Anyone can read the Bible. - Really?
- Thread starter wynn
- Start date
On the contrary, most atheists back down from the "strong" position since the absurdity of rendering a negative absolute becomes plainly apparent .....
@Signal, et al:
But if, in the original question, you are addressing the general readership, I would hazard to guess that 99.9% of them do not engage in nearly this level of thinking. I would say that "vulgars" of the Vulgate were/are shallow in this aspect. I also think there was a lot of opposition to publishing the Bible for home reading, for this very reason. It's not an appropriate way to disseminate the tenets of Christian principles; it's not a self-tutorial.
This would lead me to the quick answer that, in the mind of most readers, neither scholarship nor humility is required, just some rote citation of key verses, especially those tending to favor social and political views than can be attached reasonably well with their religious views, to make it comfortably appealing. Do you think that's cynical of me?
If that was your underlying assumption, and if your question was assuming this is the prevailing phenomenon, my answer would seem hopelessly obvious. On the other hand, if you are exploring the deeper question that a thoughtful devotee may ponder to understand the role of the Bible in the "true" path to religious development, then I would have to step back and listen only. This is because I can not get past the mythos, the anomalies and the actual history of its evolution to figure out how it fits in as a resource for my own thoughtful study.
But if, in the original question, you are addressing the general readership, I would hazard to guess that 99.9% of them do not engage in nearly this level of thinking. I would say that "vulgars" of the Vulgate were/are shallow in this aspect. I also think there was a lot of opposition to publishing the Bible for home reading, for this very reason. It's not an appropriate way to disseminate the tenets of Christian principles; it's not a self-tutorial.
This would lead me to the quick answer that, in the mind of most readers, neither scholarship nor humility is required, just some rote citation of key verses, especially those tending to favor social and political views than can be attached reasonably well with their religious views, to make it comfortably appealing. Do you think that's cynical of me?
If that was your underlying assumption, and if your question was assuming this is the prevailing phenomenon, my answer would seem hopelessly obvious. On the other hand, if you are exploring the deeper question that a thoughtful devotee may ponder to understand the role of the Bible in the "true" path to religious development, then I would have to step back and listen only. This is because I can not get past the mythos, the anomalies and the actual history of its evolution to figure out how it fits in as a resource for my own thoughtful study.
OK.
Though even this quote is aiming at something general...on what grounds do some people think.....
rather than 'on what grounds do you think....'
Sure. Though in a way, many of us, if not most of us, must trust ourselves, if not to react correctly to a text - at least for ourselves - to find someone we decide is a good interpreter.
For example. I was exposed to the Bible by Christians who told me 'the truth' about what was in it. I was a child. Once this happened, and especially given the importance of the issues involved, I have no choice but to make decisions based on my own rationality and intuition.
This does not diminish all the problems of such an interpretation, for myself or any particular expert I might decide I knew/intuited I could/should trust. But it eliminates, for me at least, any way I can simply decide I cannot react or should not react. I am in this position, even if I might wish it was otherwise.
I think this also holds true for atheists never exposed to the Bible like I was as a child.
We all make decisions about what texts we will invest time in and how and which ones we ignore - at least of those we've heard of. Generally people have at least snippets of texts or ideas outside the main one they are exposed to - in Western societies, The Bible. And most of us then make decisions, if nothing else, to not pursue these texts. We decide they are not for us. On what grounds? Well, intuition. This does not mean it is correct, but I cannot see what choice we have.
If we decide we do not have the right or skills to decide what not to pursue - we are damned.
OK. That's on a kind of broad, general reaction level.
Once we get into a more complex relation with a text, by choice or as children, yes, there are all sorts of reasons to give us caution about final interpretations. Nevertheless, we are going to do this, whatever our doubts about our abilities. Even if that final decisions it to keep these texts near us mentally but never think we can either push them away, clearly decide something about what they mean or accept some expert's decisions about how we must accept the text and what it means. Even that is a decision based on trust of out intuitions, though on a more metalevel - something parallel to the agnostic's trust in his own epistemological certainties.
There is no outside the universe, not deciding option. Though it can be an option to believe there is such a thing. I supposed I would call this something like the illusion of transcendence. We have already made the decision to trust ourselves, if only so far as to say we cannot trust ourselves (yet, like waiting for Godot only it is our own self-trust we are waiting for instead of God ot). And we are waiting based on our trust in our sense we are not ready and must wait AND that this will somehow miraculously change.
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If I, for example, have before me a book written in Thai and in Thai writing, I will put it aside quickly, just as I will quickly put aside a book in English that deals with advanced chemistry.
