Kantian Naturalist and I have been hopscotching from thread to thread, discussing the nature of religious language. The main point of contention is the assertoric/disclosive distinction: When is religious language assertoric — that is, when does it make claims about reality — and when is it merely disclosive, revealing attitude and affect without making actual claims?
I’ve created this thread as a permanent home for this otherwise nomadic discussion.
It may also be a good place for an ongoing discussion of another form of religious language — scripture. For believers who take scripture to be divinely inspired, the question is when it should be taken literally, when it should be taken figuratively or metaphorically, and whether there are consistent and justifiable criteria for drawing that distinction.
Kantian Naturalist,
Indeed. I tend to agree with George Orwell — “The real division is not between conservatives and revolutionaries but between authoritarians and libertarians.”
The farther to the right a government goes, the more authoritarian it becomes. The farther to the left a government goes, the more authoritarian it becomes. I think both are bad.
I strive to be a centrist. Not sure if it makes me a libertarian, but it sure as hell excludes me from the vast majority of the US “political process.” Entering a voting booth I may as well toss a coin for each candidate and let God decide.
And around and around we go. keiths was asked, repeatedly, to justify his literal reading of the book of Revelation.
It would seem that from the beginning of the Bible to the end of the Bible atheists want to be able to demand answers from theists while insisting that they themselves are not engaged in interpretation and that they therefore do not have to defend their views.
This is true of both Patrick (the Genesis Flood) and keiths (the Lake of Fire).
Mung, Eric is simply being asked what his interpretation is. He speaks English fluently. He is capable of explaining himself.
I can think of several rational explanations. Not all of them good, in my opinion.
1. The Noah flood happened exactly as written. The evidence supports this, but mainstream geologists are incompetent and misread the evidence. ( Ken Ham)
2. A local flood or regional flood happened and was interpreted as global by the survivors.
3. A flood story was embellished over many generations with no intention of distortion. (Telephone game)
4. The story was consciously adapted as an allegory.
These are just a few possibilities. I’d like to hear what you guys think happened.
Mung,
You’re just making that up. I have never claimed that the Book of Revelation must be taken literally, nor have I ever denied that I am interpreting the text.
You’re making that up, too. Our disagreement had nothing to do with whether the Lake of Fire was literal, as you know perfectly well.
From the Munging Hell thread:
petrushka,
Seconded.
And if you do accept that claims made by the Biblical text are wrong, I’m interested in hearing how you decide which claims should be taken at face value and which shouldn’t.
This question is appropriate for KN who believes the literal interpretation can be false.
But you seem to imply that there are specific statements in scriptures which are false and other statements that are true. This is not how it works. Each statement has several levels of interpretations, and all interpretations are true when done consistently true to the text. The text itself often indicates clearly enough when literal interpretation is inappropriate – not that literal meaning is false, but that literal meaning is not meant given the context or wording. For example parables stand out well. But even every literally sensible passage has a spiritual meaning, because we are talking about scripture after all, not a history textbook or such.
Mung,
That is not an accurate summary of the situation. Please see my summary comment describing Erik’s failure to clarify his claim.
Erik,
There are open questions relating to your claim about the literal truth of part of the text documented in my summary comment. Please address them.
I think the flood happened exactly as written.
and
I think the way to understand the story is to read it in context of the rest of the text
and
I think that the flood story like the rest of the Bible has been repeatedly misinterpreted through out history in an effort to make if fit into whatever the current “scientific” understanding is.
and
I think the flood was a regional event with global implications.
peace
It would be nice of you to tell why you think some of them are not good. This is what I will do, right now.
1. Thoroughly literalist interpretation of the flood story has never been traditional or orthodox. Interpreting scriptures is not an easy matter. It’s not even as easy as reading Dante’s Divine Comedy. It’s a field that has its experts and its cranks.
2. I would compare it with the destruction of Atlantis. From the survivors’ point of view, a world was destroyed, but from our historical point of view, a civilisation or culture.
3. Telephone game may describe lots of folklore, but it doesn’t explain scriptures.
4. Sure, scriptures are allegory, but they are also more than that.
But Atlantis never existed, and therefore was never destroyed.
Are you implying that the proto-Jewish story about the Flood is as legendary and unreal as stories about Atlantis?
