@Cognostic I’ve heard and read LOTS of wild answers for the dietary laws, but as far as I can ascertain, all of the animals that should not be eaten are predatory animals or have the potential to become so such as swine or camels. ( Cloven hoof but chews the cud)
“Unclean” sea creatures either have no way to filter toxins such as shellfish, or are also predatory creatures.
Other than the padding of ones thoughts, no light is shed (for me) on why you, or anyone, would chose to use a myth about long hair and super human powers as a “proof”. Particularly in a discussion with people that have seen the Holy Roman Empire’s book for mythology.
If a math text explains how to use math to model the world, yet states that 1+1=3, that text would be examined in detail and rejected by mathematicians as it would result in incorrect modeling.
Like the 1+1=3 error, moral models based on the myth of this long haired super human is not a useful model for morality any more than any comic book character is. You even post the whole story which details the low morality of the this gift from a god.
I suppose you could redefine 2 to make the math book correct. I wonder, did you do the equivalent of this in rationalizing your belief?
@Tia_Thompson I hope you understand that a great many of the stories in the bible (if not all) are just stories with no proof they actually happened or the characters were real. Do you believe in any of the Norse god stories? As far as I am concerned they and bible stories have almost everything in common. At best, maybe a real person was the core of the story. But that character was probably altered to suit the narrative, and the characteristics of other people were melded into that individual.
Other such stories, for example Robin Hood and King Arthur are more recent, and even historians have trouble determining who, when, and where such described actions occurred. Go back another millennium, and it is more than possible the stories are altered even more.
Not cutting one’s hair, along with not eating or touching"unclean" things, including the dead, and not consuming alcohol and yeast were all Nazarite traits.
Samson ignored every rule, (including honoring his mother and father --do think he washed his hands after laying with that woman and licking honey off his filthy fingers, before he gave some of that honey he pulled from a corpse to his family? Yuck!) Except that rule he still believed gave him his strength.
He willfully did what he believed was wrong despite who it might hurt. The fact that he still believed his hair gave him strength was proof.
I think of it like a fable. I’m not ignoring anything. In fact, quite the contrary. It is all important to what the story meant.
He was a man given every advantage from birth. He was strong, an authority. He thought he was impervious to danger. So when he left off good counsel, he replaced them with vipers. He knew the women he chose were unfaithful, disloyal. His “wife” proved it in the first week, but he still went back with a gift.
No man could outwit or outbest Samson in a battle, thus he underestimated the wiles of dangerous women and without good counsel he was defeated terribly and without a fight. His end was nothing. There were no good things left as his legacy. If he was a real person, he left an embarrassment behind him.
@David_Killens I don’t really care if Samson existed. (I don’t think this a popular opinion)The story taught me something. Did I learn something?That is the point for me. Does it have the potential to make me a better person?
I know several real-life Samsons all on my own. This characteristic is how the Bible (among others) has an enduring quality. It still applies today. It has the potential to continue teaching thousands of years later. I feel that way about most of the “holy scriptures” I’ve read, across many different religions, not just Christianity and Judaism.
My point is that one can take valuable life lessons from various sources. The bible does not hold a monopoly. A Spiderman comic or the Norse or Greek legends are just as relevant as the bible.
Are you a simple literalist? The reason you chose to post on this forum is to show the uniformed how wonderful your belief is, if you just know how to interpret it.
Sorry to state the obvious, but I don’t have time to think of a softer way to point out your obvious obfuscation.
I have no idea what the various terminologies you are using are supposed to mean to me. The theist kid called me a theistic evolutionist. Apparently in your estimation, I am an anti-rationalist, simple literalist. I don’t know…as far as I am concerned, I am just sharing with y’all my perspective same as you have shared with me.
I told you it wasn’t a popular one.
Indeed. As well one should, including life itself.
As I think I’ve mentioned, what I find to be most exceptional about the Bible is the teachings of Jesus.
Every law and all the prophets are condensed into one law: to love one another, even the least of us at least as much as we do ourselves. This is a code that is central to nearly every formalized belief across every formalized culture, but in the New Testament, it is presented as how we show love our for God.
Respectfully Tia, I don’t think it matters to you if any of it is real. You have repeatedly stated something to the effect of your opinion is not a popular one, etc., etc…I beg to differ. Your opinion is very popular among those who will twist themselves in knots to attempt to attach relevance to the goat-herder myths. However, you are also guilty of the greatest sin of all, namely rejecting the “word of god” where it suits you. You do realize that your peculiar brand of religiosity bears little to no resemblance to any mainstream Christian denominations? Why bother? You have not even attempted to state WHY you believe there is a god in the first place. The so-called lessons you refer to can be learned elsewhere without the supernatural nonsense or referencing bronze-age “wisdom”. You are clearly clinging to something you cannot bear to let go of. Sanitizing the horrific exploits in the bible is tantamount to reminding people that Hitler liked donuts and children.
My absolute least favorite food: Fermented Rotten Fish
I have eaten everything on this list but for the Balute . So far, Balute represents the line I will not cross. The smell is … Imagine eating dirty locker room jock straps. You crack open the top of the egg and inside is a filthy locker room jockstrap that has been worn for a year and never washed. You toss some spicy vinegar sauce on top and you slurp it out, over and over until all the sticky stuff is gone. Once the sticky stuff is gone, you peel back the egg and eat the chewy little duck embryo, bones and all. It’s as yummy at this point as a tennis ball and it has about the same consistency. (I have seen it in the Philippines and China. I have treated other people, but I can’t bring myself to eat it… I have eaten EVERYTHING else on this list and a whole lot more that would be sure to make your stomachs turn.
Nor did I indicate that I thought that. I don’t care one way or another. The point is that you are brandishing a bible as if it was the ultimate source of truth or wisdom. Your diatribes mirror those of “mainstream Christians” except that you want to appear reasonable on some level by rejecting what you have identified as personally objectionable or merely irrelevant to your already established point of view. So perhaps my question evaded you. Why bother? Why bother with the bible at all? Why do you believe what you believe? Is it because you have information or evidence that convinces you? Or is it just that it really feels a lot better to believe that something is watching over you while you continue to live as you have decided? Those of us who wish to become better humans to each other seek out those things which can, in some way, help facilitate the process. Clinging to archaic (literally) dogmas is not the correct prescription.
I once discussed theist beliefs with a person who accepted evolution but qualified his belief in science by adding a god stepped into the situation about 100,000 years ago and caused Modern man to “evolve”. He read the Bible as a metaphor to teach us, as a gift from his dog breading deity. You read like him. Looking for some lesson in the HRE operating manual to justify a profound lack of understanding the sciences.
I could expound on Herbert’s Dune series, or Asimov’s Robot novels, lots of allegory in these speculative science fiction books. Lesions about treating sentient beings. But it’s meaningless. But not as offensive because they do not pretend to be written by a deity.
