How is it possible that billions of people have misunderstood the literary device of metaphor in the Bible?

>They were clearly cleverer than you
You're the invalid here, user. Pray and go to sleep

>tries to pseud his way through
>virgin births, like, work best for civilization
>fumbles

>BTFO

>and again

>Well, to put aside for a moment the fact that virgin births are biologically impossible, if a myth has been clearly copied wholesale from another culture, then it cannot possibly be true - either Zoroaster is in the story, or Jesus. Or are virgin births more common than the already scientifically impossible?
Why are you posting in a thread without reading the OP? The myths are metaphors for spiritual life. They were never supposed to be literally believed. You're carrying on some ridiculous strawman argument as if anyone literally believes in Christianity here. You aren't Christopher Hitchens, you're a self-righteous moron.

>If the entire rigmarole were completely omitted from the Bible, the same religion would be upon us.
Absolute idiocy. I don't think intellectualism is your forte.

>Too many commas for you? It's fine, you cretin.
Its complete shit. Wouldn't even pass community college writing courses.

>Pick one

Spontaneous asexual conception is impossible in humans.
>cue thousands of years of long beard faggots arguing this nonsense story is proof of God's omnipotence

I choose Jesus the myth as the Judeo-Hellenic idealized Mary Sue version of Socrates. Instead of finding answers by participating in dialogue, Jesus is invented as a platform for broadcasting the rhetoric of Jewish platonists. Philosophical inquiry is impossible to practice with the illiterate, stinking poor. Truth cannot be found by unreasonable people, they don't have the tools. They must have the right answers given to them, so that one day generations from now their childrens lives might be improved and a just, enlightened state made possible.

Its metaphorical for spiritual life and reawakening. Yes, it has worked best for Western civilization. You are utterly pseud and pleb if you can't understand the history of western spirituality leading into philosophy and science.

Yeah, cool story. Except that's not what you said.

Literally go read ur bibble someplace where the pseuds like to linger ;)

Get over yourself.

My original point, if you'd care to read it, was that the ancients were not that clever in employing the metaphor. They included some half-heard story about Zoroaster in their work, but obviously changed the person. To think that this is some new-age gnostic bullshit would be to overestimate severely 99% of the Bible's actual readership. They meant it literally.

On the second point: if the virgin-birth myth was excluded, then it would have had no effect on the religion at all. It's a silly story included for the amusement of simple stone-age peasants, nothing more.

> Its complete shit. Wouldn't even pass community college writing courses.
Look to yourself, first.

>doubles down on virgin births being good for civilization
>DEFCON 2: pseud
>DEFCON 1:... pleb
>western spirituality led to science

Kek. This is excellent.

More please.

>85% of the New Testament is about works being combined with faith
>"I dipped in the water and now I am saved :^)"

>Spontaneous asexual conception is impossible in humans.
Cool, so you don't believe the story.
Real interesting.
It's a story. The point being that something happened in it which is otherwise impossible, and is therefore notable.
Of course it's not biologically possible you dunce.
That doesn't mean it was intended as a metaphor

So what makes Jesus' metaphor more meaningful to human 'spirital life and reawakening' than Zoroaster's? Why don't we now praise Zoroaster's good works and deeds? And try to lead our lives like him?

No reason at all.

A good story, of whatever origin, is good for human spirituality: whether Jesus' resurrection, Baldur's death, Horus and Set, or Iron Man and Captain America.

That doesn't mean we should live our lives by the word and letter of these stories.

Sermon on the Mount was literally a list of community rules to build a better state. That prayer witchcraft and submersion vodun exists in the Church is entirely -- ENTIRELY -- a product of the ignorant scrubs who incorporated those rituals because they didn't know any better and humans have a psychological need to make things 'clean/sacred'.

The metaphor of the virgin birth is from Egyptian mythology, much closer to the Levant than Iran. You're ignorant even in your self-righteous pseudo-intellectual dismissal. Jesus' life is common to pretty much all spiritual teachers right across to India.

>To think that this is some new-age gnostic bullshit
No one said that. Spiritual life is as old as mankind, as far as we can tell. It has nothing to do with new-age anything.

>It's a silly story included for the amusement of simple stone-age peasants, nothing more.
The New Testament wasn't written in the stone age. Why am I arguing with someone without even a middle school level historical knowledge?

>On the second point: if the virgin-birth myth was excluded, then it would have had no effect on the religion at all.
I'd stop pretending you have knowledge of things you clearly don't, because it makes you sound like an utter moron. The entire basis of the virgin birth and Jesus being God incarnate is the central basis of Christianity. The virgin birth was probably the preeminent mythology of the middle ages and the early modern west. Mary is the most influential figure in Christianity outside of Jesus.

