I did skim through them and will read them more in detail later. I do not think these authors are reaching the conclusions you think they are. They are essentially saying that historical context, writing style, narrative context etc... Has to be taken into account for the purpose of the story. I agree with them. I do not see how any of that has to do with their interpretation of the events in the bible. They are essentially saying, the stories happened (according to the authors) but how they tell the story is based on "artistic license" am I correct in what I am saying?

I am saying the God that many identify with in christian theology relies on those stories. Your idea of God may be different. The God as described in the bible is legend at best and a complete fabrication at worst. I assume the latter given the ignorance of the people at the time.

For example, what is left of God as we know him without all of those extraordinary claims that couldn't have happened? The Old testament is full of them. If all of those are just parables, who is God? What makes him God if he didn't do those things?

Aaron is correct.

The burden is upon the one who asserts to know something.

In the example of the OP, it was the atheist who asserted knowledge.

Ummmmm... in those articles, they're saying "creation" happened.

My point, however, is related to your various statements about literal readings of the Bible:

This is false.

No, it would not.

Assuming broad levels of ignorance in others is usually a mistake. People make this mistake all the time when they assume that people from a previous era were just all idiots and had no idea about anything. It's true that they were ignorant of things that we view as facts of the universe, but they also didn't walk around the earth pointing at everything and saying "That's God. And that's God. And that's also God."

These are fair questions, but you won't come to a meaningful answer to them from a theological perspective (regardless of whether you actually agree with/adopt the theology). This is likely tied to your earlier statement about "testing" and "predicting" the outcome of God. The concepts you're using are still very scattered.

Yes, they are just arguing over how the story is told. For example, if I said that "it was raining cats and dogs" although my point is not that it is literally raining cats and dogs my message is still that it was raining. They are saying that Genesis 1 is telling a creation story. Why would these people not also assume the events from noahs ark and moses's slave revolt happened? It would be the same logic (maybe he didn't actually part the sea but slaves escaped from egypt for example)

Yes, they are still accepting the story as that of actual events though. They are just saying that the story itself may contain metaphors or parables to make the point. Creation, flood, slave revolt etc.. Still happened according to the story.


yes it would. If the fall never happened there would be no point for a sacrifice.


In other words you agree with me? You just said the didn't know as much and I said they were ignorant... We are saying the same thing.



I am an epistemologist. I need verification before I accept something as true.

Then you're not really understanding the articles you're reading.

Yes, but *what* about creation is the message about? If you reject all the details about the length of days and have the possibility of interpreting it as a Hebrew poetry, or that historical perspectives are that creation was actually instantaneous, or that contemporary perspectives allow for the universe to be billions of years old, then what's the underlying message?

Notice that you're engaged in random conjecture. That's not how this process actually works.

First, you're not addressing your words. You claimed a literal interpretation was accepted. I'm trying to show you this is false. All these words you are using are negating that the text needs to be read literally.

Now you're trying to make a theological point, but without any actual engagement with the theology. That's not how this works.


I'm saying that while there are some facts about which they may have been ignorant, it's an error to claim just general ignorance to people. This applies particularly to acts of reasoning. The average person from ancient Greek probably used reason in a far more effective manner than the average person today. Their ignorance of facts does not mean they walked around like complete idiots with no capacity to interact reasonably with information and the world around them.

The fact that you put these sentences back to back tells me that you don't really know that much about the philosophy you're attempting to espouse.

Why does it matter? They still think these events took place.. I am saying these events DID NOT take place. By the way I am still talking about the flood and the authors of your links are referring to creation, I do understand why you used them but I just wanted to be clear before you ask me how I know creation didn't happen.


No, I was just giving you an example of how the logic could apply. I wasn't trying to imply they do believe the flood myth. I was asking why they wouldn't.

Literal, meaning they think these things happened. They think there was a global flood and that slaves escaped egypt. Neither of those events happened.

I understand the Christian Theology as much as anyone. Maybe not as much as you but I certainly know enough about it to learn more or to have a conversation. Must I be an expert to discuss it? The fall is required for the sacrifice of Jesus to be necessary is it not?

Please tell me how you think these people who forced rape victims to marry their rapist were able to "interact reasonably" with the world around them compared to us.

Truth doesn't have to be absolute you know. If I can demonstrate something is the way I say it is true.

I see some of the source of the confusion. When you said:

The "logic of the whole thing" is precisely what theology is. One can take certain theological positions without adopting any position with regards to the question of whether certain things are literal facts. You're also using "literal" in a very different way than is commonly used. So we probably need to clean that up, too.

With regards to a "global flood" we have the following:

http://biologos.org/questions/genesis-flood

This doesn't deny the flood, but denies the interpretation that it was global.

Here's a Jewish author discussing the flood as purely metaphor:

jbq.jewishbible.org/assets/Uploads/402/jbq_402_NoahsArk.pdf

Despite it being Jewish, it still stands as theological position that does not need to take the position that there was a literal flood.

