Dawkins relies on ignorance

[bankside]

So you're saying people of faith eat pizzas but don't finish them???!!!!???!!!

(In all earnestness I enjoyed that post so much and the example so clearly reveals the point that must be made that I have resolved to eat pizza for lunch as a tribute to how well you made the point. It will meet my caloric needs, satisfy my Pavlovian craving for cheese set off by the mention of pizza, and provide me food for thought all at once.)

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How can my thoughts eat a pizza???!!!

Also, this was funny:

Ahh I see your further reply. Very well let us abandon the notion of literalism. So as not to avoid confuse the subject,

I meant "so as not to confuse the subject,"

 

[zoltanspawn]

No, it's saying that you can't describe someone as an "eater" because he eats pizza -- because he doesn't also eat the plate, the napkins, and the menu.

"Literalist" means to take everything literally, regardless of what type of literature it is. I am the exact opposite of a literalist.

How does Dawkins' science-y critique of the parts that you choose to interpret literally fall apart because you don't interpret all of the bible literally?

Of course, his critique doesn't fall apart.

It still predictably identifies absurdity.

So your criticism of Dawkins' "strawman" is empty, and you are still left trying to reconcile two conflicting accounts of phenomena no matter how much you advertise that "the literalists are the bad ones, of which I am not."

 

[zoltanspawn]

Ahh I see your further reply. Very well let us abandon the notion of literalism. So as not to avoid confuse the subject, I will henceforth refer to anyone who perceives the bible to be making factual claims about the divine as a "factist." Anyone who does not perceive factual claims about the divine, or who sees them as immaterial or beside the point or who holds the appearance of a factual claim to be a literary device in itself without actually being a factual claim, I will refer to as an afactist

For example, I am a definite factist. I can read scripture without any literalist (as you would put it) misinterpretations, yet still conclude that it makes factual claims about divinity. And as a factist I think the credibility of scripture is best understood by first evaluating the likelihood of its central factual claims. I do think there is more to it than simply a dry report that one might read like an engineering report, but I would hold that the factist perspective is correct and helps in appreciating scripture even if one concludes the central factual claims are likely to be false. By this definition, you're also a factist. Where we differ is on the validity or accuracy of the facts asserted.

An afactist might see all of that as a trivial sideshow and that even attempting to answer the question of factuality diminishes our understanding of scripture, that any negative finding would be irrelevant anyway, and possibly also even any positive finding of scriptural factuality. Zoltanspawn are your ears ringing?

I am a sterling figurativist, Bankside. (And it is you, my friend, who must bear the shame of afigurativism. )

 

[zoltanspawn]

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You know, I almost didn't use the analogy because it seemed so humdrum.

However, having seen it tortured further in Kulindahr's oven, I'm feeling quite proud of it now.

 

[Kulindahr]

What quasi-synonym for the word "literalist" would you prefer that I use to describe someone who takes the central factual claims of scripture at face value, as distinct from a reader who does not see the various literary forms of scripture as making factual claims about a divinity?

Honest.

The only way to not get "factual claims about a deity" from scripture is to abuse them as badly as literalists do.

 

[zoltanspawn]

Honest.

The only way to not get "factual claims about a deity" from scripture is to abuse them as badly as literalists do.

You are an honest.

They are honests.

The honests advocate, some places, literal interpretation and in other places, not.

Honests of course practice honesty, and it follows that their theory is known as honestyism.

Will you please create a wikipedia entry on this hermeneutic?