i have often thought that perhaps God influnced people to create up these fabulous stories such as Moses Parts the Waters, Genesis and Noah’s Ark…at that time period…tall tales attracted people…this could bring people to the faith…as time went on and people began to believe more and more (after Christ)...the Bible became more literal…(the New Testament has no fantastic stories that i can think of…aside from Christs Miracles)
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The Bible is the Word of God, and is MORE than literally true66% Voted for by Energizer Bunny, Evets.
Any serious biblical scholar or heck, even a second year bible college student can tell you that you must interpert the bible literally – but not ONLY literally, and not ALL the time. Clearly, when Jesus said “I am the bread of life” he wasn’t one of those crazy people who think they’re a gourd, (or in this case a loaf of bread) no he was using a metaphor. But conversely, when it says “This is a letter from Paul, Timothy. We are writing to the church in Thessolonica…” (1 Thessalonians 1:1) it is (obviously) not speaking meatphorically.
Know what to interpert as metaphor and what to take literally is a what occupies good chunk of biblical interpertation. A good rule to go by is that it can’t mean what it doesn’t say, (You can’t go from “So truly Christ has set us free” to “we are still bound to our sin”) but it’s not limited to the literal (you would never interpert the line from the psalms “the waters are up to my neck” to mean that there is actually water around the author as he writes, and it’s up to his neck.)
Certainly, as literature, the Bible contains truth. It is Mythological in the Tolkenian sense of the world – not false, but rather true on a different level. Even if you don’t accept the Bible as the Inerrant Word of God, you can still appreciate it as a great peice of literature. To say that it is wholly false on every level is obviously not true. At the very least, it contains SOME truth as a great peice of literature.
This may be somewhat of a rebellious statement for a Chrsitain, but the Bible’s truth is not found in the literal interpertation. That’s just what’s on the surface. You need to do deeper to find truth. I’m not saying that events in the Bible never happened (I believe they did), I’m saying that’s next to irrelevant. What is by FAR more important is the truth therein.
Sola gloria dei, Steve
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The Bible is not the word of GodVoted for by sureshdogra.
The Bible is not the word of God.It is the word of primitive tribals and has hardly any relevance to today’s world and life.It is the product of the pre-scientific mind.In quality it doesn’t rise to the level of the best writers like Shakespeare and Tolstoy.It doesn’t have the intellectual grandeur of Plato Einstein.It had best be treated as a relic of the past of mankind.
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Adding your comment: -
Sounds like a whole lot of opinion to me...now what sort of actual reasoning could you offer if I simply said "I disagree" and then proceeded to assert the exact opposite of everything you just said?
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"primitive"? "pre-scientific?" Sounds like nothing more that the arrogant enlightenment attitude. Might I add that Plato is also "pre-scientific", as were many, many other great classics of society and literature. Society did not begin with the enlightenment. To reject something simply because it's old is completly irrational! As for it's quality, thousands of biblical scholar disagree. Might I be so bold as to point out that the bible is the best selling book EVER? It is a unique collection of narrative, apocalyptic literature, poetry, prophetic narrative, and a few other genres or writing, and is unequaled by any other work in it's vast variety, and yet it still provides consistent themes throughout it's whole. Oh, and I guess you don't consider the basis of western law relevant to our life. Nor, apparently, the moral and ethical thought, or the spiritual basis of one of the world's biggest religion. But I guess all you meant was "hardly relevant to ME" - since millions of people happen to disagree. Please offer arguments not religious bashing. I don't appreciate it.
