Seconded.
What does in God’s image mean? He created Adam & Eve without a moral sense.
- Thread starter Greatest I am
- Start date
Seconded.
It's a very common explanation given by a certain kind of Christian that the unbelievable elements of the Bible are to be taken as allegory. A Christian friend of mine told me several years ago that he was always taught "If it's too ridiculous to be true, it's allegory." This should give you some insight into just how little thought is actually put into this explanation.
Of course, allegory is not simply "what could not possibly be true." Talking pigs are sometimes just talking pigs. And the verses usually given as examples of Biblical allegory do not make any more sense as allegory than they do when read literally. And in the case of the passage quoted earlier, it can't be allegory, because it is actually about the subject apologists claim it to be symbolic of. Satan cannot be an allegory of Satan.
Quite so. Most use this excuse to cherrypick what they want so that they can put an arbitrary line between allegory and historical fact.
Like I said, you seem far too dense to comprehend simple allegory, and you have completely dodged the fact that Revelations is wholly a "vision". Perhaps you should also look up the difference between metaphor and simile while you're at it.
"All the world’s a stage..." Is it really? Do all literary devices make it explicitly clear that a mere comparison is being made, or do many of them just assume you are smart enough to realize when one is being employed? Try reading a children's Bible or something.
"7 Then there was a war in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon. The dragon and its angels fought back, 8 but they were not strong enough. The dragon and its angels lost their place in heaven. 9 It was thrown down out of heaven. (This giant dragon is that old snake, the one called the devil or Satan, who leads the whole world into the wrong way.) The dragon and its angels were thrown to the earth." -Revelation 12 Easy-to-Read Version (ERV)
See the expositional aside? "(This giant dragon is that old snake, the one called the devil or Satan, who leads the whole world into the wrong way.)" Here it is even put in parentheses as an obvious explanation of the literary imagery.
Apparently you are incapable of applying whatever reason you may have to religion, so why do you insist upon posting on the subject? Just a child ridiculing things you don't understand in the schoolyard.
That Revelations is a vision is irrelevant, as the visions in the Bible are not inherently allegorical. And depicting Satan as a dragon does not work a simile, either. Dragons are portrayed in the Bible as literal creatures.
As long as you're familiar with the material which the supposed allegory is supposed to represent, those representations should be fairly obvious. Again, to return to Animal Farm, if one is familiar with Soviet Russia at the time of Serge's "Midnight in the Century," you will see Trotsky and Stalin, and Marx in those pigs.
However, in Animal Farm, those pigs are not simply named Trotsky or Stalin, but rather have attributes that are reminiscent of those men, and the events that play out could be seen as parallels to the ones that lead to and consisted of Stalin's reign. These alleged allegories in the Bible, however, make no sense as such, and the passage you show does not even qualify as allegory.
Oh, so now the part where he's mentioned as the old snake Satan is merely exposition? I thought you said a moment ago that the Bible does not make explicit its use of metaphor and simply assumes that we're smart enough to know when it's being employed...
It's conveniently reconfigured by the authors of an "Easy-to-Read" version of the text. This representation does not mean it is objectively exposition, it simply means that's how a certain group of people want the words to be perceived.
It's telling that you actually spend more words attempting to tear me down than you do attempting to tear down my argument. Sadly, either attempt appears shallow and ill-considered. Perhaps instead of getting angry when your position is falsified, you should consider showing appreciation to the person who just relieved you of an old, closely-held misapprehension.
Greatest I am
Valued Senior Member
Have fun. It is good advertising for me.
P M me and I will give you a full list.
As I said, some love to hate and you have just proven my point.
Syne was basically told to mind his own business by another poster and I am sure you will get the same but don't let that stop you from advertising for me.
Regards
DL
IDK, who to side with, who to side with? The person that postes loaded inflammitory questions all over the web, or the guy who calls him out on it? I guess my HATE just shines through lol. (where hate = calling you out on your bigotry)
Really?! So "visions" which are inherently unreal are also somehow inherently literal? And I never said "depicting Satan as a dragon" was a simile. Apparently you don't even know what a simile is. Look it up and learn something.
Cite where exactly "Dragons are portrayed in the Bible as literal creatures". So far, I am the only one who has provided any reference to them in the Bible.
"Allegory communicates its message by means of symbolic figures, actions or symbolic representation." -wiki
Symbolic representation doesn't necessarily preclude naming the thing so represented. Is a dove no longer a symbolic representation of peace because you tell someone what it represents? Of course not. That would be the same ridiculous assumption you are making here. Just a very weak straw man in lieu of having a valid point.