And you know this how? For one, I relate the Atlantis stories to the destruction of the Minoan civilization.
Erik,
It would be nice if you would live up to your own morality and address the questions you have been evading.
Erik,
When one asks questions but refuses to answer them, I’d call that behavior hypocritical. Wouldn’t you?
It would be nice of you to acknowledge the answers that are there http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/the-varieties-of-religious-language/comment-page-34/#comment-94200
You may not like the answers, in which case you should explain what you don’t like about them, but you cannot pretend they are not there. I mean, of course you can pretend they are not there, and you are doing it, but it’s just plain ridiculous. And hypocritical. And more.
ROFLMAO!
Sure Erik, the answer (singular, not plural “answers”) is there, to wit:
Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith?
I posted this earlier, but no one responded. It’s a lot more complicated than Patrick’s simplistic historical materialist questions make it out to be. But one wouldn’t expect atheists/skeptics to (even faithfully attempt to) address the various layers of meaning that their worldview blocks them from exploring: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwSWRdbSQK0
This is, imo, one of the best technological depictions of ‘creation’ and ‘fall’ yet available on the screen (and likely will be for some time, given the significant production budget of the film).
While the atheists (fools in their hearts who don’t believe in their Creator, Psalm 14) here may believe that Genesis 6: 5-8 has *NO* spiritual message BY DEFINITION, others are welcome to discover a more full and compelling human existence through exploration of its multiple layers. Flat, horizontal thinking inspires few people, apparently other than radical or comfortable ‘skeptics’.
The eruption of Santorini of around 1600BCE triggered a tsunami that must have been incredibly destructive to the northern coast of Crete, where the Minoan civilization based their capital, Knossos, and flourished as a seafaring nation. There’s plenty of consilient evidence this had a huge economic impact that weakened their resistance to Mycenaean expansion. It does not lead us to think a continent sank beneath the waves, though.
Erik,
There are no answers to the questions I asked about your claim. Your claim is about a supposed historical event. Please directly answer my questions so I can understand exactly what you are claiming occurred.
I’m not pretending. You have not answered my simple questions. What you claim are answers do not explain exactly what it is you are claiming.
Please directly answer the three simple questions I have asked as summarized in my comment of November 29, 2015 at 5:40 pm.
Gregory,
My questions are about what Erik means by his specific claim. You keep trying to distract from that, but it doesn’t change the fact that he has evaded and refused to answer direct questions about his claim. Until he clarifies exactly what he is saying happened in historical reality, it is not possible to know what evidence might support or disconfirm his claim.
Erik’s claim. Not the “how many angels can dance on the head of pin” discussion you wish we were having.
Patrick,
Lizzie politely asked you to stop asking. Obviously you don’t respect her suggestion. What a boring, repetitive atheist! 🙁 It astonishes me, frankly, how ridiculous is your ‘strategy’ of trying to bully Erik into giving only answers that you think you want to hear.
Do you know anything about ideological historicism, Patrick? You seem to know very, very little about ‘spiritual interpretation’ of the Bible, which as Erik said to KN, requires ‘spiritual commitment.’
Whatever you do, avoid facing that video I linked to. It would expose your obsession with empirical proof of ‘history’ wrt Biblical interpretation most acutely. 😉
Gregory,
I want Erik to answer questions about his claim so that I can understand exactly what he is claiming. You and Erik want to talk about anything except his claim.
In which version is it a continent? In the theosophist version, I suppose. In Plato’s it’s an island.
What do you mean answer directly? The answers are there as indicated. Everybody can see them except you. In what way are they not direct? What is unclear? Something unhistorical about them?
What do you hope to achieve? Where are you heading with your questions? How do you yourself interpret the story? In case of failure to provide direct answers to my questions, I will not bombard you stupidly the way you do. I will simply ignore you.
Actually no one sees them except you.
Answer the question that was actually asked, rather than the one you would like to answer. Is this middle school, that we have to scrawl “RTQ” next to your answer?
You make me smile. I happen to have promptly answered your peripheral context questions, addressed the evidence that you cited, etc., yet that did not buy me any forthrightness on your part; a result that I found unsurprising, and which confirms Patrick’s assessment.
Your answer (singular) remains:
Whole-hearted commitment, indeed.