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"Might I be so bold as to point out that the bible is the best selling book EVER?" What’s your point? Most books filled with violence and sex sell well and that is exactly what the bible mainly consists of. The bible might have its good points, but they are outweighed by all the horrible and grotesque things which also go on at the command of "god" I do not consider the bible an ethical basis, nor do I think the -millions of people- that you cited are very well read in the bible... I do not regard happiness as dashing little ones into stones psalms 137:9- for a more complete list of all the morals which I do not agree with in the bible please check out: http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/cruelty/long.html http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/int/long.html http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/fv/long.html http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/women/long.html http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/sex/long.htm And that's just for starters Not many acclaimed writers contradict themselves within their own book but the bible contradicts itself numerous times. Of the ten commandments there are only a few of them which can apply to today’s society, some of them directly violate the freedoms given by the constitution of the United sates... but of the ones which are used, not one of them is original. As for Christianity being the world’s biggest religion, it is a sad fact. I view Christianity as a virus, akin to Aids although religion (Christianity in specific) spreads more easily and is a lot more dangerous to the human race. The guilt and torment of the religion, the pressing dogmas and the content and daily attacks of your ego on the rest of your mind which all come from Christianity are all psychologically and sociologically detrimental. My sociology teacher is a Nun, has been since she was 15, and even she understands that the religion is sociologically detrimental. If you wish me to clarify I would be more then willing to do so Your poison
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I will absolutely LOVE for you to clarify. Should be rather entertaining to see this fallacious attempt at an absurd analogy :).
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Don't you just LOVE these ignorant people who cry "contradiction"? lol. It's almost funny. It's amazing how people can just regurgitate what someone else said or what they read on a website without thinking about it...
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Alright, I've read over your "list" of so-called bad morals in the Bible, and it's a joke. Whoever wrote that list knows nothing about the Bible, or interperting it. They just went through and picked out the phrases that sound the worst and made a list. ...And I repeat for the billionth time, the heart and soul of the message of the Bible is Love: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your strength... and Love your neighbor as yourself." and "For God loved the world so much that he sent his one and only son so that whoever believes in him may not die, but have eternal life." I suffer no sense of guilt and shame from my faith: rather the opposite. I am freed from my guilt and shame by the knowledge of what God did for me. I find it almost funny that you have the audacity to tell me how I feel about my own religion, and how it affects me. Personally, I'm surprised that you have the guts to tell me that I, my pastors, my closest friends, my teachers and my mom and dad (who has his PhD and is a former pastor who knows his Bible and teaches it) are ALL mistaken, and don't know how to read their bible. I mean, what do I know, I'm only a Bible College student, studying it full-time. And my Dad, what does he know? He's only been studying it all his life. But your sociology teacher who is a nun says that religion is "sociologically detrimental," so of course you're right. *shakes head* sola gloria dei, Steve
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O and to add a bit to Sparky25's point regarding "pre-scientific" .... how about a little new age cult called Scientism to blow your little characterization of religion out of the water? As I've told others on this site, read up on what great atheistic writers say about the Bible and they certainly do not match your opinion. I guess its not really the pre-scientific or primitive, since Tolstoy to speak to a precise example you provide was a Christian. I guess the only conclusion we can draw is that no one has reached the level of intellectual achievement that you have.... I suppose mentally you are just farther up the evolutionary ladder than we are as you dont even honor inferior belief systems that we defend a rational response.
