Funny anti-religious Internet pics

[Kulindahr]

Re: Funny anti-religious Internet pics

Okay -- I guess you can find funny ones. Good thing I wasn't holding a beverage when I saw this.

 

[johaninsc]

Re: Funny anti-religious Internet pics

 

[zoltanspawn]

Re: Funny anti-religious Internet pics

What???

Literalism and believing in the literal resurrection have nothing to do with each other.

It does as I intend it: if you sustain a singularly literal interpretation of the Bible, you are a literalist, and practice literalism.

You use the word to disparage fundamentalists (and atheists). If you maintain a literal interpretation of the core events of the Bible, how are you not a literalist, not practicing literalism?

 

[johaninsc]

Re: Funny anti-religious Internet pics

 

[johaninsc]

Re: Funny anti-religious Internet pics

 

[johaninsc]

Re: Funny anti-religious Internet pics

 

[belamyi]

Re: Funny anti-religious Internet pics

MMMmmm, the rapee guy looks kcjwte!!

 

[Kulindahr]

Re: Funny anti-religious Internet pics

It does as I intend it: if you sustain a singularly literal interpretation of the Bible, you are a literalist, and practice literalism.

You use the word to disparage fundamentalists (and atheists). If you maintain a literal interpretation of the core events of the Bible, how are you not a literalist, not practicing literalism?

Literalism means taking everything literally, with no interest in how it is meant to be taken.

 

[zoltanspawn]

Re: Funny anti-religious Internet pics

Literalism means taking everything literally, with no interest in how it is meant to be taken.

So...believing that there is literally a supernatural, omniscient being...that literally created the universe...that literally made a human copy of himself...who literally suspended the known laws of the universe to return from the dead...and then literally transcended the material world into a supernatural state...is not literalism...

Because the story of Noah's Ark is a parable.

Got it!

 

[bort138]

Re: Funny anti-religious Internet pics

 

[bankside]

Re: Funny anti-religious Internet pics

No, literalism means "taking everything literally," i.e., possessing the entire cosmos and conveying it. Pay attention.

 

[johaninsc]

Re: Funny anti-religious Internet pics

 

[johaninsc]

Re: Funny anti-religious Internet pics

 

[johaninsc]

Re: Funny anti-religious Internet pics

 

[Kulindahr]

Re: Funny anti-religious Internet pics

 

[Kulindahr]

Re: Funny anti-religious Internet pics

So...believing that there is literally a supernatural, omniscient being...that literally created the universe...that literally made a human copy of himself...who literally suspended the known laws of the universe to return from the dead...and then literally transcended the material world into a supernatural state...is not literalism...

Because the story of Noah's Ark is a parable.

Got it!

Obviously you don't have it.

Literalism would claim that quarks actually have flavors, because it wouldn't care that those descriptions aren't meant literally. And it would make evolution into a mystical religion because species adapt (obviously means they sit down and plan for the future) to survive. And it would expect to find everything in Illinois a bright baby blue, because it's a blue state.

The opposite of literalism is asking what a particular sort of writing means to convey. That's also called using common sense.

 

[bankside]

Re: Funny anti-religious Internet pics

Obviously you don't have it.

Literalism would claim that quarks actually have flavors, because it wouldn't care that those descriptions aren't meant literally. And it would make evolution into a mystical religion because species adapt (obviously means they sit down and plan for the future) to survive. And it would expect to find everything in Illinois a bright baby blue, because it's a blue state.

The opposite of literalism is asking what a particular sort of writing means to convey. That's also called using common sense.

My impression is that the Bible means to convey there really is a creator of our existence who might be said to have a "consciousness" as far as we can understand it, who is capable of selecting and formulating and dictating the laws of physics, the properties of matter, the parametres for how and when life can be sparked, etc., and indeed who did all of these things and arranged it deliberately such that we are now here to ponder the question.

To take that literally means we accept that as a relatively accurate insight into the circumstances in which we find ourselves.

To take that figuratively means we don't particularly expect that account to be remotely factual, nor do we particularly care, because we interpret it to be relevant in documenting human wonder about the circumstances in which we find ourselves, or in giving some other similar insight.

 

[bankside]

Re: Funny anti-religious Internet pics

Incidentally zoltan, I'm sure I've struggled to convince you in the past that the vast vast majority of people caught up in the phenomenon of religion are indeed literalists at the scale you describe, while you've wondered why I bang my head against the wall over a tiny fringe who couldn't possibly be representative of the typical believer, who surely must have some sense of the figurative, some awareness of literature and myth...I still don't think it's a tiny fringe.

 

[zoltanspawn]

Re: Funny anti-religious Internet pics

Obviously you don't have it.

Literalism would claim that quarks actually have flavors, because it wouldn't care that those descriptions aren't meant literally. And it would make evolution into a mystical religion because species adapt (obviously means they sit down and plan for the future) to survive. And it would expect to find everything in Illinois a bright baby blue, because it's a blue state.

The opposite of literalism is asking what a particular sort of writing means to convey. That's also called using common sense.

Sure, why not? Now, instead of supposing imaginary quantum scientists who find quarks delightful, why don't we stick to the subject at hand: that is the interpretation of the bible? Certainly, it's every bit as ridiculous to sustain the singular belief that Jesus literally returned from the dead and literally went to heaven as it is to believe that Illinois is blue.

(FWIW, I don't think contemplating religious stories literally is always a bad thing, but only when that interpretation is removed from its proper sphere: meditation, worship, prayer, ritual. If one maintains a literal interpretation in a rational sphere in spite of a vacuum of evidence, or in spite of contrary evidence, then the question of common sense does arise.)

 

[zoltanspawn]

Re: Funny anti-religious Internet pics

Incidentally zoltan, I'm sure I've struggled to convince you in the past that the vast vast majority of people caught up in the phenomenon of religion are indeed literalists at the scale you describe, while you've wondered why I bang my head against the wall over a tiny fringe who couldn't possibly be representative of the typical believer, who surely must have some sense of the figurative, some awareness of literature and myth...I still don't think it's a tiny fringe.

Have I ever made a claim about the numbers of religious who are literalists? Don't be in such a rush to put words into my mouth.

I agree with you that the majority of contemporary christians are probably such. Muslims, too. The Abrahamic three are perhaps predisposed to the problem with their god who participates so much in history...But that does not provide a complete summary of religion.

Nor does it explain the nature of religion, any more than the popularity of McDonalds explains the nature of food.