So... the Holy Spirit can cum? What's His cum like? What's its taste?

Are you really attempting to dismiss western science beginning in universities in order to comprehend God's universe? Its basic historical understanding that only new atheist morons dismiss.

>That doesn't mean we should live our lives by the word and letter of these stories.
Where did I say we should? Why are you new atheist people always making stupid strawman arguments? I thought you like logic and stuff. Centuries of western spirituality found it the best metaphor, that's a historical fact.

>Why don't we now praise Zoroaster's good works and deeds? And try to lead our lives like him?
Because Western civilization developed from Christianity, not Zoroastrianism? Once a way of thinking is ingrained in culture for so long, Zoroaster is just foreign to your culture and not applicable in the same way.

>Iron Man and Captain America
Now you're just being a moron.

> Spiritual life is as old as mankind
I don't disagree with this. But for you to suggest that *this* myth has any relation to this spirituality is severely misplaced. What's it a metaphor for? Why couldn't they have explained it more clearly, or indeed, not used the myth of another neighbouring nation at all?

> wasn't written in the stone age
Hyperbole, friend. The average reader of/listener to the Bible would have been, if not the minute minority of actual literate clergy, the near-stone-age peasant. This story, just like the clickbait of today, is there to amuse the easily-amused.

> The entire basis of the virgin birth and Jesus being God incarnate is the central basis of Christianity.
Then why does Christianity base its entire raison d'être on the myth of another religion? Surely the church fathers should have known that, once this had become known, Christianity would be accused of plagiarism; and then the virgin-birth story could not possibly be 'true', in any sense - metaphorically related to Christianity, or literally related to Jesus' conception.

> Where did I say we should?
Thou shalt not, thou shalt not.., thou shalt not...
Not 'you' specifically, but this religion and its god do like to tell people what they can and can't do. Or... you'll burn until the end of time, ... but he still loves you, because he's all-forgiving, unless you... blah blah.

> Because Western civilization developed from Christianity, not Zoroastrianism?
Ah, so Christianity isn't actually *true*? It's just a cultural development? I'm glad we agree.

The morals and ethics of a modern super-hero movie are a million-times more commendable than the barbaric nonsense in half the bible.

>To think that one should lead one's life, or indeed, lead entire nations, by this nonsense is, truly, the greatest travesty of all time.

But that is actually why NT myth was created. See:
You think it's just an accident of ignorance that Jesus is a dying-and-rising god? (OP's pic) No, attaching the philosophy of the day to these myths was quite intentional and necessary to creating a viral meme.

Suggesting that the scientific method originated from "spirituality" is silly. It's a tenuous logical connection at best: one is based on empiricism and the other on faith, so surely the traditions of skepticism and rationality have a better claim to science's inception?

Equally, the scientific method sprouted up in the Islamic and Hindu and Incan worlds, so it could just as easily and lazily be argued that "science" began in order to comprehend Inti or Vishnu... Mary's magical womb was nowhere to be found.

> attaching the philosophy of the day to these myths was quite intentional and necessary to creating a viral meme.
Of course. But why meme-ify something if it isn't true? Surely the 'truth' will be arrived at whether memed or not?

They needed clickbait for their philosophy, and they picked a Persian story to do so.

>It's a tenuous logical connection at best: one is based on empiricism and the other on faith, so surely the traditions of skepticism and rationality have a better claim to science's inception?

Moron, you're thinking of the medieval Scholastics. Men of faith who invented the modern world by their skepticism and rationality. Faith allowed them to exist in society, fed them and clothed them, and protected them from political or heretical persecution.

Modern science arose out of the clergy-inhabited universities simply because that's where intelligent, literate people were based.

Not because theology somehow 'spawned' science.

Y'all motherfuckers need to quit your belly-aching and read your Cicero and Lucretius

Come on now I thought this board was for people who started with the Greeks (and progressed with the Romans)

You still haven't shown how "spirituality" kick-started science. All you've said is that spiritual people can be scientific.

>Surely the 'truth' will be arrived at whether memed or not?

As I said, truth can't be found by the average pigfucker. They are not philosophers and can't into dialectic. They needed the truth handed to them. Even so, the NT fell as pearls before swine you know. Witness the atheists and rosary-clutchers today.

Greek peasants were grappling with democracy, rights, and ontology a good 400 years before this Christian nonsense came along.

