Is there anything wrong with a strictly metaphorical reading of the Bible? Before ever touching the Bible, I read a lot of Plato and Aristotle, and after finishing the Old Testament recently I've found myself reconciling my former beliefs by taking the words of the Bible as metaphor.
Tell me: is there anything wrong with viewing God as the highest Form?
>beliefs
what a low IQ concept.
Stop treating the bible like it's a single book. Ask yourself, is there anything wrong with a strictly metaphorical reading of the county library? It's a nonsensical question. The bible, like the library, is a collection of books with a variety of genres written by a variety of authors separated by thousands of years with a variety of intended audiences. You have to consider each book on its own first before you can treat it in the context of the whole.
>is there anything wrong with viewing God as the highest Form?
You're looking for Aquinas.
No, it makes more sense that way. Read Maps of Meaning.
>is there anything wrong with viewing God as the highest Form?
Yeah its thinking you are more clever and understand the bible better than 2000 years of christian thinkers a - including the direct decedents of the people who knew the Apostles and those who devoted their lives to studying it.
People chose death and absolute poverty for Christianity rather than just accept some other God as the highest form.
Choosing to view everything in the bible as a metaphore strikes me as someone who is trying to manage cognitive dissonance rather than seek the truth,
>You're looking for Aquinas.
Or Augustine
i do believe i am smarter than a bunch of gossiping nobodies who saw a thing happen indirectly 2000 years ago
think of the dumbest black/mexican guy you know.
he's still probably wiser about the world than the old israelites or the romans in many ways.
bad example most of the mexicans and black are christians so it's possible that's the real correlation with perceived passivity/stupidity
Why do you think they death and destruction over a book that wrote about events that didnt actually happen?
easy.
general passivity towards self-empowering philosophies, stupidity and societal rebellion.
How many dumbest black/mexican men could write the City of God and one of the greatest biographies in history?
How many of them could overcome the greatest empire the world had known?
>overcome the greatest empire
no, it just fell apart and hundreds of years later a runaway sub-group reclaimed the name even though it was entirely unrelated.
the real rome became the eastern countries past turkey.
I'm sure lots of great poetry was written by all sorts of people that no one gave a shit about.
>Tell me: is there anything wrong with viewing God as the highest Form?
No. That's where I started with theism.
Sophist ITT.
Christian authors after Nice had no choice but to explore the Rome-approved version of events or be heretics. Remember catholic is a synonym for universal. Consolidating religious authority was a weapon of the new Roman empire.
*nicea
I don't think you know what a Sophist is.
i don't think you know what it's not.
It's not a perfect use but it fits what he's trying to see. basically intellectual flourishes disguising truth.
Its not sophistry to point out that for its 2000 year history the various Churches did not view the bible as pure metaphor and that members of the early church were not knuckle draggers.
The Church was autistic when it came to documenting all the various heresies yet not one took a pure metaphor approach.
Hence if you want to take the pure metaphor approach it raises serious questions as to the creation of the bible and why this new interpretation never cropped up earlier.
I am Platonic heretic user from this thread. I would not read OT metaphorically. It's much more a traditional creation myth, chronicle, and tribal law.
Parts of NT can be read as metaphor, just be careful about it.
> raises serious questions as to the creation of the bible and why this new interpretation never cropped up earlier.
>the church was autistic when it came to documenting
you answered your own question.
And, no.
>Tell me: is there anything wrong with viewing God as the highest Form?
There is nothing wrong with this. You are meditating on the transcendentals, things which the Lord of the NT is about: highest truth, justice, and beauty. The church's mistake was anthropomorphizing it into a figure to be worshipped rather ideals than practiced.
I think you missed the point, they document every version of Christianity they came across yet did not come across anything that resembled the OPs point.
Or do you think there was a grand conspiracy whereby this one special interpretation that only popped up in the past 50 years was hidden away
Docetists claimed Christ was an illusion, that he was not actually physically real. They were declared heretics and wiped out, like all the rest. You are too easy.
>Docetists claimed Christ was an illusion, that he was not actually physically real. They were declared heretics and wiped out, like all the rest. You are too easy.
So your proof that that people thought of the bible as pure metaphore is a group who thought that Jesus was purely God and hence had no human aspect or that his divine element was wholly separate from his human one?
Step it up user, this people are so convinced that Jesus is literally God they wont admit any human element to him, not that all the events in the Bible were a metaphore
There were different theories about it, but yea basically. If all matter is evil, how could God pour himself out into a material form? Also, I'm pretty sure OP overstated his question. Not EVERYTHING is a metaphor. It'd be nice if OP cleared this up, because it's the only leg your posts are standing on.
user got dunked on again!