I'm confused by what you mean by "the logic." As a point of fact, in 2004, ABC News put out the results of a poll that states that 44% of Catholics and 73% of Protestants believe that the Noah account is "literally true" which means that 56% of Catholics and 27% of Protestants do not believe the Noah account is "literally true." Again, there's some discrepancy here about what they mean by "literal" and what you're saying about "literal" but it should at least bring some more information to the table that you are probably lacking.

abcnews.go.com/images/pdf/947a1ViewsoftheBible.pdf

Are you sure? Very few Christians use the word "literal" with respect to the Bible the way you do.

No, but the more you know the fewer things you'll say that will embarrass yourself. We'll get to theology later. You first need to at least get your basic language in line with others. Based on the conversation so far, I think there's a much bigger gap than you realize, and that your exposure to Christian theology is particularly narrow (probably straight Bible belt stuff).

LOL -- Is this really where you're going to go with this? This has nothing to do with religious people in particular, but broadly understood cultural norms. It's also far from clear that this is even an accurate rendering of history.

(Not that you couldn't find instances of this, but to broadly characterize the behaviors of people in these terms is probably going to be about as accurate as claiming that in 2014 everyone in Mississippi is a racist because the state flag had the Confederate flag in it.)

I was trying to point out specifically about the language you were using. The further down the path you go here, the more you're going to realize what you don't know, which is a good thing. But it seems you first need to be more open to learning because the sentences you're stringing together hint at a fairly shallow understanding of the things you're trying to talk about.

When you called yourself an "epistemologist" instead of an "evidentialist" (or a "reliabilist" -- but your statements make you sound much more like an evidentialist) is a big, big clue about your level of understanding of epistemology.

I don't understand why anyone would engage Aarron in a discussion.


He is rude with non stop thinly veiled insults. He also rambles on in infinite circles about asinine things, acting like he is destroying his opponent.

I've not followed Aaron in other threads, but itt I see where he has spent much time and effort trying to correct one poster's confusion in philosophical areas and lack of knowledge in theological areas.

Hammering out terms and language usage is tedious but often necessary when we have such a diverse group with a huge range of varying knowledge on these subjects.

We all (theists and atheists alike) should be grateful when somebody spends the time to improve or correct our base of knowledge.

Discuss and learn people, discuss and learn.

perfect description.

If you would ask him "Does the sun rise in the east?" he would go on rambling for days about how you don't know anything about physics, logic, the universe and how the wording of your question was very bad and tells a whole lot of you and your level of knowledge.

Insults are reserved for those who earn it. Honest discussion, where the other person appears to be engaged in the content and expressing meaningful statements that demonstrate a reasonable level of reflection on the statements being made is valuable. In the end, I do not expect posters to agree on things most of the time, and that's okay.

0/10. Would yawn again.

Aaron,

Lets start over as this has gotten way of topic to my original point. The people who believe God as the anthropomorphic being who caused a global flood, freed slaves in Egypt and sent his people wandering through the desert for several years raiding small villages believe in a being who does not exist. I don't care what % believe this but I again challenge that it is most. Meaning over 51%. If it is only 1% fine, those are the people I am addressing, if you are not that 1% fine, I am not addressing you with this argument.

With that being said, I would be happy to start over with you defining the God that you believe in and me telling you if I have a problem with that God.

Meh, its a debate really. So he is allowed to send insults my way. I don't really think he has been out of line.

First, you're going to have some problems establishing your claims. What elements of anthropomorphism are you asserting? You're likely to hit a theological wall.

Second, you assert that "most" [of the people who believe [in] God] "believe this" but that goes back to my first point. You added the term "anthropomorphic" into your description and it's completely unclear what role it plays in your characterization of their beliefs. I don't know whether to view your statement as accurate or inaccurate because it is not sufficiently clear who you're trying to include.

Third, if it's only 1% but you think it's 51%, what other factual errors exist in your understanding? That type of positioning is not a good one to take. If you're establishing an argument against a position that basically nobody is taking, the argument is probably not a particularly interesting one.

Fourth, it's very unclear at this point what exactly you are intending to use to establish your claim. You don't need to make any arguments to assert that such-and-such doesn't exist. But mere assertion doesn't mean much. How are you establishing your claim? This goes back to the previous discussion, in which the burden of proof was clearly described for you.

Fifth, I would suggest to you that a great many very intelligent and thoughtful people in the past and in the present are either Jews or Christians -- or even Muslims -- (since all could potentially fit in whatever characterization you're making by referencing only Exodus in your description of "God"). If your argument is something that only hits on a superficial level, you should definitely consider the possibility that your superficial argument is missing something relevant.

Lastly, it doesn't matter whether you're addressing me. Your argument rises and falls on its quality, and statements you make can be evaluated from anyone who reads them, regardless of whether they are a target of the argument.

I am asserting that many people believe that the god in the bible as I described exists. You are saying that it is a small number of people.. I don't care either way, those are the people I addressed in the argument.

