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My maternal grandparents are evangelical Christians. I once made the mistake of suggesting to them the King James Bible wasn’t the best text to pick if one was

My maternal grandparents are evangelical Christians. I once made the mistake of suggesting to them the King James Bible wasn’t the best text to pick if one was inclined to subscribe to biblical literalism. That’s when I learned that (at least for them and many folks like them) isn’t a scholarly take but just another faith element immune to scrutiny.

bluGill 5y ago
I've concluded a lot of people worship their translation and not the God they claim yo care about.
- sokoloff 5y ago
  Their God is defined by their translation though, right? So they’re at least acting self-consistently.
  - bluGill 5y ago
    They arn't worshiping the God, but the translation itself.
koheripbal 5y ago
I think an even bigger issue is that anyone would want to read the Bible literally at all. It's an amalgamation of various writers from different periods in history.
- mistermann 5y ago
  Are you saying that because it is an amalgamation of various writers from different periods in history, therefore no one should be interested in reading it? I've read very little, but I've quite liked the portions I've read.
motohagiography 5y ago
Perfect and infallible texts seems like picking easy straw man though. The new testament wasn't designed or intended to be litigated like a constitution or a bill, and arguably it was a Roman response to that very critical approach to the old testament. His most challenging (final) example was that it's better to select out in pursuit of compassion at the hands of a fearful mob than to become old as a member of one. There is a simpler view that it is the best available reference we have for the intent of a creator, and it sets a pretty high bar. We can use science and other tools to interpret that intent (or even argue against its existence at all), but in terms of leading an exemplary life, we're probably not going to do better than that example, and even attempting it is universally more moral than not. It's not so much that faith is immune to scrutiny as it's an axiom that criticism doesn't change. If you accept your experience of existence is an artifact of some other persons logic, you can be made to accept anything. The idea of working from a fixed divine example works as an innoculation against a lot of evils (deception as a means to direct cruelty in particular). I think what most atheists find so objectionable isn't the band so much as the fans, and I thought most of Hitchens' arguments reduced to this. When we look at peoples faith as a conclusion, it presumes some prior logic or argument subject to language, and that logic determines its reality, but when you look at it as an axiom from which the rest of their experience flows, you just have to take it or leave it. We can all certainly reason, but what we are is not mere reason. So I think this difference is at the very core of how we experience identity, and everything that flows from the possibly irreconcilable logics of ideas about it.

bluGill 5y ago

I've concluded a lot of people worship their translation and not the God they claim yo care about.

sokoloff 5y ago
Their God is defined by their translation though, right? So they’re at least acting self-consistently.
- bluGill 5y ago
  They arn't worshiping the God, but the translation itself.

koheripbal 5y ago

I think an even bigger issue is that anyone would want to read the Bible literally at all. It's an amalgamation of various writers from different periods in history.

mistermann 5y ago
Are you saying that because it is an amalgamation of various writers from different periods in history, therefore no one should be interested in reading it? I've read very little, but I've quite liked the portions I've read.

motohagiography 5y ago

Perfect and infallible texts seems like picking easy straw man though. The new testament wasn't designed or intended to be litigated like a constitution or a bill, and arguably it was a Roman response to that very critical approach to the old testament. His most challenging (final) example was that it's better to select out in pursuit of compassion at the hands of a fearful mob than to become old as a member of one. There is a simpler view that it is the best available reference we have for the intent of a creator, and it sets a pretty high bar. We can use science and other tools to interpret that intent (or even argue against its existence at all), but in terms of leading an exemplary life, we're probably not going to do better than that example, and even attempting it is universally more moral than not. It's not so much that faith is immune to scrutiny as it's an axiom that criticism doesn't change. If you accept your experience of existence is an artifact of some other persons logic, you can be made to accept anything. The idea of working from a fixed divine example works as an innoculation against a lot of evils (deception as a means to direct cruelty in particular). I think what most atheists find so objectionable isn't the band so much as the fans, and I thought most of Hitchens' arguments reduced to this. When we look at peoples faith as a conclusion, it presumes some prior logic or argument subject to language, and that logic determines its reality, but when you look at it as an axiom from which the rest of their experience flows, you just have to take it or leave it. We can all certainly reason, but what we are is not mere reason. So I think this difference is at the very core of how we experience identity, and everything that flows from the possibly irreconcilable logics of ideas about it.