Modern Christians tend to view God as some sort abstract sustainer of reality and the biblical tales to be completely allegorical.
But is this what the original authors intended or is it more influenced by Hellenic and Enlightenment philosophy? Or even a need to keep compatible with modern science?
There's evidence that the earliest Jews were henotheistic and literally did view God as a man sitting in the clouds, he was often depicted riding clouds and had the epithet "cloud rider".
Even people like Augustine who Christians often quote as an example of early Christians against biblical literalism still believed in the creation of Adam and Eve, that the flood literally happened, and Noah's Ark was real.
Are Christians justified in changing their views or is it just an attempt to keep their religion from being obsolete?
>Are Christians justified in changing their views or is it just an attempt to keep their religion from being obsolete? If you're consciously modifying your religion to make it sound less absurd, then you've already admitted defeat. You might as well just call yourself a deist at that point and declare that you follow a certain moral code because you believe that's the way things ought to be. Obviously Christians do not want to do this because (on an individual level) it would wound their pride and possibly cause some a crisis of faith. On a greater scale it would destroy the church as a whole, which would mean massive losses of money and power for everyone involved.
Grayson Lopez
>Modern Christians tend to view God as some sort abstract sustainer of reality and the biblical tales to be completely allegorical.
Are you sure about that? Such a view seems to be confined to academics or universalists
Gabriel Anderson
Well, I see people here constantly posting stuff like this.
I'd literally rather read a dictionary than read that trash.
Cooper Cook
The old testament stories are pretty crude, with God literally walking around the garden of eden and Adam hiding from him and the supposed allegory that this is supposed to represent always seemed like a major stretch to me. My intuition is no, these were literal tales.
Jack Mitchell
It's pretty obvious that most of the stories of the bible were meant to be taken literally. The whole "Everything is an allegory" line of thinking was not popular until pretty recently, and it's mainly espoused by people who are trying their best to keep others from criticizing things.
Hunter Butler
Those posts are terribly rare compared to the rest
Alexander Thomas
>But is this what the original authors intended or is it more influenced by Hellenic and Enlightenment philosophy? Or even a need to keep compatible with modern science?
That and the convenience it gives christfags, because it doesn't force them to apply the scripture they don't benefit from
If you want to test this yourself, ask them whether they've ever given all their possessions to the poor. The number of excuses and bullshit loopholes you get after this is higher than the number of people Jesus could feed with loaf and fish
Luke Gomez
> The whole "Everything is an allegory" line of thinking was not popular until pretty recently Literally the opposite of this is true.
And nobody claims that "everything is an allegory", you just need to be aware of the genre of whatever Bible book you're reading. Job for example is explicitly a morality tale, there's not any reason at all to think it was meant to be taken as a literal historical account, any more than a Shakespearean play would be.
Josiah Rodriguez
It's true that a lot of the stories in the Old Testament have some holes as narratives, for instance Cain running off and getting married after killing Abel when him Adam and Even where the only people alive in the world. However looking at them as purely allegorical rather then the record that they are is cherry-picking and applying the standards of a fictional narrative upon the Bible isn't the same as living from it. Just because the actual writers of the Bible got somethings wrong doesn't mean it's not true.
What really matters is that the New Testament is literally the Word of God.
Ethan Cruz
>But is this what the original authors intended or is it more influenced by Hellenic and Enlightenment philosophy? Or even a need to keep compatible with modern science? Pretty much the opposite of this. The Bible is more like a library than a book, it includes books of law, poetry, parables, history and theology. People used to be more aware of that. Now, and it seems mostly to be uneducated cafeteria Christians and hardline American Protestants who do this, people for some reason think that they're supposed to read works of poetry and philosophy the same way they would read a biography.
Landon Sanders
/pol/ish "christians" are the worst thing that ever happened to Veeky Forums.
Jaxson Young
What is genesis supposed to be?
Jose Stewart
Christians stopped following the Bible a long time ago.
For 1000 years the Catholic Church expressly forbid usury.
The Bible specifically forbids it in the New and Old Testament.
Yet about the time of the Protestant reformation both sides of Western Christianity said "Fuck it. Let's not follow the Bible anymore." (Orthodox still seems to care about it though)
So yeah... How can you say you follow the Bible when you don't follow its rules.
Seriously, the majority of Christians in America don't follow their own book yet claim to uphold its ideals.
Its all cherry picked to high heaven.
No true Christians.
Daniel Ross
Perhaps "Christianity" is an amorphous label to describe in general the populations of self-identifying people who adhere to a shifting, evolving set of beliefs and behaviors.
Jack Baker
Its sort of a paradox. A group of people claim to follow the absolute word and rules of the one true God. Yet his words and rules seem to change over time.
Which by all means is evidence those words and rules are made up by men who change them to suit their needs.
Joshua Nguyen
I feel the same way, it's obvious that all religion is a subset of anthropology no different from dietary practices, clothing, sport, warfare, and art.