Define the god you believe in please.

You think you are having a debate with him? All I see is him lecturing you while completely ignoring the subject at hand. This is always the case with this guy.

If this is your assertion, please provide evidence that "many people people that [the God you described] exists."

My evidence for rejecting that is that more than half of Catholics and more than a quarter of Protestants believe that the flood story is "literally true." As you start adding more condition (especially vague ones, like "antrhopomorphic"), the percent of people you're addressing diminishes exponentially. Mostly, you suffer from a mischaracterization problem. You've framed your argument in a narrow and biased way as to exclude most people from consideration.

But now you're saying that you don't even care about your assertion. Which is it?

What would you say about your position if you win an argument against nobody?

I believe in a God that resembles the historical Christian theological concept of God.

Given that Baptists are the largest denomination of Christians in the united states and most believe the bible is without error, I would argue that a very large portion of Baptists believe there was a worldwide flood. Also, as you said half the catholics and a quarter of the protestants.. All those numbers equal a very large% of Christians. I would not say me saying most is out of line. I think it is a fair assessment of the facts.

My argument addresses a large number of people. It seems everyone defines God slightly different and my argument is a general outline of how a lot of Christians would define him. They may use different words but they are ultimately communicating the same thing.


I don't care about how many there are. We both know it is a lot of people.



Nonsense, you just agreed there are a lot of people who believe this.

talk about being vague. Do you believe he is omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient ? Do you believe he has human like qualities? Do you believe he is spaceless and timeless? Etc..

To answer the OP's question in a way he might understand it...

Like, no.

Ummmm... You've got the logic all wacky here.

Given:
(G1) Baptists are the largest denomination of Christians in the US
(G2) Most believe the Bible is without error

Conclude:
(C) A very large portion of Baptists believe there was a worldwide flood

How G1 has any bearing in this argument is beyond me. And the connection between G2 and C is a bit tenuous.

"Without error" points to the theological concept of inerrancy, which isn't the same thing as the Biblical literalism. And theological inerrancy does not imply it, either.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_inerrancy

As there are multiple concepts of inerrancy, it's not clear at all which concept you'll pick up in a survey unless the survey goes into further detail about those distinctions. This is one of the major minefields about public surveys of religious beliefs.

Not really. If you had simply stopped at "a literal global flood" then you would be okay. But you're doing all sorts of other things with your words that just don't go anywhere.

If you asked a Christian, "Do you believe in an anthropomorphic God?" most people would just give you strange looks. And that's not just because some of them don't know what that word means, but also because many who know what it means don't understand how to interpret it in a useful way. It's almost certainly a useless inquiry.

Do I ascribe anthropomorphic characteristics to trees? Sure, in the sense that I can see trees doing things like "grabbing" kites out of the air with its "hands." But if you asked me if I believe in anthropomorphic trees, I would probably tell you that I didn't. But I'd also tell you that I don't understand what you're asking.

Ummmmm... just... no. You don't know much of anything about Christian Theology if you're claiming that this is a definition of God. It just doesn't work that way at all.

No, I don't know that it's a lot of people. I think too many people would be confused by your "definition" that they really wouldn't know what you're trying to communicate.

This doesn't even answer the question.

One reason I'm being intentionally vague is because there's a crap-ton of concepts there to choose from.

But the real reason is that many of these things are things that aren't going to be particularly helpful in this conversation. Mostly, you're suffering from just a very superficial understanding of theology. Throwing around phrases like "I'm an epistemologist" and "literal" meaning something completely different than how most Christians use the term suggest that it's just going to be a sink-hole of information.

Dude,

They believe in a worldwide flood. A flood that did not happen. They believe in a slave revolt, a slave revolt that didn't happen. Most of the major events that your deity is known for DID NOT HAPPEN.

Anthropomorphic means humanlike. Creating us in our image, having similar emotions to us etc...

Dude.

You just fell right back into the exactly same fallacy I told you about earlier.

"Most" of the "major" events? I think you've listed TWO things. How many "major" events do you think there have been?

There are many ways in which theology can be read to reject that God is humanlike. It would be more proper to say that humans bear a resemblance to God, and not the other way around.

Also, the underlined is... wrong. You probably just used the wrong pronoun in one of the two places, and depending on how you placed it you would either be right or wrong.

And with "similar emotions" you would once again have to be very careful about how that's actually interpreted. You should read on the impassibility of God and some theological discussion of it:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impassibility

http://www.spurgeon.org/~phil/articles/impassib.htm

Wow, Aaron giving out a ton of free education in logic, philosophy, and theology itt.

Fraleyight, just like the original post regarding burden of proof -- you're making some errors in logic here. Just because some believers may be mistaken regarding a historical worldwide flood or historical exodus, it does not follow that God does not exist (even the God mentioned in their holy books).

Beyond that, you're ignoring thousands of years of theological thought which have resolved, in various ways, all of these objections you bring to the table.