In this children's version I provided just for you, it certainly is exposition, and apparently written so especially for people like you who have such a hard time understanding simple allegory. And it's just another straw man about explicit use of metaphor, as I said, "Do all literary devices make it explicitly clear that a mere comparison is being made..." with no comment directly reflecting on the Bible.
Either work on your reading comprehension or work on the subtlety of your logical fallacies.
No, that's how any rational person reads an account expressly admitted to being a "vision".
vision
1 a : something seen in a dream, trance, or ecstasy; especially : a supernatural appearance that conveys a revelation
b : a thought, concept, or object formed by the imagination
c : a manifestation to the senses of something immaterial
-merriam-webster
1 a : something seen in a dream, trance, or ecstasy; especially : a supernatural appearance that conveys a revelation
b : a thought, concept, or object formed by the imagination
c : a manifestation to the senses of something immaterial
-merriam-webster
Really? Two sentences, of a post containing four paragraphs, all of which you just responded to btw, constitute "more words"? In what universe? You're ad hominem inference that I may be angry is erroneous and just another indication that you probably aren't aware of what a logical fallacy is nor how to make a suitable argument.
And the weakness of your arguments are only exacerbated by trying to declare premature victory.
Where was this?GIA said:
I never said anything was "inherently" anything. I simply said that visions are not inherently allegorical. And they aren't.
You act as if "unreal" and "literal" are irreconcilable concepts. Joseph had a vision of an angel warning him against divorcing Mary, and divulging the truth of Jesus' patronage. That was "unreal" by your definition, but it was certainly literal.
So you just brought that up for no reason, then?
Malachi 1:3 and I hated Esau, and laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons of the wilderness.
Micah 1:8 Therefore I will wail and howl, I will go stripped and naked: I will make a wailing like the dragons, and mourning as the owls.
Jeremiah 51:37 And Babylon shall become heaps, a dwelling place for dragons, an astonishment, and a hissing, without an inhabitant.
38 They shall roar together like lions: they shall yell as lions' whelps.
39 In their heat I will make their feasts, and I will make them drunken, that they may rejoice, and sleep a perpetual sleep, and not wake, saith the LORD.
40 I will bring them down like lambs to the slaughter, like rams with he goats. [My note: Notice how the dragon is counted among the lambs, rams, goats, and lions]
Isiah 13:19 And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees' excellency, shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. Gen. 19.24
20 It shall never be inhabited, neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation: neither shall the Arabian pitch tent there; neither shall the shepherds make their fold there.
21 But wild beasts of the desert shall lie there; and their houses shall be full of doleful creatures; Rev. 18.2 and owls shall dwell there, and satyrs shall dance there.
22 And the wild beasts of the islands shall cry in their desolate houses, and dragons in their pleasant palaces: and her time is near to come, and her days shall not be prolonged.[My note: Even threw in a satyr for you!]
Micah 1:8 Therefore I will wail and howl, I will go stripped and naked: I will make a wailing like the dragons, and mourning as the owls.
Jeremiah 51:37 And Babylon shall become heaps, a dwelling place for dragons, an astonishment, and a hissing, without an inhabitant.
38 They shall roar together like lions: they shall yell as lions' whelps.
39 In their heat I will make their feasts, and I will make them drunken, that they may rejoice, and sleep a perpetual sleep, and not wake, saith the LORD.
40 I will bring them down like lambs to the slaughter, like rams with he goats. [My note: Notice how the dragon is counted among the lambs, rams, goats, and lions]
Isiah 13:19 And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees' excellency, shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. Gen. 19.24
20 It shall never be inhabited, neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation: neither shall the Arabian pitch tent there; neither shall the shepherds make their fold there.
21 But wild beasts of the desert shall lie there; and their houses shall be full of doleful creatures; Rev. 18.2 and owls shall dwell there, and satyrs shall dance there.
22 And the wild beasts of the islands shall cry in their desolate houses, and dragons in their pleasant palaces: and her time is near to come, and her days shall not be prolonged.[My note: Even threw in a satyr for you!]
Shall I go on?
Of course, this isn't to say that leviathans and dragons are never used symbolically, but the Old Testament counts them among the rest of the beasts of the wilderness, so the idea that dragons are allegory for something else has no basis.
I am well aware of this. And I didn't even need Wikipedia to tell me!
Is the dove actually peace, or is it simply a representation of such peace? You keep missing that the dragon in Revelation is Satan. It is not a representation or symbol of him, it actually is him.
