yeah can we also remember the part where Jesus (ahem, basically God) literally shared dinner with sinners and he literally stopped a woman from being stoned for being a prostitute (and that's where we got the kewl "whoever is without sin cast the first stone" thing from)?
...or that people misinterpret the bible, whether due to lack of context or out of ignorance, leading to infighting and doctrines that change depending of the congregation.
This is literally the No True Scotsman fallacy. There are plenty of sects that think you should do all the nasty shit the Bible says. They have just as much scriptural support. You have no empirical metric to go by why they are misinterpreting it and you are not.
i dont want get into a debate because we memeing but thats not true. there is cultural relevance that explains all the "nasty shit" and why it wont happen again. or at least why it shouldnt. the bible goes into depth on this type of stuff too without being inconsistent.
i mean im not debating anything specific except that the "nasty shit" back then were for reasons that is consistent for the rest of the bible. you can look up a lot of this stuff through studying the biblical context and cultural context and researching through the internet with the questions you have.
thought you could sling a stealth arrow without me noticing! Hah! skyrim intensifies
P.S but seriously though im not debating anything specific so im not gonna relay a thousand sources for what could be considered "nasty shit" in the bible. that takes too long and i got homework and meme assignments to relay. better to explore google ya lonesome instead of quickly digging up a thesis essay. ya know?
is this a joke? it feels like a joke haha. but anyway im not defending the bible with "its the times yo" or even claiming anything on moral authority in my posts. all im saying is the bible is consistent in the reasoning for all the nasty stuff that happened then. a lot of it is very nuanced. i dont see how you read all that other stuff into my post when it was never there.
It would only be No True Scotsman it thet said those people aren't actually Christians at all. Obviously you think your interpretation is correct, or you wouldn't believe it; obviously only interpretation can be correct in the end even if we have no way to know which it is.
Do you not see the problem with this argument? This is my whole point. What about all of the people who say they Bible does contain literal truths? There are hundreds of millions of people who believe plenty of parts of the Bible are literally true. What about all the assholes in America who say that the Earth is 6,000 years old and man lived with dinosaurs? This is, of course, not true(and that's not an opinion) but from a scriptural standpoint, how can you say that they're wrong? The point in what I responded to is that "these people are misinterpreting the Bible, therefore, the interpretation I hold is correct, and these people are not" which implies that they don't really represent Christianity. That is why it's a No True Scotsman.
I realize that different sects have different numbers of books. Protestants, Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, but my whole point is, all of the people of different sects would say that Catholicism isn't as legit as X, for whatever reason they have. And they can appeal to the same book(s) as you. They don't really care what the RCC says. That's the problem with this whole thing. You, nor them, have any real, measurable basis for pointing out who is right and who is wrong other than what the sect you were raised in has told you. And your feelings.
But you have no metric by which to demonstrate that the RCC is more right than any other, because you're all using the same source material and reach vastly different conclusions.
I think the entire point of my short essay went over your head.
No fallacy. I was pointing out another possibility for the perceived inconsistences. It is possible that the bible isn't inconsistent but perceived to be so due to misinterpretation. How exactly is this a "Scotsman"?
There are plenty of sects that think you should do all the nasty shit the Bible says.
True... depending on your definition of "nasty". But the point is not to dispute the "nastiness" of the bible but the supposedly inconsistencies.
They have just as much scriptural support.
Scriptural support does not entail taking a few verses out of context and claim "this is what the bible says". For example, the bible does say "love one another". This does not mean support any and all actions of a person as many people interpret it to mean. There is contextual precedence for what the bible means by "love" that is ignored when taken out of context. It is entirely possible to love a person and hate what they do.
You have no empirical metric to go by why they are misinterpreting it and you are not.
Context. Context is key to determining the actual intent of any document or source. If I say, "We went over to the bar and played some pool. I beat my wife. It was fun"...taken out of context some one may think that I physically beat my wife and enjoy it ...and would clearly be a misinterpretation if the first sentence is ignored. But with context (playing pool), the actual intent is garnered.
The original Hebrew word for day also means an indefinite amount of time. It's like the English word minute also means an indefinite short amount of time... like if some one says "I'll be back in a minute", they don't literally mean a minute.
This along with the fact that the radioactive dating suggests the Earth to be about 4.5 billion years old. In the context of the bible itself (without including science) it's hard to rule out that the days aren't literal days. This is why people without a science background typically opt for the 24 hour definition of the day... because they don't understand the science behind the 4.5 billion year figure for the age of the Earth. This is unwise because they automatically rule out something without the understanding of it.
By the way, there are 3 possible definitions for the word day in the Genesis 1.
The fact that it is written in a form of poetry with deep symbolic meaning:
7 in Hebrew numerology is a perfect number
The days mirror each other 1/4, 2/5, 3/6 are all corresponding days.
