Is the Bible necessarily supposed to be taken literally?

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Theology is a very specific topic of study, and it's not as if it directly calls itself history.

I know a lot of people speak as if the events of the bible and the cosmological aspects are to be taken literally. But it's just a book just like any other book, and a story just like any other movie I've gone to see at the theater.

Am I missing something?

[hammerofglass]

Most Christians will tell you no, it's not supposed to be literal. Especially the early parts of Genesis with the two creation stories and the flood.

That said, the weird fringe groups who say it IS literal have been running the Republican party for the last fifty years and have a lot of power. But even they care more about weird fanfic ideas that aren't actually in there like the Rapture than they do the actual contents of the text like stuff that woke Palestinian carpenter had to say.

[McAvoy]

No. It's not supposed to be. Especially the Old Testament and Genesis. That was just their way of explaining the creation of the world according to the legends made at the time. All religions have their own creation myth.

Anyway, it's not even fringe anymore but there are many in the US who will take it literally. As in Earth was created in 6-10k years ago. Noah's Flood happened. Adam and Eve are real. A smaller part of those Creationists will go even further and say the Earth is flat and we haven't been to space. Like we are living in a snow globe.

We could go into why it's impossible, but the fact is that any argument you can make to them (without even talking about Evolution and Big Bang) and it will go through one ear and out the other. Cognitive Dessonance at its finest.

There is also a trend to argue their point that the Bible is the literal truth, they have to add things to justify how things would work. Like Noah's Ark. Special wood. How did Noah feed the animals? They were fed mana and/or they were put into sleep for the journey.

How did either Noah and his family repopulate the planet? They were perfect humans so incest would not be an issue. How did Eve and Adam populate the Earth? There were other unnamed humans also or something to that extent.

They justify the Bible being a perfect historical document in that the places named in the book has been either rediscovered or still exists. Just like how Spider-Man is real because he swings around New York.

Anyway, generally I wouldn't have an issue with those that have these beliefs. Like I said every religion has a creation story, but the people who believe everything in the Bible is literally true are the same ones who want to burn books, curb education specifically science. They want to band gay marriage, ban the whole LGBTQ+ society from everything. Take away women's rights. Minimize other religions as much as possible.

[McAvoy]

Actually I am also going to add to this:

Imagine you are born, you are brought along for practically every Sunday service. Every church event. You are put in Sunday school where you read or watch events in the Bible toned down in cartoon form. Happy Lions and giraffes boarding in line to go on the Ark. With a promise of a rainbow at the end. Then it eventually graduates to more actual Bible readings and discussions as you get older. As you get older, you not only go to Sunday School, but now you are going to Junior High and Senior High classes on Friday and Sunday nights plus any other events during the week. You eventually participate in during the Sunday mass. All because that is what your parents is forcing you to do.

That was my life from age 0-18 years old. I eventually got out of most of due to working while in high school. (Gee I wonder who suggested to my supervisors to give me certain hours).

However imagine, you are not me. You are placed in a more strict church environment where not only do you go to church on Sunday mornings but evenings, but also on Wednesday nights. Your whole local culture revolves around this. Even your own schools semi-helps with this because you are in a Bible thumping area. Your family also has directly benefited from the charity of your church.

You grow up knowing, not thinking that your church is normal and the correct way. Atheists you were taught were God haters. Evolution is false, we didn't come from monkeys. You were taught cherry picked passages your whole life, you may have read the Bible once but you rely on just those Bible passages that was hammered in your head.

You now view the world from nearly entirely of your religious upbringing. You were taught that elevated feeling when you sing and talk about God and Jesus that is them in your heart. So anything that runs contrary to your worldview based on those decades of indoctrination is false.

Now combine that with politics.

[KuudereKun]

Not all of it, but the first 11 chapters of Genesis definitely are.

[McAvoy]

Not all of it, but the first 11 chapters of Genesis definitely are.

Wait what? Do you mean the first 11 chapters of Genesis is meant to be taken literally or not literally?

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Most Christians will tell you no, it's not supposed to be literal. Especially the early parts of Genesis with the two creation stories and the flood.

That said, the weird fringe groups who say it IS literal have been running the Republican party for the last fifty years and have a lot of power. But even they care more about weird fanfic ideas that aren't actually in there like the Rapture than they do the actual contents of the text like stuff that woke Palestinian carpenter had to say.

I don't think any other post has given me such distinct hope and despair so concisely.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Wait, so when Sam Harris and Jordan Peterson debate about the existence of God, how does this not stipulate the topic a lot more?

Why is there any serious debate on the cosmological aspects?

[McAvoy]

Wait, so when Sam Harris and Jordan Peterson debate about the existence of God, how does this not stipulate the topic a lot more?

Why is there any serious debate on the cosmological aspects?

Existence of God and the Existence of the Christian God are two different things.

[clearspira]

I do not understand how anyone can live in 2025 with 99% of all of humanity's collected knowledge at their fingertips and think that a book written thousands of years ago by people who had the barest fraction of our current knowledge regarding the universe can be taken literally. These people did not even know what a toilet is and yet they had some insight into the true creation of the universe? Come on now.

The historical events in it are probably on some level true because they keep on popping up elsewhere. There probably was some kind of big flood for example but that is as far as it goes.

Believe in God - that is absolutely fine. I don't but I'm also easy going about it. But believing that this thing holds the literal word of a creature beyond human comprehension and is passing down the actual word of creation is nonsense. Sorry, but it is.

Believe in God. Not what man says about God. They are two different things.