By that logic, which books in the Bible are actually good? Not hating, just curious
> Also, I'm pretty sure OP overstated his question.
I see it more as a Petersonpill poster
The Bible isn't a metaphor and isn't supposed to be a metaphor.
If you don't believe in religion you debunk your whole existence and prove you are even more of a brainlet than someone following a false religion.
What?
>The Bible isn't a metaphor and isn't supposed to be a metaphor.
t. statue worshiper
Yes. In particular, if you personally believe that the entire Bible is just a big series of metaphors, and nothing further, and if you apply that belief in your personal life, then when you die, you will be judged by God and go to Hell because you did not accept Christ. Hell is the most unpleasant locale imaginable.
So you see user, there is most certainly something wrong with a strictly metaphorical reading of the Bible.
>t. someone who cannot understand metaphor in the Bible
Church did a good job on you, user. Don't forget to pay your tithe.
Just read the Parables.
And don't you forget to enjoy Hell, either. I am praying for you.
Here's a protip for your hellbound ass: you seem to be confused about cases. The OP /explicitly/ asked what negative effects might obtain as a result of reading the /whole entire/ bible and taking the /whole/ business as metaphor. I correctly cautioned him, and you, that to do so will cause you to go to Hell after you die, and this because sincere belief in certain parts are necessary in order to avoid hell.
Now, one may wish to discuss metaphor in other, particular ways. And here one should be careful of the devil's influence. But there exist tenets which do not admit of banishment as metaphor, or else the whole is an absurdity. One of these unalterable tenets, which is not up for negotiation, is that Jesus Christ died on the cross for your sins, and if you do not accept him, then you die, you will not go to Heaven. That is true.
>That is true.
Prove it. You can't. You can only cite your source, which made the assertion in the first place.
>OP /explicitly/ asked bla bla bla
And I warned him the OT should not be read as metaphor, and to be careful in reading the NT. Go buy a plenary indulgence from the merchants at the Temple, Francis.
God IS the highest form. Have you learned nothing? This alone should answer any questions regarding metaphor.
Everything. Fuck off, gnostic.
>if you do not accept him, then you die, you will not go to Heaven.
I have accepted Christ as totem of the highest good, the unknowable first principle from which all else emanates. This unknowable is immanent: now is the time of God's favor, now is the day of salvation. Instead of cursing me with a mythological hell, maybe you should walk in my way and see heaven for yourself. Narrow is the gate.
I shall continue to pray for you. I have made a note of your post number for this purpose.
You also seem to be badly confused about the intentionality of various branches of Christianity, in order to make certain self-contradictory rhetorical swipes over the course of your posts.
Child, there are books in the Bible that are metaphor. Job, for example.
However, there are far more books that are not metaphor. Perhaps they contain it, but they are not metaphor.
>“If you want to see the face of Europe in 100 years, barring a miracle, look to the faces of young Muslim immigrants,” Philadelphia Archbishop Charles J. Chaput told a group of Catholics Thursday.
>proof
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Serious question: Where in the Bible does it say heaven is an afterlife? Or associated with physical death? Isn't it only something you experience by accepting Christ and being born again? And doesn't Paul's epistle to the Corinthians say Christ is not to be considered physical? And when referring to "the dead" isn't the Bible speaking of the spiritually dead, as in the seven sermons of Jung? Ie, those most in need of receiving Christ?
What kind of Frosty the Snowman fairy tale is eternal happiness after physical death? No one knows what happens after death. Stiff-necked adherence to this nonsense is driving people away from the word. Pride is a mortal sin, fellas. It has confused and killed countless, figuratively and literally.
>fairy tale
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who knew starting with the greeks would lead to heresy and damnation
feels bad man
I think you'd enjoy reading Spinoza's biblical criticism, if you haven't already. His perspective might guide your interest.
Not OP, but what I'm seeing from this thread is that I shouldn't read the bible?
I'm an atheist and I was hoping to read the bible for a new perspective on my philosophy, and to just enjoy the poetry of the KJV.
But if I have to literally believe that Christ fed the thousand or Moses parted the red sea without being able to read it as metaphor or indeed just a story, then how can I access it?
Stop thinking in terms of "believing" or whatever and just read the damn thing
>IQ
what a brainlet concept
Atheists cannot read the Bible.
Reading the Bible made me an atheist. Something about the God-sanctioned genocides.
You can still gain by reading, but if your goal is ethics or a non-retarded belief in God, stick with Plato and Aristotle.
By what logic? By encouraging people to consider the genre, the writer, and the intended audience of a book I'm not making a statement on the books quality. I'm not saying that any of them are bad so I don't understand why you're asking me to say which are "actually good."
I read the Bible because it's impossible to enjoy classic lit without knowing the stories.