Christian Literalism

marmalade · 11-22-2007, 02:44 AM

Literalism has come up a lot recently on the forum, and I wanted to collect my thoughts into a single thread. I'm trying to figure out the essential nature of literalism. I decided to not bring in the socio-political angle so as to not to unduly complicate matters, but I might discuss it in a later post.

Some useful dichotomies are:
literal/figurative
denotative/connotative
historicist/mythicist
exoteric/esoteric

http://home.ca.inter.net/~oblio/BkrvTJM.htm

Quote:

"Literalist" Christianity was not the first manifestation, but arose almost a century after the beginnings of the movement. The term refers to the view that was adopted in certain circles about the developing Jesus story, the one which was ultimately entrenched in the Gospels, namely that it constituted factual history. In actuality, it does not, nor was it originally intended to be taken as such.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_literalism

Quote:

Biblical literalism is the adherence to the explicit and literal sense of the Bible.[1] In its purest form such a belief would deny the existence of allegory, parable and metaphor in the Bible, however the phrase "biblical literalist" is often a term used (sometimes pejoratively) to refer to those who subscribe to biblical inerrancy. [2][3][4]

In a sense, however, biblical literalism is not synonymous with biblical inerrancy. [5] Whereas inerrancy doctrine deals with the truthfulness of the author's intended message [6], biblical literalism deals with the interpretation of certain passages being literal.

The term has also been used to refer to historical grammatical method in Biblical hermeneutics which is a common practice of conservative Christians.[7] According to the Elwell Evangelical Dictionary, the term literalism describes a practice that "seeks to discover the author's intent by focusing upon his words in their plain, most obvious sense". [8] In this definition, a "literalist" reading of scripture would not take the literal interpretation of allegory, parable and metaphor in the Bible as seen for example in biblical poetry or the parables of Jesus.[8]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_inerrancy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Histori...matical_method

These next two links were interesting. According to these polls, a majority of Americans believe in the literal interpretation of certain Biblical stories. Polls aren't always the most accurate form of data, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was fairly accurate.

http://www.barna.org/FlexPage.aspx?P...UpdateID =282

http://www.barna.org/FlexPage.aspx?P...naUpdateID=280

This next link is a good summary.

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CH/CH102.html

marmalade · 11-22-2007, 02:45 AM

Literalism is irrational because it attempts to rationalize the non-rational. On the other hand, the non-rational in no way opposes or conflicts with rationality. It simply exists outside of the rational. Neither rationality nor non-rationality can be reduced to the other and neither can prove nor disprove the other. At best, they can inform and balance out one another. Literalism is irrational because it either creates a false opposition or it conflates the two.

Literalism is an easy error to make. Its impossible(and undesirable) to be entirely rational, and it seems nearly impossible to be entirely clear where rationality applies and where it doesn't. It isn't even agreed upon exactly what rationality means in different areas. Obviously, rationality isn't limited to logic. Probability, Occam's Razor, and falsifiability also play a part along with even more subjective ideas such as being reasonable. For instance, the standards for historical veracity in biblical studies is endlessly argued about, but biblical studies is one of the most subjective of the scholarly fields.

Here is an example of extreme literal interpretation that even Christians don't adhere to.
http://stevencarrwork.blogspot.com/

Quote:

'The belief that a cosmic Jewish Zombie who was his own father can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree.'

Maybe selective literalism is more dangerous because the absurdity of it is less obvious. Christians have used literalism since the creation of the Nicene Creed, but, prior to modern science, literalism didn't have the standard of factuality. The literalism has become less extreme over time, but its also become more subtle.

https://qspace.library.queensu.ca/handle/1974/231

Quote:

Christianity has inherited from the modern scientific mindset a literalistic worldview that insists upon true or false judgments...

The problem being that true or false have more complex meanings in science than how they're used in religion.

Quote:

Initially "to believe" meant "to hold dear"... Rather than interpreting "belief in x" as something to be held dear, the modern reader understands "x" as something to be viewed as absolutely true. ...upon encountering an ancient discussion of belief, a contemporary mind unconsciously interprets the statemensts in light of present definitions. ...It is apparent that even those that react against beliefs that do not correspond with a scientific worldview still do so within the category of belief.