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Plato and the Prophets
To cite Plato and the Bible in the same breath is confused thinking."Scientific" refers to a temper and method also.We find discursive,rational discourse in Plato which is totally absent in the Bible.Plato is the product of the academy,of an environment which had nurtured Pythagoras and Euclid.Classical Greece with its thinkers,philosophers,scientists,dramatists,poets,painters,sculptors,artists has been the nursery of human civilisation.We have learnt from Greece how to think.What was there of comparable quality in Judea?It was a backward land with denuded culture.There is no question of rejecting something that is old.But there is no sense in holding on to something simply because it is old.If the Bible is to be treated as a literary text the quality of which can be determined by the application of literary tenets,which sensble person would object?As far as I know,only Northrop Frye has done it in his Bible as Literature,though in a highly tendentious manner. That the Bible is the best-selling book ever by itself means nothing.The best-selling novels are not necessarily the best.Costain's novel,The Silver Chalice,appeared the same year as Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea.The Silver Chalice topped the list of best-sellers that year whereas Hemingway's Nobel Prize winning novel was at number ten. That it is a unique collection of different genres is a matter of opinion.It is perhaps just a hotch-potch of incoherent writing with some luminosity here and there. About its moral and ethical as well as spiritual content also,the greatest minds of the past two centuries have raised all kinds of questions.Enlightenment project,which you berate,shifted away from the Bible.Conversely,the age which was fully in the grip othe the Bible is called the dark age. I know of no great work of literature that follows the pattern or style of the Bible.Divine Comedy and Paradise Lost have Hebraic elements in them but they don't follow the style or method of the Bible.Homer,Virgil and Tasso are their forebears. Critique of religion is not religion bashing.One of the biggest religions,nay the biggest religion,can afford dissent. Existential theist's sarcasnm is misplaced as an existential atheist who was an infinitely greater intellectual than me,and perhaps than even existential theist himself,namely Sartre,didn't think much of the Bible.Read any good book on the History of the Western Philosophy and you hardly find any mention of the Bible.And can you name some great philosophers who swear by the Bible.Except Thomas Aquinas.But wasn't he an Aristotelian?One Biblical gem one gets from him is dipped in sadism.He says,"One privilege of saved souls in Heaven is that they can gleefully watch the torture of the damned in Hell". "Generation of vipers!"What does that mean in spiritual,moral and ethical terms.Bertrand Russell,a philosopher,found the Buddha and Socrates morally,ethically,spiritually and temperamentally superior to Jesus. Ninety seven per cent Nobel Prize winners in science are atheists.Human intellect and reason has already decided the issue. -
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the rationality of religion
Just because Theology is a supposedly seperate disciple does not mean it's done irrationally. There are people who devote their lives to developing a systematic theology (my dad being one. He's a university professor), and develop what christians believe, in a rational, organized manner. Religion and Reason are not antithetical to each other - they necisarily(sp?) go together. they MUST go together, or else one or the other is incomplete. Systematic theologians have been having rational discourse about the Bible since the first century AD. The subject matter may be different, but it's done no less rationally. Oh and speaking of incoherent writers, haven't you read Kant lately? At least the bible is readable. -
the rationality of religion
Just because Theology is a supposedly seperate disciple does not mean it's done irrationally. There are people who devote their lives to developing a systematic theology (my dad being one. He's a university professor), and develop what christians believe, in a rational, organized manner. Religion and Reason are not antithetical to each other - they necisarily(sp?) go together. they MUST go together, or else one or the other is incomplete. Systematic theologians have been having rational discourse about the Bible since the first century AD. The subject matter may be different, but it's done no less rationally. Oh and speaking of incoherent writers, haven't you read Kant lately? At least the bible is readable. -
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Yes, I read some of Kant
I felt sorry for the poor fellow. How could someone, walk through life so blind to the truth and NOT, feel lost or like half of him is missing? Poor fellow......He is niave and hasn't grown up yet.