Jacob Morgan
>There's evidence that the earliest Jews
Andrew King
>Even people like Augustine who Christians often quote as an example of early Christians against biblical literalism still believed in the creation of Adam and Eve, that the flood literally happened, and Noah's Ark was real
While they were never "literalists" in the modern sense, the Catholics and Orthodox prior to the 20th century for the most part affirmed the historicity of the stories in Genesis and Exodus and were pretty resistant to the theory of evolution. Read what the Catholic Encyclopedia (published about 100 years ago) says about the Flood for instance: newadvent.org/cathen/04702a.htm .
To their credit they abandoned these views when Biblical scholarship and archaeology made it obvious it was all made up. But it kind of irritates me seeing them poking fun at "proddies" when it was mainline protestants who contributed the most to the downfall of Biblical inerrancy and have even been the most receptive to critical scholarship.
Even now Catholics and Orthodox Catholics are still dogmatically bound to accept Biblical inerrancy (though note that this inerrancy absolutely doesn't necessarily entail a Biblical literalism.) though I suspect this will change in coming generations
Blake Barnes
What's the problem?
Jack Richardson
Pretty much this.
There are some Christians traditionalists who still follow and believe in the actual teachings of the church, people tend to dismiss them, even other Christians, viewing them as backward.
This is why we have the magisterium, but it seems like no one gives a shit about it anymore.
Oliver Lopez
>self-identifying people who adhere to a shifting, evolving set of beliefs and behaviors
They would be a little more admirable if they didn't claim on top of this that their beliefs never have and never will change
Andrew Ward
That is not a modernization of how God is understood in Christianity, that is a considerably older understanding of it. You see this view throughout the Medieval Era and before as the dominant view. The first attempt to define authoritatively the nature of Christ and thus speak on the nature of God - the Council of Ephesus - speaks of this and is largely where the view comes from.
The early Christians supported the idea of gaining a greater insight of the nature of God and his will through the the coming of Jesus so I do not think it is fair to view the Jews' view of God as authoritative to the Christian's. Further, it is unclear whether these people nor the actual first generation of Christians had an doctrinal understanding of fully of God's nature besides scraps of detail and trying to understand it in a personal sense.
Even the medievals would support anthropomorphic language insofar as it allows people to relate to the situation better despite being understood as a kind of shorthand for the reality of the situation.
Luis Ramirez
>the actual teachings of the church Care to name a few?
Hudson Ross
>There's evidence that the earliest Jews were henotheistic and literally did view God as a man sitting in the clouds, he was often depicted riding clouds and had the epithet "cloud rider". If I'm not mistaken Augustine also objected to the Earth being round as this would mean that the world wouldn't be able to see Christ descending from heaven at the Second Coming.
>Are Christians justified in changing their views or is it just an attempt to keep their religion from being obsolete? There is absolutely no doubt that there has been a lot of backpedalling. But the kernels of the religion are still in place, so they can keep their heads above the water for now
Jeremiah Rodriguez
>Yet about the time of the Protestant reformation both sides of Western Christianity said "Fuck it. Let's not follow the Bible anymore." (Orthodox still seems to care about it though)
>Saying Protestants dont follow the bible
This is what his has become
Jacob Cox
all myth has allegorical meaning to it though, otherwise there's no point to it
Alexander Sanders
Orthodox don't allow usury? So does that mean they don't have banks in Slavic countries?
Matthew Bailey
>There's evidence that the earliest Jews were henotheistic and literally did view God as a man sitting in the clouds According to the Old Testament account the ancient Hebrews were heathenish as fuck.
Ian Anderson
>There's evidence that the earliest Jews were henotheistic and literally did view God as a man sitting in the clouds, he was often depicted riding clouds and had the epithet "cloud rider".
>this literaly meant he rides clouds like the kid in dragonball, theres no other possible meaning or reference or symbolism this might involve, it must mean they all literaly believed in a guy riding a cloud, physicaly, as such
why OP, why?
Ryan Cook
>strawmanning this hard
user, why
Colton Morris
>Literally the opposite of this is true. Nope. The vast majority of the church was claiming otherwise for a thousand years or more. Now we have the pope retconning shit left and right with new "interpretations."
Ian Wood
/thread
Hudson Baker
Changing views are entirely the result of the decline of church power and the rise of judicial-discursive power
Religion in the west now must fit into a "personalized belief in god", rather than a state or ritualistic pursuit of god. This comes from the fact that people no longer simply believe in god, but rather they follow a religion.
This is why many people may identify as spiritual, but not necessarily religious.
I recommend you read J.Z Smith's Imagining Religion: From Babylon to Jonestown, William Arnal's The Sacred is Profane, and Fouccault's History of Sexuality Volume 1 (Which can be seen as an analog in sexuality to the changing face of religion)
t. Religious Studies Major
Grayson James
>there is evidence of my bullshit >Not a single piece of evidence posted