Yes, in this odd and nowhere near authoritative version of the Bible, they do portray this bit as exposition. However, this is accomplished merely by putting parenthesis around a portion of the verse. No other version makes this false assumption, nor is this the only mistake your version (I'm assuming this is the one from which you've gleaned the sum total of your scriptural knowledge...OMG! Exposition!) happens to make.
Ah, the old "reading comprehension" ad hom. That one's only used once a day here at Sciforums. Why is it that the ones quickest to call you stupid are the ones who display the least amount of cleverness? Is there no room for wit up there in that Lamborghini intellect of yours?
So, the vision Joseph had of an angel foretelling the birth of Christ was allegory? As was the letters Jesus orders John to write to the various churches, the ones with all the instruction, warning, and, of course, revelations--those are allegory as well?
Syne, you're tying your own noose.
You realize that the definition listed above does not speak, in any manner whatsoever, to content? In other words, a vision does not inherently convey metaphor.
Um, the one with math?
I counted the number of words in the first and last paragraphs, since they were entirely dedicated to ad hominem, and those words numbered greater than the words in the middle of the post, which was actually dedicated to my argument. Not counting the Revelation quote, obviously.
If you're about to accuse someone of being stupid, it's best not to make such glaring mistakes, lest your attack be viewed as a projection of your own shortcoming.
And it's hysterical that you'd complain about a personal attack, given how you've behaved in this thread. At any rate, I was simply offering you some advice, since you clearly are outside your mind with rage right now. Otherwise, why all the personal attacks? I bet if I counted the words spent on personal attacks made by you in this whole discussion, that number would be greater than the amount spent addressing my arguments.
What other explanation could there be? Unless...wait, are these insults allegorical?
Premature? All of your arguments had been defeated. Was I supposed to wait for you to concede? As if that's ever going to happen. I've never seen a post in which you've conceded a point, let alone an argument.
I mean, even this post is masturbation. What more do I need to prove? I've argued my points well, debunked yours, and somewhat successfully skirted around your constant personal attacks. I'd call that a win.
Perhaps you should remember that that was in response to you claiming that "visions" would be accepted as reality, as it is you who has asserted that the dragon in that vision would be considered a real, existing dragon, which is your straw man appeal to ridicule. It is your assumption that a vision would be considered real that is ridiculous.
I will admit though that my use of "literal" could have been taken as equivocal, but in comparison to "unreal", literal is irreconcilable as being "actual", which is what you have been arguing.
Perhaps if you knew the difference between metaphor and simile, you'd know why I brought it up.
Perhaps you should look those up in NIV, instead of choosing the version which seems to fit your confirmation bias. A jackal is both sub-Saharan (wasteland habitat) and a word used for people who commit base acts. Also, since when do dragons wail, howl, or make any mournful sounds? Jackals howl, seeing as they are in the wolf genus.
This can be taken in several ways, most of which not requiring you to assume mythical creatures were actually thought to exists.
- A huge serpent, which seems to be consistent with the "hissing" mentioned.
- A dwelling place inhabited only by myth.
- A jackal, whose habitat is the hissing, wind-blown desert.
Yes, we get it. You really like the King James version because it is rife with medieval interpretations you can so easily ridicule to justify not exercising your reason.
If you're going to favor a particular translation, perhaps you should be a bit more rigorous. Can you justify favoring that translation?
Silly implied ad hominem, as I provided it for your benefit.
Revelations 12:9a The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray...
We call the dove symbol peace, just as this dragon is "called" Satan. Remember, this is a vision where, like dreams, things are representational. Even ignoring that, a vision is never taken to be a literally real existence.
Your assumptions are, as usual, completely erroneous. I learned scripture in the King James version, but unlike you, I was capable of applying reason to anything I learned. Cognitive bias will often bar the possibility.
I gave you an option of "Either work on your reading comprehension or work on the subtlety of your logical fallacies", and you freely chose to accept the former as the most relevant to you. You'll notice I never called you "stupid", you've merely presumed that all on your own.
No, but then it doesn't imply that the angel is representational by applying to it an identity previously known to be something else. You've erected a straw man of equating allegory to visions, where I never have. As I explained above, I only compared the unreality of a vision to your claim that such would be considered a real existence.
I'll spell it out for you. A vision can be literal, although not a real existence, while including some symbolic representation. I never said the whole vision was allegorical, only that the representation of Satan was. See the straw man there yet?
