Posted on 06/20/2007 5:24:39 AM PDT by spirited irish
And to your post at 415: “Amen!”
I think you're a little confused as to what a metaphor and allegory are. I don't deny that such a story has meaning to us, but there is nothing in the text that indicates such an occurrence did not indeed actually happen. In fact, that's exactly how I interpret it....as a real occurrence. In that case, it is not metaphorical or allegorical.
I would, but the creationists here keep providing new evidence!
A widely held and practiced trait of Islam.. usually by their OWN FAMILYS..
Sometimes Before they are ostracized sometimes After..
Well, obviously that is the case here hosepipe. I'm not sure there is anything we can do about it though....
What I see of the bibles message(s) NOW is quite different than what I saw when I was first "born again".. My vision GREW.. Hey, it could happen.. NO, it DOES happen..
Again, I'm not sure what to say to this. Obviously, people's opinions do change on any number of things, including the Bible.
The bottom line is, I think it's silly for a serious reader of the Bible to conclude that Adam was metaphorical.
You're free to believe what you want though...
Can America survive another Democratic government?
What if I see some things spoken of in the bible deeper than you do?.. or even not deeper but differently than you..
Well, obviously that is the case here hosepipe. I'm not sure there is anything we can do about it though....
What I see of the bibles message(s) NOW is quite different than what I saw when I was first "born again".. My vision GREW.. Hey, it could happen.. NO, it DOES happen..
Again, I'm not sure what to say to this. Obviously, people's opinions do change on any number of things, including the Bible.
The bottom line is, I think it's silly for a serious reader of the Bible to conclude that Adam was metaphorical.
You're free to believe what you want though...
The drunkard does not do the designing, and you continue to assume that evolutionary change has to produce results specified in advance.
Evolution does account for common descent. Everyone having the capacity and training to understand molecular biology -- including evolution critics like Behe and Yockey -- knows there is no rational reason to doubt common descent.
If you wish to argue that variation and selection are insufficient to account for common descent, then you are under some obligation to describe a mechanism that prevents varieties from diverging indefinitely from their original type.
Evolution does not predict that the algorithm would produce the same results on a second run, so evolution is not obligated to explain the exact list of things currently alive. All that evolution seeks to describe is the process by which a branching tree forms.
How about the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil..
Was that an actual tree or a metaphor?.. or the Tree of Life?.. or the Snake(Satan).. or God walking in the cool of paradise chatting with Adam?.. Where does the metaphor end and reality begin?..
Why would God include/allow Satan in Paradise as a spoiler to innocence?..
Upon hearing "its raining cats and dogs" do you run to the window to see pets falling?..
There is much much more information in Genesis ch. 1-3 as a metaphor than the literal words(gross language) contain.. Adam and Eve are just as real as a group metaphor symbolically as they would be if NOT a metaphor.... TO US...
Could be the Adam and Eve metaphor is a bootstrap to a much larger story Not Told..
i.e. what happened with the fall of the angels precipitating the need for humans..
But they do have to apply to our method of inquiry, else, all is chaos....
For instance, by your exclusive rule of logic God must either be One or three, yet I am convinced He is both One God and three members ('persons'), in Trinity.
No...according to my principle such a thing would either have to be metaphorical or literal, and as such, we seem to be in agreement on this one....
I should have explained that I see it as metaphorical in this sense, that one does not have to be named "Lazarus," nor need one be sitting at someone's steps begging scraps with the dogs, covered with open sores, in order to find favor with God and reach Abraham's bosom (Heaven), and that one need not be rich, and one may not have a beggar at one's door that one ignores in order for one to end up in hades. In that sense, the parable teaches all of us, applies via the 'metaphors' mentioned above to all our lives. The story applies to all times, all places, and all persons by extension, and, IMO, the extension is seeing the specifics as metaphorical. Sorry I didn't state that clearly earlier. Thanks for the reply.
Oxymoron, or sophistry?
neither.. Not all christians are christians either..
As one guy said; You can put puppies in a muffin tin in a oven, but that don't make them muffins..
Puppies aren’t muffins, so muslims aren’t muslims and christians aren’t christians. Got it.
You can't get the government to obey the Constitution because its members regard themselves as our rulers, not our agents. Which tells me they do not understand the Constitution; or if they do, they have willfully chosen to ignore it. And evidently they think they can get away with this, because the people themselves are ignorant of the founding principles of the Constitution. Meanwhile, we have all been thoroughly "socialized" by progressive doctrines which are totally antithetical to the thought of the Framers, and their original intention for our Constitutional Democratic Republic, wherein the people themselves are sovereign, having no "ruler" on earth, but only God Himself.
