Why not ask Velkyn to "show us" that her understanding is the correct one? That kills two birds with one stone, since we both agree on the meaning of the parable. She is simply wrong in saying that Jesus is the one who wants everyone slain in front of him. Otherwise, he wouldn't talk about a "king". He would use the pronoun, "I".
My analysis. We can't ascertain which version is right. But if you wish to derive any factual statements from it, you'll need to ascertain whether they are facts.
I haven't said anything at all about it. She dreamed that one up just as she dreamed up all her accusations.
I'll have to read back on the rest of the thread.
Wrong again! He demanded that I leave the Bible out of it. That is a ridiculous demand and one that no historian or biblical scholar would put up with for a second. In fact, it is down right ignorant. Sorry. You all only accept plain talk from yourselves. But reality is reality.
If you didn't refuse to do it, then what did you do? I merely commented on your actions and not your reasons why. I can't speak on behalf of him, but I suspect he wanted to leave the bible out of it because he want you to use
other sources. Good historians don't rely on a single source.
You have available to you the same sources I have. The difference is, you get your information from atheist blogs, fine scholarly works like the Skeptics Annotated Bible, and authors who mainly don't know what they are talking about.
And Christians spouting the bible back at us and when I use a bible quote, I read the whole chapter and try to understand the context. There are Christians that also do this, yet so many seem to disagree on the meaning. 38,000+ sects can't be right on the exact meaning of the bible. I've had Christians use a whole manner of dark parts of the bible to back up their bigoted views. I've even challenged them with the New Testament, but what I get thrown back at me is teachings where Jesus tells them to listen to the Old Testament and follow its laws. It's not mere 'atheist' interpretations. Heck the Phelps family are very knowledgeable of the bible's contents and have studied it hard and are actually a well educated and well schooled bunch and any claim you make about Jesus and the bible they will be able to back up their view with what the bible says. And the WBC are nuts. Many of us are also ex-Christians who have had the bible pumped into their brain and had these teachings directly taught to them by Christians who claim authority on the bible or have studied it. I wouldn't assume where we get all of our information from.
Who has claimed this? The "magic decoder" ring is fatuous beyone belief. It is a way of shutting down conversation and keeping your minds tightly closed. When someone offers an interpretation of Romeo and Juliet does he have a magic decoder ring? Or does his interpretation accord more or less well with the facts of the story, its historical position, etc. A casual reader is less likely to offer a nuanced interpretation than a great scholar of Shakespeare. Interpretation of texts occur along a continuum from those offered by the well-meaning ignorant, to those very learned interpretations that increase our understanding and enjoyment of Shakespeare. The same is true for every text. The Bible is a text.
The magic decoder ring argument exists because people have their individual claims about the bible but cannot suggest exactly why their's is right and why others are wrong. With Romeo and Juliet it is treated as fiction and people's interpretations are entirely ficticious and it's how they personally read the text. But it may not be at all what the original author intended it. For example, for an English literature class Ian McEwan's son had to write an essay on one of his dad's novels and his dad helped him, but the teacher gave him a low mark and the teacher offered a different interpretation of what McEwan wrote. We don't have the liberty of asking Shakespeare or even the author of the Bible (or God himself) what is actually meant. I've even had people give different interpretations I hadn't even considered when trying to get feedback on my own writing. Another case, Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses was interpreted by Islamic Extremists as being anti-Islamist and it got him into a lot of trouble, even though his novel isn't about Islam. Heck in an English Literature exam I got positive marks for taking quotes from Shakespeare's Othello and managed to create an interpretation of the play where Iago is gay for Othello.
But we're talking about novels, plays and other forms of fiction. Something that's entirely fictional and something writers can even leave up to the interpretation of the reader.
The Bible on the other hand is the base text of a religion and for many something of historical significance - not in that it's an ancient novel, but in it actually bearing witness to historical events. Reading historical sources isn't up to personal interpretation like when reading a novel. There's a level of professional interpretation and generally a professional interpretation derives from what can be known about the time and checking information with multiple sources and even having archeological evidence. One thing we learned studying history at school is to NOT use more than one source to gather evidence and our History exams were based on deriving information from multiple sources to try and understand what we can take from them to build up an account of what happened. This is basic stuff.
It also gives commandments to Christians (of which they follow, usually down the interpretation they use) and teaches them that there is without a shadow of a doubt, a God. If it was all personal interpretation of a novel, then how on earth could you say that me or Velkyn or somebody else are wrong? You've got to be basing that on some concrete about your understanding of the bible, as opposed to something that 'seems' that way otherwise, it'd only
seem that we're wrong.
Though, if you wish to tell us that the bible is just a peice of fiction and should not be taken as seriously as many in the world do then we can give you the benefit of the doubt on this one.
That is because you make ignorant, belligerent statements about matters you know very little about. When challenged, you get very ugly.
You know, this is actually how we see your actions. We didn't start by getting ugly, but you did start dishing out some quite insulting comments. I only found people were getting ugly when YOU were insulting them or making snide remarks.
None. I won't stand for people telling me I don't know what I am talking about when I address matters I have been studying for 30 years.
And yet you wish to do the same to members of this forum.
I have no patience with people asking questions that I would have to write a book to answer. There is a balance that needs to be achieved.
Then you can do one (or all) of the following things:
-> If there's books already on the subject. Point to them, perhaps try to summarise them, but explain that you're unable to give a simple answer. We've had people ask us questions about the theory of evolution that requires a lot of information for them to understand. We try to keep it simple and summarise, but make clear it is a big science and there are sources they can visit.
-> Understand that because of the amount of work it'd take you that you're not going to convince anybody that you're right. So when people ask for back up or questions that'd require a lot of work on your behalf. Explain this and tell them that you will back down because you will be unable to answer those questions because of it
-> Accept that until you are able to prove to people that other people are wrong that their argument is not invalid and they are not 'idiots' or a whole number of insulting things. They're not being willfully ignorant, they just don't possess this information that you do (and are unwilling to provide because of the time you feel you'd have to take giving it), but also, accept that
they may possess information or knwoledge that you do not and be open minded to the possibility that you
may be wrong. A discussion is a two way thing, if you expect other people to be open minded about your arguments, you must be open minded yourself. You might not see it, but if people are shown a strong enough case for the existence of God, they will listen - they just need the evidence to back it up.
