Tao_Equus
Interfaith Forums
Carried over from thread Dignity in differnt Vultures which was getting hijacked by a discussion of the authenticity of the Quran as being the undisputed words of Muhammad as revealed by the archangel Gabriel.
extremely powerful contemplation..If it's meaningful and helpful, why is authenticity important?
If it's meaningful and helpful, why is authenticity important?
Dauer
Dondi,
manipulated how? I suppose the only reason one would really want to verify is if the entire thing was being taken as a literal truth,
Dondi,
manipulated how? I suppose the only reason one would really want to verify is if the entire thing was being taken as a literal truth, which may very well your truth. For me, I'm less concerned with taking the texts I hold sacred on a literal level and where they are not meaningful or helpful for me, I interpret them in a way that makes them so. It's not so important that I am interpreting them according to their original meaning as uncovering that with most things is near impossible and hardly relevant to the present-day conditions of most modern religions. You also have to decide then, for example, at what point you want to stop going back to the original meaning. Do you want to stop when everything was put together? To when it was separate sources, oral and/or written? To the sources those texts borrowed from? All the way back to the beliefs of our earliest ancestors? Abrahamic religions generally seem to be about getting away from the original meaning, declaring their new meaning using some of the old sources.
You can also look at how science has changed religion. We no longer take passages referring to the "firm-ament" literally. Even a creationist would understand that in a different way. Or of the waters that are separated by it as being literal waters. We've all mostly come to the understanding that the earth revolves around the sun in an expanding universe that is not made of water. The sky may be blue, but above our atmosphere is only the void of space and all of the celestial inhabitants of the cosmos: planets, stars, black holes, and assorted space junk.
Ethics too, have changed. No longer do we see the death penalty as so appropriate, and Christianity and Judaism have both come to new understandings of passages that deal with it in their own way.
Dauer
Now don't just toss out Dr. Seuss or Aesops Fables or some Disney or Pixar production because it is fiction...Jesus spoke in fiction and parables...to get the point across...he wasn't the first...won't be the last...I'm thinking he followed G-d, Moses, and prophets before him and used the same tools...
judaism hasn't executed anyone for 2,000 years. in fact, rabbi akiva (C1st)was on record as saying that nobody would ever get the death penalty if he had anything to say about it.
b'shalom
bananabrain
I think it apropo you mistyped lessen as lesson! As I don't think it reduces...but does increase the lesson!If the bible is nothing more than metaphoric hype, why should I believe it to be of any use to me? How can we believe what any of it says as truth if it's just fables disguised as truth. If anything it will lesson my view of scripture and quite frankly would dismiss it as much as I would dismiss any of Dr. Seuss' writings.
Naturally? We naturally assume because that is what we were brought up to believe, others have no such natural assumption, as they believe the stories, poetry and prose in the bible to be a combination of historical fact which has been amplified for the purpose of understanding and keeping the story alive as all oral traditions are.I just knew someone will diss me on my reference to Dr. Seuss. I'm well aware of the moral content of Dr. Seuss. Yertle the Turtle was one of my favorites, and it was an allegorical rip against Hitler. My point was that I had no doubt that it was fiction because it was intended to be read as fiction, though based on an actual person. But the historical stories in the Bible make no such pretense. They are naturally assumed to be true.
But you do suprise me in objecting to this thread.
In refutation of a further point you made, 1000's of people a year die by execution justified by these literal interpretations and they are increasing not decreasing.
If one discounts the literal view in favor of a metaphorical view because simply because a literal meaning is not feasable for one to believe in your own mind, then how can one really find meaning at all?
If I were to say that I didn't believe God really said thus and such when the scriptures clearly indicate so or I interpret that to mean something metaphorically, wouldn't that take away from the authenticity of God's Word?
If God really didn't tell Noah to build an ark and save himself and the animals from a deluge that wiped out the rest of mankind, how am I supposed to take that?
What lesson can I learn of this?
If the bible is nothing more than metaphoric hype, why should I believe it to be of any use to me? How can we believe what any of it says as truth if it's just fables disguised as truth. If anything it will lesson my view of scripture and quite frankly would dismiss it as much as I would dismiss any of Dr. Seuss' writings.
The big bang theory supports the idea that God started the universe out of nothing
The scriptures speak of an expanding universe: "Who coverest thyself with light as with a garment: who stretchest out the heavens like a curtain:" - Psalm 104:2
The heavens are described as being empty space and the earth is described as being captured in a gravitationally in space, without strings attached or Atlas holding her up: "He spreads out the northern skies over empty space; he suspends the earth over nothing." - Job 26:7
It even describes the earth as an orb: "He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth" - Isaiah 40:22
The death penalty in the Torah was meant for a specific people at a certain point in time. It was necessary to impose the penal law in order to preserve the culture of the Israelites.
But the historical stories in the Bible make no such pretense. They are naturally assumed to be true.
Ethics too, have changed. No longer do we see the death penalty as so appropriate,
Dauer
I managed to trace one of my sources down...see link below.
Legacy of Abu Bakr: Compilation of the Qur'an « IBN AL HYDERABADEE
As you can see here what I stated before is plainly a fair interpretation. I.E. that the Quran is not the Word of God revealed to Mohammad by Gabrial. But the assimilated writings of any number of individuals at war and wishing to promote and justify their given positions.
I draw such a conclusion as a sceptic of course. The claim of 'divine dialogue' during fits or seizures was common practice for wannabee spirtualists and soothsayers at that time. So Muhammad, to my thinking, employed the same tomfoolery to validate his claims. He did not write it down though and left his companions or 'political allies' to do so. Given the context that this was incontravertably a time of power struggles and political wrangling I find it disengenious to state that the writings were not subject to political tampering. So I feel just in my assertion that the Quran is not verifiably even the work of Mohammad, let alone Allah.
If you wish to discuss it further though I think it deserves its own thread.
Regards
TE
I shall stand on the naughty spot for 10 minutes.![]()
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Can I leave you with some inspiring (to me) words of a 7th century Islamic philosopher/economist/sociologist/historiographer:
“All records, by their very nature, are liable to error…”
“the first of these is partisanship towards a creed or opinion…..
the second factor….is over-confidence in one’s sources….
the third is the failure to understand what is intended….
the fourth is a mistaken belief in the truth….
the fifth is the inability to place an event in its real context….
the sixth is the common desire to gain favour of those of high ranks, by praising them, by spreading their fame….
the seventh, and the most important, is the ignorance of the laws governing the transformations of human society
Ibn Khaldun in The Muqadimmah (known as the Father of historiography (the study of the writing of history))
Now there was a clever man. Hands up anyone who is not guilty of at least one of these!!!!
Salaam