Interpreting Theology

Spawning from the Theology thread, how do you interpret various theology?

Note that ‘you’ as in yourself and not how it’s supposed to be interpreted.

I grew up in a religion-less family. I was never indoctrinated with any religion. At the same time however, I wasn’t instructed to be against any particular religion either. My parents basically just helped me make sense of my own understandings. Be the observer. Therefore, any understanding of any religion I’ve read or discussed doesn’t assume that the theology is right literally but rather but is viewed by me as creative concepts expressed in an embellished manner. As we all know however, you can interpret the same concept in two extremely different ways. Example: Note that I’m not even concerned with being biblically accurate.


“Jesus will come back from the dead.”

A Literal Way = A man named Jesus will physically resurrect and live again.

A Symbolic Way = The ‘message’ that Jesus preached will become a dominate way of acting/thinking once again at some point a time among most people and thus ‘he’ as in ‘his message’ will become alive again.


”You will go to hell”

A Literal Way = Assumes you as in your current way of consciousness or even your physical self will actually go to a place named hell.

A Symbolic Way = Since you’re dead, your ‘life’ so to speak, is represented - literally - as more so your legacy. Such as, “he’s with us in our hearts.” Hell is represented as something that’s really really not good, basically. If you do wrong, the only thing you will leave behind (life) will be bad (hell). Therefore ‘you’ will ‘burn’ in ‘hell.’


You can also express the same concept in two completely different ways.


I got the holy spirit!

A Literal Way = An entity has actually possessed me causing the happiness I’m feeling.

A Symbolic Way = My mind (spirit) is in an elevated state of comfort and happiness, referenced with “holy” because holy notates the mind with “extremely good.”


I have a hard time emulating how some religious people thought process works because I can never tell the difference between literal interpretation/expressions and metaphoric/symbolic ones.

For example, in the theology thread Alice told me that how you refer to god – whether it’s “he” “she” “it” or whatever is irrelevant. Which is ridiculous of course, because as someone who attempts to look at religion objectively like I do, I have no idea how your mind is conceptualizing “god.” If you say “he” you’re communicating to me that you’re conceptualizing a human-like man, physically and/or metaphysically. Not to mention that I’ve came across many people that actually do conceptualize many biblical concepts literally, such as god resembling an actual man, physically/metaphysically.

So in essence, upon interpreting theology, do you take it mostly literal or mostly symbolic? If so, what do you interpret as literal and what as symbolic? For any symbolism, do interpret it as divine or no different than messages in something like a book of proverbs. (Which do contain mature, useful points by the way.)

Originally Posted by SMX

“Jesus will come back from the dead.”

I hear: "I need an excuse to be a productive person, for my will alone shall not suffice."

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”You will go to hell”

I hear: "I'm pissed at you but I can't do anything about it. GRRR."

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I got the holy spirit!
A Literal Way = An entity has actually possessed me causing the happiness I’m feeling.

My friends and I used to codename Meth and Coke 'Buddha' and 'Jesus'. We codenamed our drug sessions 'prayer'. By your literal definition, I suppose we were catching the Holy Spirit.

In hopes that this doesn't become another on-going debate, I'll say that I regard almost everything the Bible says as a kind of tool.

I think that needs clarification. When I read something from the Bible (or any other ancient religious text), it immediately becomes SMACKING of pyschological play. I never really give the literal text any credit, though.

I just see the entire thing as an overly-obvious control device.

I halfly agree with sass here.

A lot of christian societies are kind of overwhelming, Cult-like even.
I was raised a christian (protestant.) but when I went to an open-air praise (It's like a rock festival except without the beer and rockmusic etc.)
I walked into this tent and all these people were doing the same over and over. I personally saw hitler in front of me.

So thats when I kind of didn't believe in christianity anymore.

But on the psychological part. I don't think it's the bible per se, but more of the people preaching the bible to random people.

Originally Posted by daxy

but when I went to an open-air praise I walked into this tent and all these people were doing the same over and over. I personally saw hitler in front of me.