The perpetuation of a Persian myth is meant to ease the peasant's burden about the concept of an incarnate god? Bullshit. Or perhaps, bullshit for Western civilisation; and ok enough for the mystic bullshit of the middle-east.

Christianity retarded Western thought for centuries.

>Greek peasants were grappling with democracy, rights, and ontology a good 400 years before this Christian nonsense came along.

You're right, of course. But the Greeks also honored the gods, and their fanciful retellings of the internal human psychodrama make Jesus and the Christian philosophy of /agape/ look like hard science. 'Christian nonsense' was not the product of philosophers, but rather misguided thinkers -- "theologians" -- coerced into observing a Right Opinion lest they be tied to the rack. The mysteries of the religion are just that. Holdovers from ancient days.

>Christianity retarded Western thought for centuries.

It's a wash. The Church and its apparatus in client states tabooed certain paths of inquiry, but it was also a refuge for thinkers and preserved the knowledge of the past. We would not know our ancient history today without the Church.

>The ancients were not that clever.

Yes they were, Plato's cave is an example of an ancient allegory describing man's introduction to the metaphysical world. Plato described a complex system of metaphysics long before Christianity.

>But for you to suggest that *this* myth has any relation to this spirituality is severely misplaced.
I don't even know what you mean now. The central myth of Christianity isn't related to Christianity? What its a metaphor for is explained directly in the OP.

>Hyperbole, friend
Why are you using idiotic hyperbole commonly used by teenagers on the internet which is masking actual ignorance of history?

>he average reader of/listener to the Bible would have been, if not the minute minority of actual literate clergy, the near-stone-age peasant. This story, just like the clickbait of today, is there to amuse the easily-amused.
Somehow average people didn't have a spirituality and psychology? Pseudo-aristocratic middle class assumptions are useless here. Plagiarism is a modern concept, religion and mythology being interrelated to the past and neighbors was always known. Even Herodotus wrote about this. Religion and culture aren't capable of plagiarism because that's an academic concept. Do I have to explain how culture works to you? Something being common to religion and spirituality doesn't invalidate it. You are not very intelligent.

>Not 'you' specifically,
Then why are you acting as if I argued it? I'm not interested in you strawmanning religion.

>Ah, so Christianity isn't actually *true*? It's just a cultural development? I'm glad we agree.
What a pompous faggot. Do you think you're an atheist hero debating le evil Christian?

>The morals and ethics of a modern super-hero movie are a million-times more commendable than the barbaric nonsense in half the bible.
Ridiculous. "Superheros" destroy more people and cities in these dumb movies than the Old Testament.

Early modern scientists literally stated in their writings that their discoveries were inspired by God. This goes all the way up to Kurt fuckin Godel who believed science would prove God. Just because you personally dislike something doesn't make it untrue. You're the one making tenuous connections.

The clergy created those universities. You're arguing against yourself for some reason. Without religion modern science wouldn't exist.

Christlarpers don't care and change their stance three times any given response but anyway:
The virgin birth is based on a mistranslation from hebrew to greek. The hebrew text reads young woman. Since the majority of early christian communities were jewish diasporas who used the septuagint they assumed the messiah had to be virgin born and thus added the birth thingy Mark and Mathew didn't.
Now you may say septuagint has the correct reading and masoretic is false but all the older manuscripts contain readings from both so we can't even tell for sure what the original text is or says.

Also you christlarpers wouldn't know but the bible itself several times rejects a moral allegorical interpretation. And at least once you get to revelations all this crap flys out the window. Oh and btw. Everybody knows you're larping. You don't seem pious. Just pathetic.

>The virgin birth is based on a mistranslation from hebrew to greek.
The fuck? The Gospels were written in Greek.

Matthew has the virgin birth, what are you on about? What translation from Hebrew to Greek are you referring to? The Q source? It isn't extant. Mark was written in Greek, as were Luke and Matthew. Christianity was created by Greek speaking Hebrew-ethnic people in the Roman Empire.

Are you "larping" as a mentally retarded person?

The prophecies. Every christian would have understood at the second I mentioned septuagint and masoretic.

>Are you "larping" as a mentally retarded person?
Ironic

>Without religion modern science wouldn't exist.
Prove it.

Not him, but wasn't modern science invented by Aristotle? And weren't Aristotle's works preserved by Christian monks, who revered him?

...

>The Holy Spirit figuratively inseminates Mary, a sign of the beginning of her spiritual life.
>He doesn't believe in the Immaculate Conception
Mary was born without original sin, and this is a Catholic board.