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Very interesting sureshdogra...you criticize the appeals to authority used as argument yet make the very same fallacy in citing Bertrand Russell and the Nobel Prize winners. A number would disagree with you on the bit about there being a lack of formulaic reasoning in the Bible-- I find there to be a lot of it. Derrida would be ashamed-- you clearly have already closed your mind to the possibility of humanity keeping an open future with regard to certain belief systems. And no my sarcasm is by no means misplaced, for your value judgments are in fact rather arrogant in referring to the Jewish culture of antiquity as backwards-- I find something rather beautiful in certain aspects of their sense of community. Your general line of reasoning is essentially "this is what I've read and therefore this is all there is". Well you seem to be entirely unaware of the wealth of literature that exist on topics where you find it lacking. I think you were hoping that all participants on here were not particularly well read for your bold assertions to work. My History of the Ancient Near East professor, Robert Drews, who you will find cited in any major comprehensive work on the Levant, Middle East or Anatolia seems to disagree with you on the Bible not being cited in any major history books. As a history major, I have not yet read a comprehensive work that DOES NOT devote a seemingly imbalanced amount of text to the Bible. Citing the Bible and Plato in the same breath is far from confused thinking. Jesus and Socrates carried out their philosophy in very much the same way (this should be obvious), and the realm of Platonic forms are born out of something that transcends physicalism in any sense of the position. I agree that we should not argue against or for something simply because it is old, but shouldnt we apply the same principle to a text's originality (you seem to think its uniqueness in style implies its lack of literary value). I have read much Sartre myself (Being and Nothingness, No Exit, Existentialism is a Humanism, The Flies, and essentially all the rest of his major works) and find little mention of the Bible. I would like to know precisely what Sartre says about the Bible. It's funny that you assert that no philosophers adhered to the Bible, although St. Augustine was far ahead of his time, using in his philosophy a concept of time that was to be taken up much later by Heidegger in Being and Time. Try Marcel and Kirkegaard for Christians in the existential movement alone if you want I could provide quite a list. I wouldnt try to cover the whole map as you do, leaving yourself open for all sorts of fallacies in logic and rather misguided, bold assertions. "Human intellect and reason has already decided the issue". If indeed you belong to this cult of rationalism, how could you honestly believe that?
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My favorite contemporary christian philosopher is Alvin Plantiga. He's quite well known. Published dozens and dozens of articles and books, particularily concering the rational defence of Christianity.
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yea ive been meaning to read him....good to hear he's got fans
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I made absolutely no appeal to authority.I cited Russell and the Nobel Prize winners in response to your derisive remark,"...no one has reached the level of intellectual achievement that you have...",etc.I wanted only to say that I had some good company.Such derision of lesser mortals is usually the hobby of the people in possession of absolute truth handed down to them on an esoteric platter by their papa in the sky in badly composed texts.Even if they don't listen to the papa that they should be meek and don't do what he wants them to do,their ticket to Heaven and its luxuries is booked while those who apply some brain to the mishmash proffered to them for blind faith are to be consigned to the everlasting flames of Hell where almost all the philosophers who have died must be rotting as they,too,found that the Emperor was without clothes. I am indeed an ignoramus because I have to dependent barely upon my reason to sift fact from fiction,sense from nonsense in a bumbling way whereas everything is revealed to the coterie directly by papa at one go.I cited the Nobel Prize winners only to prove that human intellect at its best has dumped the tales told by the delirious.Socrates used to say that he knew nothing and used to puncture the folly of those who claimed to be wise.I have no hesitation in proclaiming my ignarance but I should first be convinced of the wisdom of my teachers lest,caught off my guard,I should imbibe their asininity.What arrogance!What hubris!O God!Forgive them for they know not what they are saying. Yes,my ignorance is indeed abysmal.I had heard only once before from the mouth of the greatest living philosopher,President George W. Bush, that his favorite philosopher was Jesus.Since his grand research into this truth was not endorsed by his peers,I also dismissed it.That Socrates and Jesus philosophised in a similar fashion is a complete revelation to me.Since I am myself not a generator of all knowledge and do not have a pipeline to the papa above,I have to draw heavily upon the accumilated knowledge of mankind.Jesus doesn't stand upto any known definition of a philosopher.I would like you to cite any book on the History of Western Philosophy where I can find a chapter on Jesus as a philosopher.But if it was revealed only to you by an angel in a dream,I may resist buying it,of course,in my obtuseness.The name,address and telephone no. of the angel will be welcome,though. Citing Derrida to defend Jesus is comic.Who has a closed mind?Those who continue to stew within the confines of a single tradition to the exclusioin of all the other traditions or those who have an open mind to the entire heritage of mankind?Do you know that there is such a religion as Buddhism also?How open are you to Buddhist