Can you expand on this?
I think I know what you are talking about, and have thoughts on that specific matter, but I want to hear you clarify it first.

Originally Posted by Sassafrass

I just see the entire thing as an overly-obvious control device.

Same here. Though, I don't really blame the bible as much as I blame corrupt churches and ignorant people.

Even the bible itself though was "edited" SMX. Thanks Constantine.

I mean church as in whatever church institute had power in it's time. Weren't they ones doing translating/editing?

Originally Posted by Devo

Even the bible itself though was "edited" SMX. Thanks Constantine.

Now we all know that Constantine had called the council to assemble what was to be canonical, and what isnt. But, do you have even the slightest bit of evidence to suggest that he and the other people in the councils "edited," as you say, the scriptures?
We know for certain that the Old Testament is literally unchanged. So we have verification that those documents, especially the prophecies, have been untouched (Dead Sea Scrolls FTW).
As for the new testament documents, there has been many fragments of various parts of the new testament books which predate the first council of Nicea, and thus also attest to the unchanged nature of the new testament, to about 99%.
I do not have sources for the new testament documents found... I am looking for them right now though.

The fact that he chose certain scriptures and not others pretty much tells us he edited the bible to his liking. Not necessarily editting as in changing scriptures but editting like a director would edit out a piece of a film.

Originally Posted by Devo

The fact that he chose certain scriptures and not others pretty much tells us he edited the bible to his liking. Not necessarily editting as in changing scriptures but editting like a director would edit out a piece of a film.

No, that is not editing. He was not the only dude that was involved in selection either.
The whole point was that everyone pretty much believed the same thing, with some variations here and there, even before Constantine came along. Then comes along Arius with a totally different and new way of interpreting what everyone had already accepted as scripture, by incuding various other documents which were not generally accepted as scripture. His views for every piece of scripture they questioned him about differed from what was accepted by the majority. When I say "they" I am referring to the council members, which number in at least the couple hundreds. That is a pretty big majority.

Please stop making such gross overgeneralizations, and actually look into the details of the events. It's like me saying that the only reason why Darwin came up with his theory of evolution because he wanted to attack Christianity.
I would also like to devote more time to this discussion, but it is finals week, and I have an exam tomorrow at 7:30 AM.

Quote:

Can you expand on this?
I think I know what you are talking about, and have thoughts on that specific matter, but I want to hear you clarify it first.

Well what I mean is, that it was a big tent with a lot of people sitting down at first. But of course the minister said all rise, So everyone stood up simultaniously(spelling?) and raised their hands simultaniously. so I inmediatly saw a black and white movie with people doin the "heil hitler" hand greeting.

I hope that clarifies it a bit.

Dude, Devo, have you ever read any of the apocrypha? Most of it is pretty out of place and dumb. You wouldn't need to be a member of the Nicean council to figure it out. The gospel of Thomas is everyone's favorite apocrypha and it's pretty unlike anything in the Bible and not backed up very well by the old testament. That is an important point, because Jesus himself canonized the OT and the standard Gospels are littered with references to it.

Plus as Lisztman (Fjordor) pointed out, we have manuscripts that date back to a time when people who actually witness the events could have verified them. From a historical standpoint, the Bible doesn't live up to the standards most historians use to qualify something as "legend" or folklore.

Originally Posted by Minion

Plus as Lisztman (Fjordor) pointed out, we have manuscripts that date back to a time when people who actually witness the events could have verified them. From a historical standpoint, the Bible doesn't live up to the standards most historians use to qualify something as "legend" or folklore.

Yea, witnesses to historical events are never biased or never skew them.

I mean, even look at the Civil War. The South still thinks they WON in some parts of the nation.

Its all about perspective and interpretation. (Whether or not the Bible was mutialted intentionally is up for grabs. I think yes. But, you know, it is impossible to pass down literature in so many languages for so many years and have it stay as intact as it was when it was first written down. IMPOSSIBLE.)

Impossible according to whom? I mean, why would people assume these things. Copying the Bible was something a lot of poeple were wroking on independently. If two people copy something independently and you compare their copies and they agree, chances are, it's right. It doesn't take a lot of proof to show this. We use this kind of proof to put people in jail and on death row all the time. It's called corroborative evidence.