For those who do subscribe to traditional notions of Christian belief, the requirement becomes that one must have faith in order to believe. ...A pre-modern Christian might have read the creation account in Genesis and believed it to be literally true, lacking any scientific knowledge to dispute this account. A modern literalist must make a conscious choice to reject scientific evidence and to choose to read biblical scriptures literally.

...Fry wrote "...Ordinarily, we mean by 'literally true' what is descriptively accurate... we call what we read 'true' if it seems satisfactory verbal replica of the information we seek." But, as Fry explains for modern readers, in order for information to become true it must be proven according to scientific knowledge that was not present in antiquity. Fry equates spiritual literalism with what Paul calls, "the letter that kills" because "it sets up an imitation of descriptive language, a pseudo-objectivity to something that isn't here."

...The poet Keats defined what he called "Negative Capability" this way: that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after faction and reason." (Keats [1817] in Gittings 2002: 41). What then is the motivation for this complete removal within religious exprience and practice of all vestiges of cognitive dissonance?

In this sense, a factual-minded scientist is more capable of accepting cognitive dissonance than is the literalist Christian. Science is very clear about the limitations of its knowledge and the boundaries of its application. An agnostic in particular has embraced cognitive dissonance in regards to theism for they assume that some unknowns are simply unknowable.

In order to clarify the meaning of literalism, we have to understand what rationality and faith mean.

http://nostalgia.wikipedia.org/wiki/...nd_rationality

Quote:

Namely, that it is not at all clear to me that it is possible to compartmentalize your life, so that you say that irrationality is all right in religious matters, but not in more ordinary matters. I simply fear that if you permit yourself to be irrational in religious matters, you will also, under excitement or duress, permit yourself to be irrational in non-religious matters.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationality

Quote:

Rationality as a term is related to the idea of reason, a word which following Webster's may be derived as much from older terms referring to thinking itself as from giving an account or an explanation. This lends the term a dual aspect. One aspect associates it with comprehension, intelligence, or inference, particularly when an inference is drawn in ordered ways (thus a syllogism is a rational argument in this sense). The other part associates rationality with explanation, understanding or justification, particularly if it provides a ground or a motive. 'Irrational', therefore, is defined as that which is not endowed with reason or understanding.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faith

Quote:

Some religious believers – and many of their critics – often use the term "faith" as the affirmation of belief without an ongoing test of evidence. In this sense faith refers to belief beyond evidence or logical arguments, sometimes called "implicit faith." Another form of this kind of faith is fideism: one ought to believe that God exists, but one should not base that belief on any other beliefs; one should, instead, accept it without any reasons at all. "Faith" in this sense, belief for the sake of believing, is often associated with Søren Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling and some other existentialist religious thinkers.

Faith as Religious belief, has been advanced as being desirable, for example for emotional reasons or to regulate society, and this can be seen as ‘positive’ when it has 'benign’ effects. However, rationalists may become alarmed that faithful activists, perhaps with extreme beliefs, might not be amenable to argument or to negotiation over their behaviour.

Robert Todd Carroll, author of skeptic.com, argues that the word "faith" is usually used to refer to belief in a proposition that is not supported by a perceived majority of evidence. Since many beliefs are in propositions that are supported by a perceived majority of evidence, the claim that all beliefs/knowledge are based on faith is a misconception "or perhaps it is an intentional attempt at disinformation and obscurantism" made by religious apologists:[11]

"There seems to be something profoundly deceptive and misleading about lumping together as acts of faith such things as belief in the Virgin birth and belief in the existence of an external world or in the principle of contradiction. Such a view trivializes religious faith by putting all non-empirical claims in the same category as religious faith. In fact, religious faith should be put in the same category as belief in superstitions, fairy tales, and delusions of all varieties."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revelation

Quote:

In the Age of Reason Thomas Paine maintained that revelation can only be considered valid for the original recipient and when subsequently communicated by the recipient to a second person it ceases to be a revelation but rather becomes a hearsay second hand account, and consequently they are not obliged to believe it.

I don't know all of the ways literalism can be used, but two ways come to mind in how Christians use it.