philosophy?You put a lot of premium on numbers,that is,herd mentality.In any case,with China emerging as a superpower,Buddhism may still assert itself in this century and may have the highest number of followers.But you will agree with me that one philosopher may know better than a hundred asses. Misrepresentation is another trick that you use or you don't read what others write.Re-read my post.I nowhere say that the Bible or the middle-east doesn't find any mention in history books.I say that the Bible has no place in any History of Western Philosophy.All I say is that Judea nowhere figures in the annals of the great civilisations of antiquity.Mesopotamia,Egypt,China,India,Greece,Rome,Persia have that honor.Judea was what present day Iraq or Afghanistan or Iran is in comparison with the mighty nations of today.Just as no philosophy,no science,no art,no literature,nothing worthwhile is emerging from these countries,Palestine of antiquity had nothing to contribute to the civilisational march of mankind.The Greeks used to say,"Nothing good can come from Judea."Iraq and Afghanistan have their prophets.But while you will not be ready to accept the effusions of the Ayatollahs as the word of God,you have no hesitation in giving that credit to the Prophets of Israel who were no better placed. Here is an exercise for the beginners.If someone knows a text but doesn't consider it worth his time to bother about it,would we say that he holds it in high esteem?Piaget says that children of eight begin to understand such things.Therefore,let me explain that the very fact that Sartre ignores the Bible in his writings shows that he didn't think it worth much. Yes,Augustine,Aquinas,Kierkegaard,Marcel,Berdyev,Jaspers,Buber,Plantinga....One happens to know them.What about William James,Dewey,Pierce...? I didn't know that faith had undone so many. May I hazard a prophecy of my own?Europe has already discarded religion(by and large).America is its last bastion where against the tides of times and history,the evangelists seek to teach seven day creationism in schools.The bastion will crumble by mid-century.I can't say it with absolute certainty because I am not in league with the big guy in the sky.But that seems to me to be a distinct trend.
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God loved the world so much
God loves butchery so much that he sent his only son to be butchered mercilessly. -
Well gee sureshdogra... a very fitting, pretentious and overly wordy parable applicable to some evangelist but I am an agnostic and admittedly am not well read enough on the ayatollahs to make value judgments so unlike you I do not. Now please try reading my post again and actually responding to my points with reason rather than misguided poetry as you self-purpotedly covet the former. There is as much dogmatism in so-called intellectual atheism as there is in evangelism. I admittedly side with religion in my arguments but I do not step beyond the bounds of reason as you do. I did not cite Derrida to defend Jesus-- I cited Derrida to denounce your picture of any belief system as entirely closed. As for Jesus as a Western Philosopher... I have not read far and wide enough to provide you off-hand with an extensive list (for I'm afraid this site is a mere hobby to which I do not devote large amounts of time, most posts are done on a whim- sorry to dissappoint you), but I can offer you one that I have read relatively recently by Jaspers in which he treats Buddha, Confucious, Mohammed and Jesus all as philosophers. All your comments about Judea would not trouble those of the Judeo-Christian persuasion too much, for precisely the point of the religion is that the community is to be less monumental in a political sense than others throughout history, yet meet a certain transcendence that is to be their crowning achievement. Your defense of citing Nobel Prize Winners assumes a bit much-- you must remember, to provide an example of one of the philosophers we have already mentioned, such an influential thinker as Sartre declined a Nobel Prize on the basis that it was all too often reserved for a select class of artists. Your backing of Western scholarship excludes all those around the world in monasteries (and yes I include Buddhists in this list) and convents, mosques and synagogues, who have no aspirations towards anything to do with Western scholarship. My money says that a good chunk of these individuals are better read than you or I, so any appeal to authority (which, despite your best efforts at rhetorical gymnastics, your argument still hinges upon) is a bit of a selective argument. "Europe has already discarded religion" --- might I see some figures on this? During my time spent in both England and France the religious atmosphere seemed to be very similar to what it is here, perhaps even more fitting to one such as yourself, clearly possessing a certain degree of scholastic snobbery. I suppose since the Greeks said that nothing good came of Judea we should suppose that they were altogether very right shouldnt we? My supposed bias towards one religion, while admittedly existent in myself, is a bit irrelevant here, for I believe it was you who attacked the Bible rather than other religious texts, was it not? Are we to assume that every book Sartre failed to mention in his works can be attributed to the fact that he found it worthless or lacking of any merit whatsoever? If you are ready to make such a leap then very well, but the mere possibility isnt really enough evidence for me. I can only assume your last comment was for shock value, as it offers very little qualitatively to the discussion and makes a laughable attempt at understanding other interpretations of the life and death of Jesus. Now once again, please try to leave out such arrogant mockery, as it might as well fall on deaf ears here-- I defend Christianity here because it is being treated unfairly here, but I myself am an agnostic and listen to reason, which certainly has not driven me to any sort of anti-traditional religion sort of dogmatism.