Fun fact:

The oldest of the four canonical gospels (Gospel of Mark) doesn't include anything about Jesus' birth at all. The younger gospels do, but that's due to Christian history and certain cultural misunderstandings.
The biggest one of them is the meaning of the word "son of god". "Son" isn't necessarily meant as a statement about genetic relationship in the Jewish culture - it can also mean something like a chosen representative or governor. Israel for example is refered to as the "son of god" in the Tanakh multiple times, just because it's god's chosen people (not because Israel is of divine nature or even something like an aspect of god). Calling Jesus the "son of god" is originally meant the same way especially among Judeo-Christians.

The doctrine of Trinity wasn't established until Christianity encountered Greek philosophy and culture, and it took until the 4th century (First Council of Nicaea) until it became orthodoxy. (You might speculate about it's origins, but there aren't many usable source texts - Neoplatonism must have played a key role in this developement).

Therefore, Jesus as god's divine son and all the surrounding stories and justifications with the focus on Jesus' birth (virgin birth, Holy Spirit comming on Mary, Wise men from the East) are products of the history of Christianity - originally, they are not it's core. The doctrine of Trinity on the other hand is a very elaborated and subtle philosophical concept - and you might very well argue about it's consistency.

>Mary was born without original sin
It never says this. And she's not even MC in any of the new testament books.

>relying on the bible as the main text of the faith
>Protestant doesn't understand what Protestants were protesting against
is the nonCatholic board

Give it up man, you're in the wrong here and you keep embarrassing yourself.

>wasn't modern science invented by Aristotle? And weren't Aristotle's works preserved by Christian monks
Aristotle held science back because retarded Christian philosophers took his word as law despite there being many scientific flaws in it.

Francis Bacon, Descartes, and Galileo started modern science because they were the first ones to call him out on his bullshit

I know what septuagint and masoretic are. Are you referring to Isaiah? Why not say Isaiah? Is your entire point that there are inconsistencies between the Old and New and the writers of the New are inventive? Is this some kind of revelation? Your entire argument is just differences between different texts. Whats the point? You even got it wrong that Matthew doesn't have the virgin birth, and you're supposed to be a scholar?

Can you explain how I'm in the wrong? Create an argument.

That does not prove religion saved science.

Well the muslims did keep the Greeks safe while Christians were burning them, before giving them back so we'd have a repertoire when the Muslims started burning them. #alexandria #neveragain

I dont have to, I have faith in it.

Religious motivation created those universities that modern science was invented in, and most early modern scientists reference inspiration from God. Even in the east, Islamic scholarship created places of learning where Plato and Aristotle were translated to add to the wisdom. Society before modernity was organized around religion, where else do you think it would've come from? Magic?

So you're just a strawmanning retard? Good to know.

Let's settle down, boys.

I think he's referring to 'alma in the Masoreric text being rendered as parthenos in the LXX. Whereas 'alma most frequently carries the connotation of young woman, parthenos primarily means virgin. The prophecy in Isaiah changes, then, when rendered in Greek.

THAT'S NOT WHAT STRAWMANNING MEANS HOLY SHIT HOW CAN ONE MAN BE SO RETARDED INB4 ONLY PRETENDING GET THE FUCK OUT OF THIS BOARD YOU DISGUSTING 13 YEAR OLD SHIT

I know what he's referencing. He thinks he's a textual scholar but claims Matthew doesn't contain an account of the virgin birth.

>And weren't Aristotle's works preserved by Christian monks
They were originally preserved by Muslims which were the most advanced western civilisation at that time. But philosophers (and philosophy/reasoning) became more and more obsolete in Islamic countries, until the sharia was fixated and the "doors to Ijtihad" (independent reasoning) were closed in the 13th century. Muslims just opted to succumb themselves to tradition instead of reasoning and progress.

Despite being pretty much ignored in Islam, Muslim philosophers like Avicenna and Averroes influenced Christianity deeply. Averroes was even refered to simply as "the philosopher" due to his commentaries on Aristotle (later on Aristotle became "the philosopher").

So you weren't attempting a silly dismissal that you have faith in something making it true, in an attempt to say I was making a similar argument because I was defending Christianity?

>The oldest of the four canonical gospels (Gospel of Mark)

Here's where I knew that you had know idea what you were talking about.

For many seducers are gone out into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh: this is a seducer and an antichrist.

>Too lazy or stupid to even check a basic encyclopedia before shitposting
Why are people in such a hurry to embarrass themselves, nowadays? I mean, really?

So you admit you are parroting the opinion of biased scholars working on tenuous assumptions?

...

>ur an idiot

This is how academia responds when its dogmas are called out.

