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> As someone who's read the Bible in its entirety, it's so full of contradictions and unclear complexities that you can make a good case for any number of incom

> As someone who's read the Bible in its entirety, it's so full of contradictions and unclear complexities that you can make a good case for any number of incompatible interpretations. As a Christian, I too have been recently thinking about the issue of multiple interpretations. Having said that, there are as many, if not more, verses that are clear enough and leaves little room for multiple contradicting interpretations. For example, these two popular (and probably the most important!) verses have very clear meanings: > For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. — John 3:16 (NIV) > “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” — Matthew 22:36–40 (NIV)

anonporridge 4y ago
> “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” Define love and define god. Some Christians have defined loving their neighbor as forcing gay people into barbaric gay conversion therapy. Some have defined it as taking young indigenous children from their families and raising them as good, civilized westerns to get the Indian out of them. God doesn't exist, so loving god with all your heart doesn't mean anything objectively. What "loving god" looks like is entirely subjective and there have been many opinions throughout history about what that means. Some interpretations have included sacrificing children. If there actually is a god, they doesn't seem to be very good about consistently telling us what they want and how they feel loved by us. The Bible has plenty of good passages, but also tons of bad ones. It's a fine piece of literature to study and get insight for your spiritual practice. But never forget, the Bible got the question of slavery wrong. Not even the new testament condemns slavery. This is not a good book.
- generalizations 4y ago
  > Define love and define god. The first definition is easier to find. > 4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
  - v-erne 4y ago
    Each time I here this thing (this fragment from Corinthians) I cringe a little bit because many people uses this as a definition of love (hence its read at weddings here where I live) but at the same time this being part of holy book sounds like love is so fuzzy term that no one really knows what it means so it needs pseudo definition that is all over the place (and no, I do not have better definition for it - but I have good reason - I do not believe that it exists).
  - bandyaboot 4y ago
    This is a list of behaviors one might expect to observe in the presence of “love”. The fact that it is commonly cited as the best definition of the word kind of proves gp’s point.
  - aarpmcgee 4y ago
    This is not what love is. It is merely a list of words for qualities that are sometimes recognized while experiencing love.
- comfypotato 4y ago
  You use slavery as an example of what makes the Bible a bad book. My understanding is that the Bible generally condemns the modern notion of slavery (one in which the slaves have a viable alternative). The Jews’ slavery in Egypt, for example, is condemned. Slavery in first century Rome, for an opposing example, was often the result of the slaves having no other option (the society having no way to support them). It was effectively better than the alternative for the slaves, and there were routes to freedom. I’m curious about your thoughts. You say “it is not a good book” while I feel that the New Testament in particular is considered to promote good things. Obviously the classic atheist liberal’s “bad guys” in the uneducated rural conservative Christians have done sad things in the name of Jesus (like your aforementioned conversion therapy), but that’s people and not the book.
v-erne 4y ago
>> eternal life Define that, and with details please, because in my mind it "does not compute". Short sentences as this have clear meaning for You only because You spent hundreds of hours (probably in Your youth) listening to people (probably in black dresses) explaining them to You. If You would somehow lost this context it would be as unclear for You as "Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare" is for me (I never bothered to learn the context for what it actually means).
- beltsazar 4y ago
  I understand a sentence "Merge sort has a time complexity of O(N log(N)) in the worst case" because I learned it from other people (my lecturer, book authors), too. So, I don't see the point here. Most English-speaking people—even for those who don't believe life after this material world—likely have some guess of a definition of "eternal life", which might or might not be similar to the definition in the biblical context. Some who consider "eternal life" as cryptic as "bhng lw" don't know the word either "eternal" or "life". The meaning of any word in any sentence of any book can be disputed, of course.. until we realize that a definition of a word also consists of words any of which can be argued all over again. (Aside: I had wondered since I was first introduced a dictionary: How can we understand any word if its definition consists of words too? It would be an infinite recursion. Only recently I knew that the problem has a name: "The Grounding Problem" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbol_grounding_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbol_grounding_problem ) To answer your question, in this context, having an eternal life means going to heaven. The follow up questions would be "What's heaven? Where is it?". I or someone else can explain it to you, but if you, in your words, "never bothered to learn the context", no one can help you to understand. However great your lecturer explained some materials in the class, you wouldn't fully understand the materials if you didn't self-study in your time, would you?
  - v-erne 4y ago
    Yes, you are right - if You apply enough deconstruction and reductionism all communication between humans breaks down. But I still believe that there is a profound difference between Your example and the "eternal life" bit. I'm not sure if I can get my point clearly (because its still intuition and not nicely expressed thought), but still, I will try my best. "Merge sort has a time complexity of O(N log(N)) in the worst case" at this point and time has exactly one meaning because it addresses exactly one simple (but not simplistic) abstract problem of comparative assessment of algorithms for ordering symbols that have enough relations defined to be comparable. And the logic that stands behind it can be quite easily followed straight to the roots (or rather axioms) without anyone being burned on metaphorical cross along the way. There is no schism here, no cults, event not too many people with different opinions (there are surly some with different axioms and some with different opinions about reducing sorting worthiness to one scalar value). Meanwhile if You get out of Your bubble and start asking what does it exactly mean "eternal life" or event better, as You mentioned, "what's heaven?" You will get as many answers as You will find people (home exercise - go ask a modern Jew about heaven, or Yehova witness, or Mormon :)).
brightball 4y ago
Fwiw, the blog post that I wrote (referenced above) goes specifically into these.
throwaway_4ever 4y ago
> For example, these two popular (and probably the most important!) verses have very clear meanings: > For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. — John 3:16 (NIV) That is your choice of a "very clear meaning"?! Ok, then do you believe man goes to heaven through faith alone, or by faith and actions that prove their faith? Because a billion Protestants would say that the verse tells you it is by faith alone, and a billion Catholics will quote James 2 20:24 in saying that faith without works is useless: "You foolish person, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless? 21 Was not our father Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? 22 You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did. 23 And the scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,” and he was called God’s friend. 24 You see that a person is considered righteous by what they do and not by faith alone."
- pastorhudson 4y ago
  I find Dallas Willard’s quote on this to be very simple and encouraging. “Grace is not opposed to effort, it is opposed to earning. Earning is an attitude. Effort is an action.” - Dallas Willard The Great Omission
  - throwaway_4ever 4y ago
    Yet, even you quote man himself rather than the perfect Word of God. Should not something as perfect as the Word of God be the most simple, encouraging, and enlightening on such a crucial matter of Christianity itself? The evidence before us doesn't indicate so. That is when a Protestant might say, "Well it is clear and perfect in it's [Protestant / sola fide] meaning. And that the billions of other Christians, try as extremely hard as they may, with millions spending immense portions of their live trying to ascertain what God meant for them, have been led astray for all of time."
- nyokodo 4y ago
  > Because a billion Protestants would say that the verse tells you it is by faith alone, and a billion Catholics will quote James 2 20:24 in saying that faith without works is useless: In 1999 the Catholic Church and the Lutheran World Federation signed a joint statement on justification which admitted they had agreed but had never sat down and done the difficult work of making the fine distinctions and assuming good faith until then! In my experience faith and works is like that with the two groups making different emphases but when one makes the fine distinctions there is essential agreement. There are genuine disagreements but fewer than even the faithful realize. Why the vehement opposition and recriminations? The proximate causes are legion but the efficient cause IMHO involves liberal portions of late medieval to Renaissance European politics that still curses us today.

