Which religions admit to being fiction? Pastafarianism? — Pinprick
But what if the goal of a religion is not to be factually correct, but to give people moral guidance, thumos and social cohesion?
— stoicHoneyBadger
Then religions should admit it instead of clinging to the irrationality of their beliefs by making a virtue of faith. — Pinprick
based upon the Israelite conception of God — Michael Zwingli
Because the intolerance of the Jews was limited, and primarily local (to Israel). Rome for the most part tolerated the Jewish religion because their weird, peculiar, god usually was just that--their (the Jews) weird, peculiar god. The Jews weren't inclined to compel everyone to become Jews (unlike Christians, who wanted all to be Christian). — Ciceronianus
True.Quite right. Nor do the Jews proselytize to this day. Judaism is not a religion which seeks converts to it, and proselyzation is universally considered by Jews to be contrary to Halakha. As a matter of fact, there is a tradition which some Orthodox Jewish Rabbis maintain even today: to thrice reject someone expressing an interest in converting to Judaism before finally accepting him or her as a candidate for conversion — Michael Zwingli
Christianity is not Islam, Judaism, or the Israelite understanding of God. — Ennui Elucidator
P.S. The Greeks screwed it up for everyone. — Ennui Elucidator
This just doesn’t feel like a good faith question. Are you asking to be educated, being rhetorical, or being dismissive? The statement was — Ennui Elucidator
The very concept of a solitary, omnipresent, omnipotent and onmiscient God developed first among the Israelites of old. — Michael Zwingli
I understand it’s possible to interpret these texts/claims metaphorically, but that isn’t evidence that that was the founders intentions. — Pinprick
The oldest manuscripts discovered yet, including those of the Dead Sea Scrolls, date to about the 2nd century BCE. While Jewish tradition holds that the Pentateuch was written between the 16th century and the 12th century BCE, secular scholars are virtually unanimous in rejecting these early datings, and agree that there was a final redaction some time between 900–450 BCE.[15][16] — “Wiki”
As a sacred document, the Bible is a source of truth. While the truths contained in the Bible may not always be apparent, we know in principle that they are there if one wishes to dig deeply enough. It follows that if one’s interpretation ascribes to the Bible a doctrine that is demonstrably false, such as the claim that God is corporeal, the interpretation is incorrect no matter how simple or straightforward it may seem. Should human knowledge advance and come up with demonstrations it previously lacked, we would have no choice but to return to the Bible and alter our interpretation to take account of them (GP 2.24). Anything else would be intellectually dishonest. — “Not a literalist”
What sort of evidence would you like? Do you want to read a few chapters laters how god learns things? Or how god makes mistakes? Or god creates evil? Or god kills people for sport? Maybe we can read about the embodied god that walks or the disembodied god that needs to be carried from place to place. The descriptions of “God” in the Bible are inconsistent and evolving... — Ennui Elucidator
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_God_in_Judaism#:~:text=Rabbinic%20Judaism%20considers%20seven%20names,%5Bof%5D%20Hosts%22).It is this conception of God that has come down to, and is embraced by the Jews of today. — Michael Zwingli
What evidence do you have about the “founders” intentions from 3,500 years ago? — Ennui Elucidator
So far as I know, there is no “evidence” either way and the most we have is some writings from about 1,000 years later. — Ennui Elucidator
Is the argument that he is lying? Or that Jews don’t know who he is? That they disavowed him? That somehow every Jewish intellect that followed after him and acknowledge the non-literal nature of the Bible was just making it up? — Ennui Elucidator
. According to whom? Sources. Pick any ya reference you want and trace it through time or refer to someone that has. I’ve already referred to Maimonides. Go read the 13 principles of faith (which were heretical in his time) and see which of those harkens to Ya. Do modern Jews accept his interpretation? Which Jews?It is this conception of God that has come down to, and is embraced by the Jews of today. — Michael Zwingli
The Buddhist doctrine of the two truths differentiates between two levels of satya (meaning ‘truth’, ‘reality’, ‘that which is’) in the teaching of the Buddha: the "conventional" or "provisional" (saṁvṛti) truth, and the "ultimate" (paramārtha) truth.
The exact meaning varies between the various Buddhist schools and traditions. The best known interpretation is from the Madhyamaka school of Mahāyāna Buddhism, whose founder was Nāgārjuna. For Nāgārjuna, the two truths are epistemological in nature (what can be known). The phenomenal world is accorded a provisional existence. The character of the phenomenal world is declared to be neither real nor unreal, but logically indeterminable. Ultimately, phenomena are empty (sunya) of an inherent self or essence, but exist depending on other phenomena (Pratītyasamutpāda).[1]
In Chinese Buddhism, the Madhyamaka position is accepted and the two truths refer to two ontological truths (what is real). Reality exists of two levels, relative and absolute. …
The śūnyatā doctrine is an attempt to show that it is neither proper nor strictly justifiable to regard any metaphysical system as absolutely valid. It avoids nihilism (nothing is real) by striking a middle course between naivete and scepticism. — Adapted from Wikipedia
So, what actually is the justification for a non-literal interpretation? — Pinprick
Other translations of Scripture besides the Latin Vulgate were available, but Luther’s Bible was arguably the best. His opponents however, prophesied that a vernacular translation of Scripture, which allowed anyone to read and interpret the Bible for him or herself, would mean the end of Christian unity: the church would split and there would be as many interpretations of Scripture as there are interpreters. In the wake of the Enlightenment and Romanticism, the ascent of human reason and emotion, Luther’s opponents were eerily accurate. Protestantism, as well as Lutheranism, is clearly fractured. Instead of the pope or the church councils lording over the Scriptures, now our own fancy has taken their place. Has access to the Scriptures really set us free? Or have we fled from one tyrant to another? Has the tyranny of the pope been replaced by the tyranny of our own reason, will, and emotion? — “Random Website”
That's a very important question! — Wheatley
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