It goes without saying for me that these books are outside of my range of expertise and interest - I don't understand or read a word of Thai and advanced chemistry is ... advanced chemistry.
Strictly speaking, the same should be considered true for religious scriptures.
Unless we were born into the religion that the scriptures are part of, we cannot hope to make much sense of them - we can neither meaningfully accept them, nor meaningfully reject them
Yet is common for people to approach scriptures in a similar manner as one would approach a general dictionary or a newspaper in one's native language: with confidence that one can understand them correctly.
But why?
Obviously, not everyone believes themselves to be capable of studying religious scriptures. Some people put them aside, saying "This is far beyond my scope" and return to doing things they are confident they can do.
Some people, however, do study scriptures - and the OP is addressing them.
Like I said:
in the case of religious knowledge, the personal qualifications of the person making an argument, do matter. This is because of the topic of religious knowledge (ie. what the true self is and how it relates to God and everyone and everything else).
Other forms of knowledge do not purport to be about the true self and how it relates to God and everyone and everything else.
But everyone believes themselves capable of making decisions about what scriptures to follow or what experts to follow or what to ignore. Anyone who has heard that Jesus said the way to God is through him has made some decision about whether this makes sense, Christians and or the Bible is right about this, it would be good to read that section of the Bible more carefully, they can ignore this idea, etc.
Only absolute recluses, who were also raised that way and have never been exposed to religion have not decided that they can make such decisions. And such decisions have all the same expertise/epistemological issues that interpreting scripture has.
On what grounds can someone put the scriptures aside?
As I pointed out it is not worded like it is aimed at them or just them. It seems to ask for people to weigh in on such people. Second, I am someone who has studying scriptures and thinks he can makes decisiosn adn I presented why. I have no choice but to do this.
And lo! A square-circle suddenly became possible!
I see your point, and I completely agree with this. Why does a insurance salesman from Cincinnati want to put on the mantle of an ancient cult and embrace it as something relevant to her and to the times we live in? (Here I will drop entirely the issues with the itself.)
Am I following you? If so, where does this lead. Is it a rhetorical question, or do you find some significance to the "adoption" process? For example, are you leading to the conclusion that "adoption" of an ancient foreign religion demonstrates divine intervention?
Or were you maybe leading to the conclusion that it is fundamentally flawed (no pun intended) to adopt the faith without trying to weed out the anachronisms (not exactly the right word) and such that would cause a lot of errors in interpretation?
I'm curious about your thinking on this.
Also on the grounds that they consider themselves to lack the expertise they presume the scriptures would require in order to be understood properly.
There are generally two kinds of justification for rejecting something:
1. "I know this is wrong, I know this is false, I know this is not good enough, therefore, I reject it."
2. "I don't have the expertise this seems to require, therefore, I will put it aside."
And my reply to this is that I don't know enough about the Bible to make sense of it one way or another.
Surely I am aware of the various text-critical issues that surround the Bible, but for me, having that knowledge does not make it easier to decide about the Bible; in fact, it makes the whole situation much more undecidable.
So my reason for rejecting the Bible is "I don't have the expertise the Bible seems to require, therefore, I will put it aside."
Granted. But I was considering Sciforums' reluctance to introspect and how people usually need to be nudged to do so.
I think this might be a diplomatic way of saying:
Non-believers: What makes you think you are qualified to post opinions on the Bible, since you lack the "right thinking" of believers that qualifies them to do so?
Aside from being cruder than what you said, is this the question?
No. To use your formulation, the actual question would be:
Non-believers: What makes you think you are qualified to post judgments on the Bible, since you lack the "right thinking" of believers that qualifies them to do so?
No
Its more the claim "god doesn't exist" is a text book example of negative absolutes and their absurdity.
I like that formulation. It states the believer's position from a higher ground. Also, it all boils down to "right thinking" on both sides and that's the point of religion and secular humanism anyway. That may not be enough for a believer, who will want to include tenets like worship, but it would cover a lot of ground that both sides would have in common.
And then maybe as a sort of offset to that deficit (worship) there is a "devotion" to evidence, more or less, in the non-believer, that enters into the fray when "right thinking" is parsed as a "comporting with reality."
So in the mind of the non-believer, this surplus of reality checking would seem to create the authority to comment, at least as far as reality checking the scriptures may be concerned. In balance, the non-believer would tend to fall short as far as the authority to comment on worship.
What if it's all BS and the non-believers are the right thinkers?
Somewhere along the way, you have to make judgements. Or else you could spend your entire life looking for the "right interpretation" to something that has no "right interpretation".