1) Literal interpretation of myth as history.

2) Literal interpretaion of myth as metaphysics.

Myth isn't allowed to have meaning on its own terms. This isn't to say a person can't have meaningful or even visionary experiences of myth. But these experience, no matter how powerful, prove neither history nor metaphysics; and neither can these experiences be translated into history or metaphysics.

Here are some of my favorite scholars who have questioned Christian literalism:
Carl Jung
Joseph Campbell
Robert M. Price
Earl Doherty
Achary S
Tom Harpur
Freke and Gandy

Maximus · 11-22-2007, 09:40 PM

A Christian who is a liberal is a hypocrite, and vice versa.

Og · 11-23-2007, 07:53 AM

False. Christians who are literalist conservatives are ignorant of the roots of their religion both historically and mythologically.

Tomasz · 11-23-2007, 08:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Og

Christians who are literalist conservatives are ignorant of the roots of their religion...

It must be a quite lonely feeling not being a literalist conservative Christian ?

marmalade · 11-23-2007, 02:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Maximus

A Christian who is a liberal is a hypocrite, and vice versa.

What do you mean by this?

I was raised as a liberal Christian, and it never seemed hypocritical to me. Unity church tends towards non-literal docetist theology, and so that is my primary understanding of Christianity. If this was how some early Christians interpreted the Christ story, then it wouldn't be hypocritical. Certainly, the Romans and the Jews didn't consider the early Christians to be conservative.

Og · 11-23-2007, 07:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tomasz

Quote:

Originally Posted by Og

Christians who are literalist conservatives are ignorant of the roots of their religion...

It must be a quite lonely feeling not being a literalist conservative Christian ?

On the contrary. And that's the whole point. Only the brainwashed literalist conservatives with their proposals in schism with observation are the ones that need strength in numbers. Reality is a much stronger sword to wield.

AB517 · 11-24-2007, 09:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Og

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tomasz

Quote:

Originally Posted by Og

Christians who are literalist conservatives are ignorant of the roots of their religion...

It must be a quite lonely feeling not being a literalist conservative Christian ?

On the contrary. And that's the whole point. Only the brainwashed literalist conservatives with their proposals in schism with observation are the ones that need strength in numbers. Reality is a much stronger sword to wield.

Remember all; not just religion.
Look at Laws ... to be truly fair one can not be literal.

I agree with Og here and how he sees the bible. Oh my!

I have spoken to many people that take it literally.
I ask them “why so literal? Why can’t it be the way we see it?”

I get many answers. The one that really got me was
“If it is not literal then I would have been wrong my hole life”

I told him “So what; isn’t beautiful when we see something more there than we could have imagined? This higher power is bigger and more grand than any of us know.” I have been wrong my hole life before

Reply: Bigger than the bible?

Me: Yes; much much bigger

They didn’t like that.

That’s OK though.
God awaits us both with equal anticipation.

Maximus · 11-25-2007, 02:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by marmalade

Quote:

Originally Posted by Maximus

A Christian who is a liberal is a hypocrite, and vice versa.

What do you mean by this?

I was raised as a liberal Christian, and it never seemed hypocritical to me. Unity church tends towards non-literal docetist theology, and so that is my primary understanding of Christianity. If this was how some early Christians interpreted the Christ story, then it wouldn't be hypocritical. Certainly, the Romans and the Jews didn't consider the early Christians to be conservative.

Churches that marry gays aren't churches, they're just public institutions, yeah I know some people say churches are public institutions but in reality they're private institutions open to the public.

Tomasz · 11-26-2007, 03:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Og

On the contrary. And that's the whole point. Only the brainwashed literalist conservatives with their proposals in schism with observation are the ones that need strength in numbers. Reality is a much stronger sword to wield.

Surely.
I just try to picture a scene, when you're at some meeting of evangelicals. You present yourself as a Christian then make a speech in which you present your views on the Bible. I'd like to see the expressions of the faces of your listeners after you finish the lecture.

I would suggest to you that before the lecture you should get to know where's the emergency exit and during the speech position yourself as close to it as possible, just in case
By the way, can you run fast ?

I mean we wouldn't want to loose you