>Mark is the oldest because it's the shortest one lol ;p

>strawman

People should know the meaning of words before they are allowed to post in this board.

I really hope you're trying to troll...

They're biased because you disagree with them. Every Christian does this shit. If they're presented with proof or argument they call it biased.

How was it not a strawman? It was a direct response to a request for argument and attempted to make a statement about a supposed argument I was making that I was not in fact making.

What proof or argument has been presented?

Paul is pretty clear that we're to take everything about the Incarnation and the Resurrection literally, OP. And his letters are the oldest things in the New Testament.

He was saying he has faith in the fact that your statements about literacy made NO sense, and you asking for an argument about WHY they made no sense was ridiculous. And then you proved it 1000x more by misunderstanding strawmanning. You honestly have a shitty grasp of the English language, or REALLY below average reading comprehension, that was all this little sideshow was about. If you are convinced this is not true of yourself, chalk it up to a stupid mistake on your part and leave it alone. You fucked up.

Check a fucking encyclopedia article!
Check the fucking sources of said encycolpedia article!
Check the fucking sources of the sources of said encyclopedia article!
Enough proof and argument?
That's what's called fucking science you fucking moron.
A lot of people dedicated their life to researching stuff like that, and they were fucking rigid and critical with their own opinions, because all they wanted to know was the truth.

But you fucking moron just show up and tell all of them you know better. Why? Because... well, were's your proof and argument?
A well...
>Mark is the oldest because it's the shortest one lol ;p
Yeah, that's what's actually called a strawman, you fag. Noone actually said it, but hey, all who didn't say it are biased because you're so fucking clever, huh?
You don't invest time in anything, you just show up and know better. A natural genius, huh.
Get off of /lit and never come back, you don't have a clue about fucking anything, not even the absolute basics. You're just a perfect example of the Dunning-Kruger effect.
I can't even tell how people like you piss me off.

He was following the earlier argument, and assumed I was some hardcore Christian. He said "have faith in it" in reference to that, which is a strawman. How is that hard to understand? Are you dumb?

>duh ancients wuz dumb
>proceeds to spout tired old cliches

Even if it was a reference to an earlier point, it is not a strawman to turn someones own logic back on them. He never said it was the ONLY point in the earlier argument. It was not a false representation of anything, give it up.

WEW angry 13 year old detected

So, in other words, you are dumb? Good to know. If the person never used that logic and you are inferring that they did, and I did not, its called a strawman.

I never said they did, I said they were simply asking you were confused because you were. You were the only who read a whole previous argument into it, and that was still wrong. You didn't know what strawman meant, it's ok buddy.

I know its you who made that post and its funny you're pretending to be someone else defending it, which means you know you were wrong and straw manning and actually embarrassed by anonymous post on Veeky Forums. Why not just not make stupid straw man arguments in the future?

Funny how you need to believe that to feel OK about yourself.

You were a fucking tool, just get over it and be better in the future.

Am I the only one who thinks, this is just a troll thread?

>what is IP change
Plus you didn't even reply to the original strawman post. You realize you have the same turns of phrase? Its an easy investigation. Why not just admit you're a strawmanner?

OP here. Not trolling, am genuine heretic curious what Veeky Forums thinks.

What fucking post are you even referring to? You seem to think the whole thing was linked in a big chain when it wasn't.
This is the first post on that chain, and nowhere along it is there a legitimate strawman at all. This
was my first post in the thread. If you need to create a large conspiracy about it then you are one insecure fuck.

Then its established you have no idea what you are talking about, since the person I responded to with the strawman accusation was very clearly using a strawman.

Nah, you're a heel-digging stubborn fool. Plenty of them around. You can change if you want.

As a Catholic, my response is that we know certain things in the Bible aren't metaphors because they've never been taught as metaphors. So, in this instance, Tradition is relied upon to interpret Scripture, where taking Scripture all by itself might lead to the interpretation of which you speak. This is part of why Tradition and Scripture carry equal weight in the Church.

Remember Veeky Forums:
Even if you don't believe in God, God believes in you.

I already know catholics believe Mary was as spotless as Jesus. I already know catholics are wrong. I already know what protestants were protesting against catholics for.

>hurr no protestants in my Veeky Forums, go to /x/
Hahahahah.

Pretty obviously a strawman, mate. Using a dismissive made up opinion and sarcastically pretending your opponent holds that opinion is clearly a strawman. Why are you interested in denying basic reality? Because you personally dislike how I post?

>Using a dismissive made up opinion and sarcastically pretending your opponent holds that opinion.
This never happened. He had faith that your use of language was mistaken.

see: