days not taking it literally would have been fatal.

@Allamanda Yes but most have been rewritten many times, and it is unlikely that at least several of those rewrittings did not occur at times when religious powers enforced litteral understanding with violence, even if the very earliest penning was allegorical. Although even that is to be doubted since many of them were simply written versions of spoken stories which came down from truly credulus ages. And remember that until the beginings of secular philosophy there were no other world views available other than the religious, so that even those writtting allegoy must have known that it would be taken by many as litteral. Having said which, it is in any case the job of those who wish to suppose allegorical origins to prove that, if they do not wish to claim that their allegorical interpretation is not just their own invention, the burden of proof in that case is with them.

I do not mind any games being played with texts, or historical study, it is only when people claim that their views are "religion" and therefore have the extra authority coming from either the supernatural or are hallowed tradition, if such a thing is possible, and are thereby better than secular ideals. Especially when they do that within religious communities, where their support for those view points helps to nomalize supernatural belief, and and lends weight to the authority of churches etc. especially in the minds of more vunerable people and with all the evils that go with that.

It is the immature failing to face up to the concequences of what their support does in the wider religious community, that I find so deplorable in the moderates and the none believing religious, and which almost make me prefer the fundamentaists however extreme.

@Allamanda All of that is true yes. But it does not mean that at some stage every text may not have passed through the hands of literal writers, or that someone today can assume allegory based on no evidence.

@Allamanda No you certainly can not asume literalism either, we live in a world of probabilities.

I think they did write in plain language and they intended it to be taken literally, but it suffered many rewritings some good some bad, and then has interpretations forced on it from above.