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O yes and regarding responding to every point made... I dont believe I have failed to do so but if I have please let me know. It certainly does leave one a bit frustrated when someone fails to do so doesnt it ;) ?
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The first ad hominem punch was thrown by you with your caustic remark,"I suppose mentally you are just farther up the evolutionary ladder than we are".The sarcasm was gratuitous and uncalled for and now you must have got the taste of it yourself. Let us come to some of the substantative issues emerging from the debate. How do you reconcile theism with agnosticism?You style yourself a theist and simultaneously claim to be an agnostic.Not even semantic jugglery can make the two reconcilable. If you are agnostic,why do you trot out arguments in defence of Christianity? It means you yourself don't believe what you say.In ancient Greece,Sophists used to do that but they were not esteemed as good philosophers. A philosopher is a seeker of truth.He doesn't claim to know the final truth.His premises and conclusions are subject to disputation,revision and rejection.He doesn't make irrefutable dogmatic assertions.Plato's philosophy was disputed by Aristotle and Aristotelian logic was refuted by Russell.Are Jesus's utterances subject to refutation?He says,"I am the truth".As God Himself,He knew everything from the first and had nothing to learn from experience,society or ratiocination.How can He be called a philosopher unless there is a special category of philosophy for Him only.A philosopher seeks the truth while Christ is truth Himself.If you believe otherwise,what is your position? Do you believe that the Bible as the word of God cannot be treated the same way as the other classics of antiquity or later periods?Or do you believe that the Bible is a purely human creation? Do you believe that Christianity is a better religion than,say,Buddhism?And why? Answer to these questions will help me understand your position better.
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So you are attacking me primarily because of my screen name. I made it awhile ago and wasnt really thinking that people would take it too seriously.... if you really must know I favor religion over atheism any day for various pragmatic reasons, but your ad hominem punch that was allegedly giving me a taste of my own medicine is unfounded, as it is attacking an irrational evangelist. I'll leave that to that class of people to answer to you, as I would probably unfairly represent them. I dont really consider Buddhism a religion but it is a viable philosophical choice. If you bring up Hinduism and Islam then yes, I would say that I prefer Christianity to these choices. Regarding Jesus, although I would definitely not share all of Nietzsche's views on Jesus (for example I do not consider suffering to be a necessarily individual thing-- I like the idea of communal consolation), I would agree with him in claiming that even if Jesus was not divine that he was a great man. I do believe that Jesus was a philosopher in a sense-- Dostoevsky did little more than reassert Jesus' model. To consider Jesus a philosopher in this age is indeed sometimes a difficult position, but I take it up nonetheless. As an agnostic I cannot believe the Bible to be the word of God nor can I believe Jesus to be divine. In being honest I would say I LIKE these possibilities, but do not claim them to be absolute truth. I rely on logic myself, although I do not think you or I (if indeed both of us do so) should continually pride ourselves on doing so. If you would like me to side with one philosopher more than anyone else, then at this point in my life I would say Kierkegaard (you dont seem as someone who would give C.S. Lewis or G.K. Chesterton loads of respect). I am very fond of Christianity in terms of its ethics and worldview (perhaps even more so Zossima and Alyosha's take on it in Brothers Karamazov). I believe that the Bible COULD be the word of God (or at least based on it) and I believe that Jesus COULD have been God incarnate. In addition to saying "I am truth" Jesus said a number of other things throughout the Gospels, all of which are subject to critical scrutiny. You seem to possess this view of philosophy in which the philosopher must at all times be a sort of removed observer. A philosophy professor from Emory (a Sartrian Catholic priest at that ;)) recently visited my college and spoke about bringing back the Socratic side of philosophy. He separated the Delphic side (named of course for the oracle at Delphi: "Know thyself") from