I know you will disagree with me. I can't help it -- I just see matters differently than you do. When I read Story, I am not satisfied with merely scanning the text, but in looking for the deeper meanings. Story was writing at a time when the national psyche was still pretty much informed by the Framers' understandings. Indeed, as late as 1957 (or was it 1959?), the words "Under God" were added to the Pledge of Allegience, as a reminder to us of who we are and where we as a nation came from.... Too little, too late; for America has been under seige of Left progressive ideologies (all of which are perfectly conformable with evolutionary humanism and "natural selection") since the early Twentieth Century.
I'll tell you this, based on what I've seen: I do not expect America can or will survive "evolutionary humanism." I'm just waiting with bated breath for the other shoe to drop....
The only way to get our country back is to once again recognize that we are a nation "under God." Remember the hierarchy I spoke of earlier?
God
Man
State
That's the model the Framers envisioned -- not in a sectarian way, but as the general ethical and philosophical idea of our founding. Here's the hierarchy we've got today:
Tyrant [the "ruling class" together with their ideological supporters]
State [the overweening, inefficient, unaccountable federal bureaucracy]
Man [subject of the rulers; and as taxpayer, the source of all funding for the concerted political power grab that strips us of our dignity and our liberties]
The ideology of our government is largely "progressive," liberal, and Left. You can tell, because the government has become a champion of group politics; the individual grows less and less significant as time goes on.... And his right to be "left alone" by the government has been virtually extinguished.
It's a pretty grim picture. The only way I can imagine America could ever be restored to her roots would be as the result of an absolutely devastating national emergency that paralyzes the government and the economy. Assuming we could survive that, perhaps we'd rediscover the virtues of individual initiative, self-reliance, honesty, hard work, accountability, etc., and be able to start all over again....
Short of that, soon America will resemble the failed states of Europe -- or worse, the failed states of the Middle East.
And all because we have forgotten our Founders and their beliefs, which are the spirit of the federal Constitution they framed: a novus ordo seclorum -- a new order for the ages.
My two cents, FWIW. Thanks for writing, tpaine!
Thank you, .30carbine! I meant to ping you to #456, which continues the discussion with tpaine.
Very good. I noticed that when you remove God from the hierarchy, something else floats to the top.
Who says any of these things are metaphorical to begin with. Your assumption precludes a literal interpretation that is not borne out by the text, or further references to it.
Why would God include/allow Satan in Paradise as a spoiler to innocence?..
I don't know.
Upon hearing "its raining cats and dogs" do you run to the window to see pets falling?..
Now you're being silly
There is much much more information in Genesis ch. 1-3 as a metaphor than the literal words(gross language) contain..
You're comparing apples and oranges here. Genesis, chapters two and three, center around Adam and Eve, therefore it deals with the human condition which can lend itself to allegorical arguments, since moral truths are the nature of such things. I don't agree with these arguments, but at least you have the framework in which to make the arguments.
Genesis, chapter one, does not in any way deal with the human condition, therefore, if it is allegorical, it must relate to a scientific truth, or a truth about the dynamics of nature and matter. Of these arguments, I have found none that have merit when taken in context with the whole of the text. That's just my opinion, and I've spoken on these particular arguments before. Sadly, most people don't even bother to engage me further, and simply ignore my argument.
Adam and Eve are just as real as a group metaphor symbolically as they would be if NOT a metaphor.... TO US...
All you're saying here is that it doesn't matter if Adam and Eve were real or not. I happen to disagree. Everything in the Bible, not the least of which is Christs redemption, follows from this one central event. If you consider that event to be fictitious....then what's the point really.
Look, I've said it before and I'll say it again. You either believe that the Bible is the word of God, or you don't. It's that simple.
This argument that God would create us as incapable of understanding his word is nonsense. How hard would it be for God to have conveyed the idea of great lengths of time, or that all creatures are related to each other. In fact, such a story probably would have made much more sense to the people of the time than some invisible being poofing everything into existence for no apparent reason.
Could be the Adam and Eve metaphor is a bootstrap to a much larger story Not Told.. i.e. what happened with the fall of the angels precipitating the need for humans..
Well, surely God has hidden some things from us, as Christ testifies, but they are not for the benefit of those that would call themselves wise....rather, it is to their detriment.
Again though, such an interpretation doesn't preclude a moral lesson.
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