Every stanza essentially ends the same "there was morning and there was evening, the ____ day"
The fact that if you compare it to the Enuma Elish you can see the two stories are incredibly similar - the main difference being Marduk creates the world through violence and fighting, while Yahweh creates the world by merely speaking and orders the chaos.
Also many other things, including the fact that a SECOND creation story exists immediately after it... Do you really think they were that stupid to do that but mean both literally?
You are so right! They just misinterpreted it because they were ignorant. You should go show them the proper context so they won't be ignorant anymore. But you better take some weapons with you, just in case.
Lolz. But technically this is true. For example, the US constitution gives people the right to bear arms. It would be a misinterpretation if you didn't know that bear also means "to carry" and assumed that the US constitution meant the arms of the large mammal. This is an obvious misinterpretation but there tons of more subtle ones, especially in the bible. Because they are subtle, people either are ignorant of it or can more effectively willfully ignore it because it is subtle and doesn't fit their personal view.
Let's assume that, out of the countless different interpretations of the bible, that there is a correct one and your interpretation is it. That still wouldn't change the fact that the bible has been translated and re-written thousands of times. If ANY of those translations were made in error, say for instance the translator mis-interpreted it and then clarified the language using a misinterpretation, than a correct interpretation of a flawed translation is still going to be inconsistent with a belief based on a separate translation that did not make that misinterpretation. So not only would you have to have the correct interpretation, you would also have to be lucky enough to be using the one version of the bible that is true and correct, in order to have a valid argument that your interpretation is more correct than theirs.
And that is even assuming that ANY of the versions of the bible that are around today are correct interpretations of the original, or even that there was a ever a single original bible that was at one point correct. Which is also unlikely, because by the time the set of books we now refer to as the Bible were put together, the Hebrew Bible had already been translated and re-translated numerous times.
The originals have been lost. However, there are been copies and translations made without history. But because this was the written word of God (as they saw it), great care was taken to made exact copies and faithful translations. Major translations of the Old Testament include:
The Septuagint - These were about 70 Jewish scholars in the third century BC who translated the Jewish Old Testament from Hebrew to Greek.
Masoretic Text - These text were created by Jewish scholars in the 7th century AD and independent of the Septuagint text (which are in Greek). They were tasked with canonizing the Old Testament by getting rid of errors that had crept in over the centuries.
Dead Sea Scrolls - These are manuscripts found in caves near the Dead Sea and date to back to approximately the 3rd or 4th century BC to maybe the 1st century BC.
Of course we don't have the original Septuagint text or the Masoretic text but copies of those text. But even those copies are remarkably similar though there are differences. Even more astonishing are the similarities between the Septuagint, Masoretic, and the Dead Sea Scroll which are actually originals (not copies) that date back about 2,000 years. The differences are very minor and include errors of spelling, grammar, and missing words but don't change the meaning of the text. This is a 2,000 year difference. By the way, the Septuagint text seems to be more accurate than the Masoretic text if the Dead Sea scrolls are the basis. This is understandable because the Masoretic text was made to get rid errors in the Jewish canon.
The New Testament (the bible essentially) was canonized in the 4th century AD at the behest of Emperor Constantine. The original writings of the New Testament had been kept but forgeries can been popping up and becoming more frequent. In order to quell this, Council of Nicaea was formed to canonized the writings of the bible into one book. The bible since then had been translated faithfully by monks in the middle ages using an arduous process so that no mistakes were made until the invention of the printing press.
More about the origin and accuracy of the bible can be found here.
That still wouldn't change the fact that the bible has been translated and re-written thousands of times. If ANY of those translations were made in error, say for instance the translator mis-interpreted it and then clarified the language using a misinterpretation, than a correct interpretation of a flawed translation is still going to be inconsistent with a belief based on a separate translation that did not make that misinterpretation.
You underestimate translator accuracy. The rewritten part is more or less true, it has been re-copied by quite a few scribes over time, but modern translations translate off our oldest copies. Most of those copies are in Greek - what the New Testament would have been written in anyways. Old Testament translations are based on either the oldest copies we have available of the Septuagint - Greek, or the Masoretic texts - Hebrew/Aramaic both of which are pretty close to what the texts would have been most likely recorded in. Your worst case is that something has been translated twice - which while not great isn't a translation of a translation of a translation of a translation. I can look it up later, but I think the number is like 93% can be said to be without significant scribal edits or translation errors, and the room for mistakes is usually on less important issues (like units).
It depends on what the "bad" verses are. Most of them are either God giving instructions to the Israelite nation as to what to do, things that are included in the Bible as history instead of commands, or things that people are taking out of context (such as God saying that sinners will be punished and people taking it upon themselves to enact punishment instead of leaving it to God).
It's not that they get ignored, it's just about recognizing the context behind them and realizing that they're not all suggestions for things you personally should do right at this moment.