the Socratic side (certainly Socrates was a wordsmith, but his philosophy was largely based in its being LIVED, philosophy as a way of life rather than a practice or profession). Dr. Flynn claims, and I cannot help but agree, that modern philosophy has entirely lost the Socratic side and embraced the Delphic side, albeit sometimes unwittingly. I would say that, according to Flynn's definition, Jesus would represent the Socratic side, although I believe that a number of his claims are equally subject, as already mentioned, to Delphic criticism or praise. In addition to defining philosophy as truth seeking, we must also remember that one of the first questions of philosophy is "how do we live?" To make a Classic reference, one that you seem to be quite fond of, the various Academies and philosophical communities (not sure which ones actually created academies) lived out their philosophies (the Cynics, the Stoics, etc.). There seems to be a big lacking in any parallel in modern society, and therefore the existence of only one side of what we can all encompasingly call philosophy. I believe that if you are to place Jesus on one side or the other, I would say that the religious figures such as him, Buddha and Mohammed were among the last great Socratics. Today I would say that those embracing the Socratic side would only be found in religious communities such as monasteries-- by no means MUST such communities believe in God, but I am merely saying as a point of observance that this is all I notice from this side in today's world.
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O and my initial remark, yes perhaps a bit gratuitous, and my apologies for it sounding so. I stand by the point, but perhaps not in such harsh words-- and this harkens back to the very reason why I mentioned Derrida. I dont think this scoffing at what you deem to be "primitive" is either fair or reasonable-- it reveals a certain bias that automatically eliminates certain types of belief systems that may come to the forefront in the future.
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O one more thing, as I like to constantly revisit past opinions, I was looking over an old post of yours in which you told me that I put a lot of premium in numbers-- then try reading your old posts with the same critical eye-- who follows herd mentality "I thought I'd follow suit since Bush's peers were in disagreement with his views". This point is not terribly relevant at this point, however, so if pressed for time I recommend that you view my others.
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I can now appreciate your position much better but appreciation doesn't necessarily mean agreement.There are certain fundamental differences between our worldviews and attitudes.However,we could have conducted our debate with greater sophistication.My introductory post with its extremist stance probably provoked you to make some snide remarks which combined with Sparky's label of ignoramus put me out resulting in acerbic and acrimonious debate laced with rhetorical excesses .However,now we know where we stand in our views.We have exchanged enough blows(figuratively). We do have certain fundamental differences in our philosophical outlooks.Still,I enjoyed the debate with you and would have loved to carry it forward but for certain pressing engagements.God willing,we shall lock horns again if another opportunity arises. Meanwhile,I apologise if anything in my posts hurt you.Still I can't guarantee I shall behave next time.I admire the way you present your viewpoint with greater skill than I do.May God bless you,ExistentialTheist!
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I too apologize for my part in this mini-flame war. I prefer to walk away from argument without feeling bitter or hurt by a person because I or they chose to take it personally. Let's face it: we all can get a little heated at times in defending our beliefs, but we should all try to keep the discussion a little more mature in the future... peace, steve
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hebrew study required
Hey sureshdogra, maybe you should study Hebrew and begin to realize how great the psalms and proverbs are in a literary fashion. I think they may meet the standard of Shakespear or any other great literary mind. The problem is some things can't be translated into English with all the nuances that Hebrew has. Pre-scientific. Yeah, science is so great in comparison to God. Good luck with your science.
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May 20, 2005
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