Originally Posted by Minion

Impossible according to whom? I mean, why would people assume these things. Copying the Bible was something a lot of poeple were wroking on independently. If two people copy something independently and you compare their copies and they agree, chances are, it's right. It doesn't take a lot of proof to show this. We use this kind of proof to put people in jail and on death row all the time. It's called corroborative evidence.

Have you ever even tried a simple game of telephone. You can't even get a drawing of a house to go through 20 people and come out accurately on the other end. I've tried it.

You don't understand behavioral sciences? Life is about perspective - it's about what a person sees, and the output from what they see. Its impossible for every person to see and duplicate things exactly as they saw them. Thats what we call "nature of man." Its a great thing. Theres no such thing as perfect! I am sure even YOU can agree with that.

Also, there are far too many factors involved. Mathematically, you know that the chances of getting something PERFECTLY INTACT after going through 2000 years of translation(thousands of factors alone there, esppecially when its translated into every language on the face of the planet, essentially) and being passed on or editted out (there's proof of it out there. Even the exclusion of important information) in a pure form is mathematically impossible.

But if you want to keep believing that it is and defy everything you've ever learned in your academic career, go ahead. It's your money and your religion.

The only factor you have on your side is that the Bible is the word of God - which even today is debatable.

You need to understand that there are THOUSANDS of religions out there claiming that THEY have the word of god in their hands. You're silly to think YOU have the right answer. You don't. And I would never claim that I had "a right answer" either.

Man has been pondering the "truth" about the world since day one. Theres a reason no one has any proof of any truth - because one doesn't exist in a united, tiny little bundle. Truth is in perception. It is the one constant.

Originally Posted by Fjordor

No, that is not editing. He was not the only dude that was involved in selection either. The whole point was that everyone pretty much believed the same thing, with some variations here and there, even before Constantine came along.

It's editing in the sense Devo used the word, as a movie director cutting scenes he thinks doesn't fit the film. It's cutting scripture that doesn't fit a preconcieved doctrine.

Whether this doctrine was believed by the majority or not is irrelivent. There could be many reasons for it gaining a hold over people. Considering that a main doctrine of the NT is to spread the specific message of Jesus' "physical resurrection" as far and wide as possible, it isn't surprising that this specific set of scriptures/doctrines is what became prevalent. It was part of their doctrine to actively seek and convert others. Don't assume that majority = truth.

The followers of Jesus post-crucifixion had a great deal of diversity concerning their beliefs, a lot moreso then exists today. Read "The Gnostic Gospels" by Elain Pagels or "Lost Christianities" by Bart Ehrman. There were many groups that believed the resurrection to be a symbolic tale of His message (which I think would be a VERY large "variation"). Everyone did eventually believe the same thing, but only after the followers of other theologies were killed off and the majority of their gospels destroyed, while the "true" followers of Jesus stuffed their gospels down everybody's throat.

Originally Posted by Minion

Impossible according to whom? I mean, why would people assume these things. Copying the Bible was something a lot of poeple were wroking on independently. If two people copy something independently and you compare their copies and they agree, chances are, it's right. It doesn't take a lot of proof to show this. We use this kind of proof to put people in jail and on death row all the time. It's called corroborative evidence.

Because if the people doing the analysis have similar mind sets, then corroborative evidence isn't very reliable. Now, if you take people across totally different cultures and extremely different ways of thinking and understanding, and they still reach the same conclusion, then you’re on to something outside of perspective and interpretation. That's how I see it.

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But if you want to keep believing that it is and defy everything you've ever learned in your academic career, go ahead. It's your money and your religion.

First of all, you're not making any sense in comparing it to telephone. It's nothing at all like that. People have always, even to this day, made copies from the oldest source available. And, like we've mentioned a thousand times before, even though there is a huge time gap between the dead sea scrolls and the 2nd oldest OT, they are identical. So, where's you telephone now? Quit talking out of your ass.