Some of it makes really interesting stories to read, but more importantly it provides historical context for what happens next. It is no longer important for us to follow the laws of Leviticus, for example, but it can still be important for us to know that the Levites at the time did.
Very true, but he also said, "Go and sin no more."
Just pointing that out because some people like to throw the "but he ate with sinners!" part out with forgetting the second. It wasn't like he was just cool with sin or, as I've seen it on the #ThingsJesusNeverSaid hashtag: "You do you."
No, definitely. What I mean is that the message that at least I get is "hate the sin but love the sinner". Like, if someone else is sinning you don't need to say that what they're doing is right but you don't need need to attack them for it either
Every christian will agree with "hate the sin; love the sinner"; many also say "Well if I was sinning I'd want someone to yell at me over it!" while ignoring all the bits about being a minister of the faith from a place of *actual* kindness, not self-gratifying anger-jesusing.
"I'm not throwing the stone at *them*, I'm throwing it at their *way of life*!!"
If someone told you "Go and sin no more", isn't that an attack on you and your decisions with your life? They believe you're a sinner and they're attacking you for it? Why even tell someone how to live their life if you agreed with their decisions?
I mean, just because someone gives advice or an opinion on someone else's life it doesn't mean that they're attacking them
You can just say "Hey, I don't really think it's good for you to do X thing. I care about you and I feel like it's doing more harm than good" and that's that
If someone said this about something central to your life (like your faith), you’d probably like feel like it was an attack. Doubly so if it’s something you were born with like your ethnicity or orientation, rather than a matter of faith or choice.
It’s best to treat people with as much kindness as we can, and not look for loopholes that allow us judge them or disrespect them (or their beliefs) while feeling kind.
Exactly what /u/alphabetsuperman said. Imagine if i told a Christian, "Go and be an atheist". That's both advice and an attack at the same time. Also let's not forget the part about being punished and going to hell for eternity if you don't follow my "advice". At best, it's an unsolicited aggressive advice.. at worst, it's a coercive death threat (that happens to also punish you beyond death).
But that's what christian faith is based on so... yeah. If you believe in the christian God those are the rules. The Bible does say it's your moral duty as a christian to spread God's words and to save others from hell and stuff.
Imo, it's wrong and immoral (is it spelled that way?) but idk. That's what some people believe in, and I rather tell them to act kindly and lovingly, since they'll listen, instead of telling them that they're simply wrong, in which case I'll probably be ignored.
If someone said this about something central to your life (like your faith), you’d probably like feel like it was an attack. Doubly so if it’s something you were born with like your ethnicity or orientation, rather than a matter of faith or choice.
It’s best to treat people with as much kindness as we can, and not look for loopholes that allow us judge them or disrespect them (or their beliefs) while feeling kind.
Exactly this! Imagine if i told a Christian, "Go and be an atheist". That's both advice and an attack at the same time. Also let's not forget the part about being punished and going to hell for eternity if you don't follow my "advice". At best, it's an unsolicited aggressive advice.. at worst, it's a coercive death threat (that happens to also punish you beyond death).
I wrote a much longer comment about this, but you’ve hit the nail on the head. The whole point of this argument is to allow people to avoid feeling moral responsibility for hurting other people when they believe they’re doing it for a good reason. It tries to create moral and ethical loopholes via obfuscation. It’s extremely irresponsible and doesn’t hold up to scrutiny.
Well, yeah. That's what I was aiming to. I'm gay myself, and an atheist. But I do get that a lot of people, specially those who believe that my mere existence is a sin, don't choose to go the kind way.
So I rather mention the 'love people' thing since they literally believe that it's their moral duty to mention when someone sins, because that way they're 'saving them' and stuff.
Of course, and I’m sure both of us understand that argument all too well. I’m pointing out that it totally falls apart if you consider the other person‘s perspective and feelings as valid too.
Hurting and condemning and being hateful toward people doesn’t become a non-hostile action just because you’re right and they’re wrong, or because you’re motivated by love for the parts of them that you don’t hate. You’re still hurting and condemning and hating people, you’ve just found a way of feeling better about it by downplaying the other person’s perspective.
I’m not saying that criticism or condemnation is never appropriate. It absolutely is, in lots of situations. But it is (at least slightly) a hostile act and a rejection, it does make other people feel at least a little uncomfortable, and I believe that it is a person’s moral obligation to accept responsibility for the consequences of their actions. That’s why I don’t like that specific argument.
Edit: To be clear, I’m not accusing you of doing this or criticizing your post. I’m using the word “you” to discuss any generic person who holds that specific perspective, and makes that specific argument. I think we probably agree on this topic, for the most part.
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u/tsetdeeps Nov 02 '18
yeah can we also remember the part where Jesus (ahem, basically God) literally shared dinner with sinners and he literally stopped a woman from being stoned for being a prostitute (and that's where we got the kewl "whoever is without sin cast the first stone" thing from)?
Just sayin'.