I find that odd and disconcerting. I’ve posted a number of personal musings here. Perhaps I have less fear of this because I am not afraid that my personal musings will be found untrue or silly.
But I have to wonder, what is the point of posting here about religion and morality and such if one hides one’s light under the nearest bushel.
Erik,
My questions are about the meaning of your claim. You said this:
I have asked three simple questions about that claim. You have never answered any of the three.
While I have made this very clear already, including in my summary comment of November 29, 2015 at 5:40 pm, I will emphasize it once again. I am asking you to clarify exactly what you are saying occurred. I am not asking at this time for evidence or justification for your claim. I am not asking about interpretations of your sacred texts. I am not asking about anything other than your words.
When you say “Anyway, of course it [the biblical flood] occurred. The Bible has been found historically reliable.”, when are you (not some other writers, cultures, or other entities) claiming this happened in historical reality?
I want to understand exactly what you are claiming really happened. Once I understand that, I may choose to discuss the evidence for your claim with you. That depends on the details you provide. Thus far you have provided none.
Your position is incomprehensible. Looks like your questions come from nowhere and are going nowhere. And this…
is a lie. The answers are here http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/the-varieties-of-religious-language/comment-page-34/#comment-94200
The final verdict is that you are ignoring my answers for no reason. If you had a reason, you would have given it by now.
Ooh, nice distraction! Kinda pointless though, since no island sank beneath the waves, either. (“Atlantis”, by the way, was described by Plato as larger than Libya and Asia — which is a pretty goddamned big island, and certainly doesn’t describe the tiny island Crete). No island as described by Plato ever “disappeared in the depths of the sea” in a “single day and night of misfortune”. It’s geologically/physically not possible.
The island is still there. You can visit Crete if you have the fare.
You can relate all the wackadoodle shit you wish. Doesn’t make it true or even plausible. But suit yourself.
Fair point! Though is Australia not both an island and a continent?
Erik,
No, your claim is incomprehensible as it stands. I am trying to comprehend it.
No, they are not. You refused to answer, while demonstrating you clearly understand what I am asking:
That’s the opposite of an answer.
The reason is that your answers don’t exist.
You made the claim. I am asking what you mean by your own claim in your own words. You are desperately trying to talk about anything else.
Answer or retract.
Apparently now I’ve been denied editing comments (even my own) here at TAMSZ. HAHAHA!
Well Gregory, Lizzie assures us it’s not because anyone thinks your posts are morally suspect.
Patrick calls Erik a hypocrite. The admins do nothing. No wonder people complain.
Time for Guano to go. Seriously. It’s a joke.
Mung,
No, I did not. I noted that his behavior is hypocritical. I did not speculate on why that might be the case.
If you disagree with my assessment, please read my summary comment of November 29, 2015 at 5:40 pm, Erik’s recent comment about playing by the rules, and his last few comments in this thread. I believe that provides sufficient evidence to support my conclusion.
Either he is in control of his behavior or he is not. If he is in control of his behavior then you have called him a hypocrite. If he is not in control of his behavior then your accusation is misguided (a bad thing) and you’ve still violated the site rules by suggesting he’s not in control of his behavior.
If I were Erik I would have begun ignoring you long ago.
Anyways, I think I’ll bow out of this conflict between you and Erik. You’re both grownups. Lizzie’s spoken (and done nothing). Her site her rules. Let’s get rid of Guano though. It’s a joke.
I still have that bridge, if you’re interested. 🙂
Mung,
Nope, I have only commented on his observed behavior. He might be doing it as performance art. He might be under stress at work. He might not know how to conduct himself in a rational discussion. He might be under the influence of drugs or alcohol. He might be a bot. I don’t know and I don’t care. His behavior is what it is. And I have proven it.
I’m really looking more for a ’67 Impala to fix up.
Would you settle for a rusted hulk that sort of looks like a car?
Jerry Coyne has a relevant post at his site:
A religious philosopher argues that New Atheism and fundamentalism are “secretly sympathetic”; offers lame reconciliation between science and faith
I like Coyne’s trademarked phrase:
“Some believers are literalist about everything, but nearly every believer is a literalist about something.”
Which is why I’m interested in knowing what “somethings” our theist commenters believe in: literal Adam and Eve; literal Mohammed on flying horse; literal raising of dead Lazarus … or mainly the literal story of Jesus, belief in the basic outline of which is required to call oneself a christian: specially sent by god to be born on Earth, died on the cross, resurrected.