anonporridge 4y ago

> “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” Define love and define god. Some Christians have defined loving their neighbor as forcing gay people into barbaric gay conversion therapy. Some have defined it as taking young indigenous children from their families and raising them as good, civilized westerns to get the Indian out of them. God doesn't exist, so loving god with all your heart doesn't mean anything objectively. What "loving god" looks like is entirely subjective and there have been many opinions throughout history about what that means. Some interpretations have included sacrificing children. If there actually is a god, they doesn't seem to be very good about consistently telling us what they want and how they feel loved by us. The Bible has plenty of good passages, but also tons of bad ones. It's a fine piece of literature to study and get insight for your spiritual practice. But never forget, the Bible got the question of slavery wrong. Not even the new testament condemns slavery. This is not a good book.

generalizations 4y ago
> Define love and define god. The first definition is easier to find. > 4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
- v-erne 4y ago
  Each time I here this thing (this fragment from Corinthians) I cringe a little bit because many people uses this as a definition of love (hence its read at weddings here where I live) but at the same time this being part of holy book sounds like love is so fuzzy term that no one really knows what it means so it needs pseudo definition that is all over the place (and no, I do not have better definition for it - but I have good reason - I do not believe that it exists).
- bandyaboot 4y ago
  This is a list of behaviors one might expect to observe in the presence of “love”. The fact that it is commonly cited as the best definition of the word kind of proves gp’s point.
- aarpmcgee 4y ago
  This is not what love is. It is merely a list of words for qualities that are sometimes recognized while experiencing love.
comfypotato 4y ago
You use slavery as an example of what makes the Bible a bad book. My understanding is that the Bible generally condemns the modern notion of slavery (one in which the slaves have a viable alternative). The Jews’ slavery in Egypt, for example, is condemned. Slavery in first century Rome, for an opposing example, was often the result of the slaves having no other option (the society having no way to support them). It was effectively better than the alternative for the slaves, and there were routes to freedom. I’m curious about your thoughts. You say “it is not a good book” while I feel that the New Testament in particular is considered to promote good things. Obviously the classic atheist liberal’s “bad guys” in the uneducated rural conservative Christians have done sad things in the name of Jesus (like your aforementioned conversion therapy), but that’s people and not the book.