Where the hell have I equated vision to allegory? I have not. Like I said before, and you seem to have missed, you need to work at making all these straw man arguments much more subtle, especially if you insist on using them as the bulk of your argument.
First, you counted them? :bugeye: Second, "you have completely dodged the fact that Revelations is wholly a "vision". Perhaps you should also look up the difference between metaphor and simile while you're at it" is not an ad hominem. Just more black and white thinking on your part.
Where did I accuse you of being stupid?! And really? Typos now? And where have I complained about personal attacks? I've merely pointed out where your argument is not properly formed where it relies on logical fallacies. That doesn't even necessarily pass judgment on the merits of such improper arguments, as logical fallacies do not themselves negate the argument so forwarded.
Boy, you're really running full throttle on your ad hominem appeal to emotion there. All empty distraction.
Just keep telling yourself that, as you're the only one you're seeking to convince.
God did not create Adam and Eve with a moral sense, since God;s disk image, like instinct, was morally neutral. The lion kills for food, self defense and territory. This is not based on moral right or wrong, but is morally neutral. God of the old testament acts like the lion and does what is natural.
If a lion was kind to his pride today and gets pissed off tomorrow, this is all natural instinct for the lion and is not based on morality. Morality is a human invention and does not apply to natural.
The one who actually introduces morality is Satan. He is the one who promises Eve, if she eats of his tree of good and evil (morality) she will be like God and know good from evil. Satan adds the term " like God, " as part of his sales pitch. God did not say this, rather this comes from the master of deception.
Satan added the "like God" to help sell his snake-oil. The bible says God did not want them to eat of the tree of morality or the tree of knowledge of good and evil (learned behavior_ because once you start down this path, natural will be lost and become subjective and artificial. Morality leads to death, since once you turn moral neutrality into the polarization of good and evil, you lose a connection to natural which is neutral.
The tree of life had nothing to do with right and wrong or morality. The tree of life was given approval by God. This tree was part of the disk image. The image was to etain natural instinct (neutrality) allowing life (natural instead of artificial).
Greatest I am
Valued Senior Member
Greatest I am
Valued Senior Member
I basically stopped here because this is a false statement.
Instincts are morally good.
What we usually call good, in any case. The evil side comes out as required. Instinct default to good.
http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/TopStories/20100511/study-infants-morality-100511/
Regards
DL
lightsender4u
Registered Member
God's Image?
God's image is male and female spirit Creator Elohim eternally united and orgasmically creating the multiverse, big bang after big bang at planes and in infinate realms that boggle the mind.
The whole point of the Genesis account is to magnify the male-femaleness of God's image and to encourage humans to recognize that and honor their being made in God's image as they leave their father and mother's and cleave unter their wives so that they can become ONE FLESH.
I put together a more thorough discussion on this at blessingcounters dot com. Genesis 5 recaps the creation account with regard to God's image.
1: This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the "likeness of God" made he him;
2: "Male and female" created he them; and blessed them, and called THEIR name Adam, in THE DAY when they were created.
As long as we are following the religions of the world we will not know God because they all push people to worship humans flesh and blood... cutting us off from our heavenly Parent/Creator. We pretty much have to go alone in faith direct to God. There aren't any religions out there without an egomaniac at the helm, filthy lucre, human and idol worship, breaking the first commandment, etc.
God Bless!
God's image is male and female spirit Creator Elohim eternally united and orgasmically creating the multiverse, big bang after big bang at planes and in infinate realms that boggle the mind.
The whole point of the Genesis account is to magnify the male-femaleness of God's image and to encourage humans to recognize that and honor their being made in God's image as they leave their father and mother's and cleave unter their wives so that they can become ONE FLESH.
I put together a more thorough discussion on this at blessingcounters dot com. Genesis 5 recaps the creation account with regard to God's image.
1: This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the "likeness of God" made he him;
2: "Male and female" created he them; and blessed them, and called THEIR name Adam, in THE DAY when they were created.
As long as we are following the religions of the world we will not know God because they all push people to worship humans flesh and blood... cutting us off from our heavenly Parent/Creator. We pretty much have to go alone in faith direct to God. There aren't any religions out there without an egomaniac at the helm, filthy lucre, human and idol worship, breaking the first commandment, etc.
God Bless!
So if your instinct is to murder people because you're a sociopath, it's still good??? What about if the voices in your head tell you to do it, that's like instincts right?
Greatest I am
Valued Senior Member
I would not know. I do not have one of those but would say no as a good guess.
What does yours tell you?
Regards
DL