It makes a difference to me, because I’m intellectually judgmental, and am willing to use — ad hom in action — their acceptance of too many irrational beliefs (literal Adam and Eve, etc) as a sieve to screen out those people who are not likely to say anything else worth bothering with, Now, that may not be in accordance with Lizzie’s aim here, or anyone else’s, but it’s reality for me.
Too bad for me, I’ll miss out on their magnificent wisdom if their gems are mixed with too much bible muck.
But they all literally believe in something so I have to be willing to get at least a little “mucky” to talk to any of them at all.
Sigh The sacrifices we make. 🙂
hotshoe:
Yes. And just as importantly, how do they decide which parts of scripture to take literally and which to treat as metaphor or allegory.
I have said this earlier and repeatedly, but this is evidently not reaching you. There are not simply parts that are allegorical and parts that are literal. The very meaning of the genre of scripture is that absolutely everything in it has a spiritual purpose. This is the most important level of interpretation. But it’s the most challenging level, because human spirituality is out of order (if it were in order, we would not even need God’s word in physical form), which is why other levels also exist, down to literal, so it can be read literally by those who are spiritually challenged – which includes everyone of us in different degrees.
Then there are passages that are directly indicated as not to be read literally, such as parables, but this doesn’t mean that other passages should be read literally – and only that. Rather, parables are indications how to read all other scriptures properly. Everything should be read spiritually but, failing that, we read it in other ways.
The purpose of scriptures is stated in 2. Tim 3:16. There’s nothing about historicity there, and there’s a reason why. When you are reading literally, looking for historicity, you are not reading it as scripture. The fact that the Bible holds historically too is a good thing to bash atheists with, but it’s spiritually irrelevant. Actually, it’s even spiritually damaging to bash atheists.
Patrick is an admin, so his behaviour sets the standard. In all fairness, I implied immediately in return that he was hypocritical too, and that post has not been guanoed.
Erik,
The difference is that I have provided evidence of how your behavior is not aligned with the goals of this site. You agree that morally you should play by the rules.
Answer the questions or retract your claim.
Is anyone else tired of Patrick’s bullying demands? Nope – he really seems to think nobody has heard him yet. 😉
What an amazing climate of tolerance and understanding at this site. Patrick ignores Lizzie’s suggestion to ‘just drop it’ and flings accusations at someone who has provided more content about ‘spiritual interpretation,’ “the most important level of interpretation”, than pretty much anyone ever has on this God-forsaken website.
Yet all Patrick can possibly muster is: “I WANT … I WANT … I WANT … ANSWERS” … BUT ONLY THE WAY I WANT TO HEAR THEM! It’s really quite sad and depressing. 🙁
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GaoCEdZnyFk
I know, right? Plus the rat bastards here have made your car stop starting too, I hear!
So few of these putrid atheists in the world, just a tiny minority, and yet they manage to run/ruin it anyhow! Not so different from KN’s “reformed Jews” and the economy.
Something should be done about them!
X>{
Well, which is it, Gregory? No stupid atheist is tired of Patrick’s bullying spam (I’ve actually written a half-dozen complaints about them myself), or is it that Patrick just ignores them?
I know–Both! That way. not only Patrick, but all atheists other than Patrick will both look worse!!
Well done, man! Get those rat bastards! (including all the philosophists and insurance salesmen among them). They’re all despairing, pathetic, ugly creatures, doing little but pouring out their various foul fluids.
X>{
Gregory,
True or not, that’s immaterial. The questions are about Erik’s claim about a supposedly real historical event, as detailed in my summary comment. Your attempts to distract from this core issue are continuing to be unsuccessful.
They’ve distracted me. I have ceased to care that Erik will never answer your questions long ago.
Try to understand this Patrick–he will weasel about for just as long as you continue to badger him. We get it –he’s a weasel. But why is this fun for you? Why are weasels worse than badgers?
walto,
I wouldn’t call it fun. I find Erik’s behavior unacceptable. I have evidence to support my claim. I am trying to minimize the volume of my comments by referring to my summary comment of November 29, 2015 at 5:40 pm. Please feel free to scroll by if you don’t find my comments valuable.