Refutation of the Bible's Right to Literal and Figurative Meaning

[Harrison N. Kore]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TdJZbi4sW78

I am in concurrence with the person in the prescribed video above this. Now, I have studied literature, in most of its forms, intricately and with due care. Within most literature, literal and figurative devices are utilized separately, but, at the same time, they permeate the stories. This augments the meaning that you get from the story. This is why I believe it is foolish to disregard the Bible, the Quaran, etc., because they have a lot of meaning to it over morality. However, that's just it. They have a lot of meaning to it over morality because of its usage of literal and figurative devices, but then I don't see how it could pass off as books on science, the reality of the world.

You can't have both. If you have a story that uses literal and figurative language, that's fine, in the respect that it increases the meaning of the morality of the story, but you just can't slide in some claims about how the universe works with that. How many people have seen a scientific paper that justifies its assertions by making a symbolic or allegorical story about it? Nobody does that now, and nobody did that back then. I respect these Holy Books in the field of morality, but I can't see how anyone would take these Holy Books to be their interpretation of the universe, if, by their own accounts, they believe the stories to be non-literal and open to interpretation.

This is why I'd take the Origin of Species as a more valid theory on the creation of man than the Bible's intelligent design theory.

[fullblue]

I got to agree with you that the bible should not be taken literally, it is crazy to do so. The bible itself is too absurd to be taken literally and it simply make no sense if we take it literally. While I question the content of the bible, especially the biased account of old testament, I got to agree that the new testament is useful as moral guidelines.

http://images.ucomics.com/comics/db/2005/db051218.gif

[Harrison N. Kore]

I got to agree with you that the bible should not be taken literally, it is crazy to do so. The bible itself is too absurd to be taken literally and it simply make no sense if we take it literally. While I question the content of the bible, especially the biased account of old testament, I got to agree that the new testament is useful as moral guidelines.

http://images.ucomics.com/comics/db/2005/db051218.gif

Honestly, if Christians want to believe that God is truly the creator of the universe, or that the Israelites actually traveled to the Holy Land for forty years, then they should take the Bible literally. If they believe it as fact, then they need to look at the Bible factually. However, if they are like myself and see God and Jesus as mere characters in a book to show its meaning, then they should take it literally and figuratively as they wish, because, in that sense, the Bible is indeed open to interpretation and evaluation. If you believe in the Bible scientifically as a prophesy on reality, however, then no, the Bible can't be taken both literally and figuratively, because scientific examinations are supposed to be literal, and, if the authors actually believed in a God that actually made the world, they would not have written these revelations in allegories and poetics.

[tupac115]

While i am not athesis,i am a realist.So i have to concur with what Harrison and Fullblue said in their posts.
Its not that i dont believe that the Bible or other religious texts are without value or merit.Its to me personally i believe that it should not be taken too literally is all i can say.These theology books are akin to maybe Aesop fables.While we know that the stories in Aesop fables are not realistic,they do teach us morality values and ethics and so on.That how i would place them.

You have to admit that some of the thing written on those theology books are way outta there.As a figurative point of view we can use them as lessons and maybe just maybe,thats the whole point of them.

[Izumi168]

The problem is with the liberal view of the Bible is that its quite compromising and somewhat hypocritical so I can understand why would a fundamentalist think literally and detest liberals.

Thats because the Bible is supposed to be the Word of God or at least inspired by him. If we are to treat it as figuratively there isn't much point of following it since it is not absolute or objective as what an allmighty being should be able to do. Giving it a subjective status would mean that it does hold much authority as it would if it is objective like science.

Of course one could say that God is telling stories in parables of sorts (but why would he want to do so anyway). However the Old Testament seems more like a medium to boost the ego of the Jews rather than a moral parable. Having to cherrypick the Word of God seems quite weird don't you think?

I would agree that the New Testament (excluding Revelations, no way it's a moral lesson) is ahead of it's time. However if one takes a secular view of the Bible, one have to say that Jesus is either is a liar or is deluded if he claimed to be the Son of God or perhaps (which is my hypothesis) his followers deitified him (as like the Buddha and the many Chinese deities). But well we could resort to cherrypicking again anyway.

The New Testament is pretty much boring to me, if I needed moral lessons I would rather read Aesop fables or watch ''morally'' enriching cartoons. If I'm into higher philosophy or whatever, I would rather read the Buddha's words.

[caseron17]

i dont give too much attention to the Bible because after 3 years in philosophy I believe that the Bible is just a book made by man not God, I have my own faith and beliefs that is based into different aspects in life.