v-erne 4y ago

>> eternal life Define that, and with details please, because in my mind it "does not compute". Short sentences as this have clear meaning for You only because You spent hundreds of hours (probably in Your youth) listening to people (probably in black dresses) explaining them to You. If You would somehow lost this context it would be as unclear for You as "Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare" is for me (I never bothered to learn the context for what it actually means).

beltsazar 4y ago
I understand a sentence "Merge sort has a time complexity of O(N log(N)) in the worst case" because I learned it from other people (my lecturer, book authors), too. So, I don't see the point here. Most English-speaking people—even for those who don't believe life after this material world—likely have some guess of a definition of "eternal life", which might or might not be similar to the definition in the biblical context. Some who consider "eternal life" as cryptic as "bhng lw" don't know the word either "eternal" or "life". The meaning of any word in any sentence of any book can be disputed, of course.. until we realize that a definition of a word also consists of words any of which can be argued all over again. (Aside: I had wondered since I was first introduced a dictionary: How can we understand any word if its definition consists of words too? It would be an infinite recursion. Only recently I knew that the problem has a name: "The Grounding Problem" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbol_grounding_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbol_grounding_problem ) To answer your question, in this context, having an eternal life means going to heaven. The follow up questions would be "What's heaven? Where is it?". I or someone else can explain it to you, but if you, in your words, "never bothered to learn the context", no one can help you to understand. However great your lecturer explained some materials in the class, you wouldn't fully understand the materials if you didn't self-study in your time, would you?
- v-erne 4y ago
  Yes, you are right - if You apply enough deconstruction and reductionism all communication between humans breaks down. But I still believe that there is a profound difference between Your example and the "eternal life" bit. I'm not sure if I can get my point clearly (because its still intuition and not nicely expressed thought), but still, I will try my best. "Merge sort has a time complexity of O(N log(N)) in the worst case" at this point and time has exactly one meaning because it addresses exactly one simple (but not simplistic) abstract problem of comparative assessment of algorithms for ordering symbols that have enough relations defined to be comparable. And the logic that stands behind it can be quite easily followed straight to the roots (or rather axioms) without anyone being burned on metaphorical cross along the way. There is no schism here, no cults, event not too many people with different opinions (there are surly some with different axioms and some with different opinions about reducing sorting worthiness to one scalar value). Meanwhile if You get out of Your bubble and start asking what does it exactly mean "eternal life" or event better, as You mentioned, "what's heaven?" You will get as many answers as You will find people (home exercise - go ask a modern Jew about heaven, or Yehova witness, or Mormon :)).

brightball 4y ago

Fwiw, the blog post that I wrote (referenced above) goes specifically into these.

throwaway_4ever 4y ago

> For example, these two popular (and probably the most important!) verses have very clear meanings: > For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. — John 3:16 (NIV) That is your choice of a "very clear meaning"?! Ok, then do you believe man goes to heaven through faith alone, or by faith and actions that prove their faith? Because a billion Protestants would say that the verse tells you it is by faith alone, and a billion Catholics will quote James 2 20:24 in saying that faith without works is useless: "You foolish person, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless? 21 Was not our father Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? 22 You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did. 23 And the scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,” and he was called God’s friend. 24 You see that a person is considered righteous by what they do and not by faith alone."

pastorhudson 4y ago
I find Dallas Willard’s quote on this to be very simple and encouraging. “Grace is not opposed to effort, it is opposed to earning. Earning is an attitude. Effort is an action.” - Dallas Willard The Great Omission
- throwaway_4ever 4y ago
  Yet, even you quote man himself rather than the perfect Word of God. Should not something as perfect as the Word of God be the most simple, encouraging, and enlightening on such a crucial matter of Christianity itself? The evidence before us doesn't indicate so. That is when a Protestant might say, "Well it is clear and perfect in it's [Protestant / sola fide] meaning. And that the billions of other Christians, try as extremely hard as they may, with millions spending immense portions of their live trying to ascertain what God meant for them, have been led astray for all of time."
nyokodo 4y ago
> Because a billion Protestants would say that the verse tells you it is by faith alone, and a billion Catholics will quote James 2 20:24 in saying that faith without works is useless: In 1999 the Catholic Church and the Lutheran World Federation signed a joint statement on justification which admitted they had agreed but had never sat down and done the difficult work of making the fine distinctions and assuming good faith until then! In my experience faith and works is like that with the two groups making different emphases but when one makes the fine distinctions there is essential agreement. There are genuine disagreements but fewer than even the faithful realize. Why the vehement opposition and recriminations? The proximate causes are legion but the efficient cause IMHO involves liberal portions of late medieval to Renaissance European politics that still curses us today.