What parts of the Bible do you take literally?

What parts do you take figuratively, or as metaphor?

Do you take the entire work as literal? When the Bible says God said let there be light, and there was light, do you take that to me that he winked the sun into existence or do you feel that this is so, but does not mention how this is so?

When the Bible says thou shalt not kill do you feel this is absolute?

Or do you think the bible should reference later sections to give examples of when you can break this commandment, or when you do not have to take it literally?

No takers? Where is all our hard core religious people at?

The Bible isn't meant to be taken literally, it's intended to be read like a news paper. The Bible is full of literal truth, metaphors, similes, parables and just about every literary tool imaginable.

The Commandments are literal, but few Christians think in terms of absolute morality. The Commandments are to be interpreted objectively. If you can't get enough food for yourself or your kids legally, then you have to get it illegally. It's a bigger sin to allow yourself or your children to die than it is to steal. In your life is in danger, then you have the right to protect yourself, even using lethal force if necessary.

The only three prohibitions to objective morality in Christianity and Judaism are these:

1) Idolatry is strictly forbidden.
2) Sexual immorality is strictly forbidden.
3) Murder is strictly forbidden. Murder being killing someone who isn't a threat to you or others. As mentioned above, killing to save yourself or another is moral from the objective standpoint.

So what about killing animals when you can live without killing them?

The commandment literally says "murder", not "kill". I know, the translation for KJV is "kill", but it's wrong in today's language. Please don't try to argue this, okay? The word is "ratsach", which means "To murder". The qal tense of "ratsach" is the equivalent to our word "homicide". People always stick on this one and will even cry foul when the mistranslation is pointed out. If you want to have an honest conversation AND you don't believe me, then you will research Exodus 20:13 before you respond.

I don't need to research your book to know living creatures feel pain, know joy, experience kinship and deserve life.

I did want to see how you rationalize it however . . . ahh semantics, figures.

This reiterates to me that religion is a convenience set outside of Morales to justify behavior.

You get to re-interpret this ancient text to justify your twisted view of life and death . . . . to me its utterly pathetic.

You want to understand morality, then place yourself in the position of each and every life you effect and tell me you can continue to do harm.

The Biblical God was telling people to kill other people all the time.

Stone sinners to death.
Stone unruly children to death.
Stone women who aren't virgins and who are unmarried to death.

Murder heathens, and be sure to murder their wives and children to with no mercy.

Don't forget to kill their livestock and burn their cities to the ground too.

The Biblical God sends mixed messages concerning murder. If you take the Bible literally it's hard to know what to do.

What you should say to someone who takes the Bible literally is "I have some great sunny ocean front property for you in South Dakota."

But hey who am I to judge people baseless beliefs.

evidently somebody - because you just did.



this subjects been debated to death, Bushi, we all know pretty much where we stand on "die hard" literal translation of the "book"[s] be it Hebrew, christian, or Muslim takes on it. The "god said it, i believe it, that settles it" populace, so to say. many Christians themselves don't agree with this, to many are aware of the ultra left views of many TV preachers/teachers.

Today in my opinion, you cannot really understand it the way it was intended, it was for a particular people at a particular point in time and they did know what was meant. All of that was accomplished by AD 70 when the temple was destroyed and the Jews scattered across the earth. of course their again that is my opinion. it was not a conspiracy by the piso family, it was not a conspiracy by the writers, it was just not meant for today in the way it was for those whom it was intended for.

You are so filled with anger. I was like that once, so I know what you are going through. It's okay man, I know you don't mean it.

You don't know me, I don't know you, you can pretend to know god, but don't pretend to know me.

I know one thing that is certain, if (souls/spirits or whatever baseless terminology you wish to invoke) exist, my dog has one, and it is more pure than yours or mine.

Jeremy.

Not even close, if some folks desire to read a work of fiction and call it history and I happen to comment on their actions and the following justifications in regards to this work of fiction, it in no way is me validating this work of fiction as fact. It is me making a comment about this group of people who take this work of fiction as fact . . .

make sense?

Truly.

Christians telling non-believers that they are full of anger is the oldest insult in the book.

It's a brainwashed behavior that is extremely common in the religion.

In fact, it's this kind of ignorance that the religion breeds that makes it so disgusting.

When someone disagrees with the religon they just claim that they are angry which is the same thing as claiming that they are being irrational. It's an insult plain and simple.

God is how we explaind the things we did not know before we had science.
When we thought we had to cut peoples harts out to get the sun to rise every mornning.
But now the belief in a god or gods is obsolete.

Jeremy,

You don't know me? You made a awful lot of assumptions and judgments of me in your previous post for someone who admits to not knowing me.

I don't have any rationalizations concerning the Bible, what I gave you is the absolute truth concerning the original texts of the Bible. The word is "murder", not kill.

The Bible teaches that we have the right to eat animals. Animals eat animals. Animals eat humans. It's how nature works. If you are so dedicated to science, then you should realize that nature created carnivores and omnivores to consume the herbivores. Do you feed your dog vegetarian dog food? Are you a vegetarian? If not, then who are you to judge me for eating meat? Even if you and your dog are vegetarians, if you believe in science and that life was created as an accident, then by what moral grounds do you judge me for doing what you believe nature designed me to do? And please don't tell me that you don't believe humans were designed to eat meat, because chimps (our closest cousins according to science) are omnivores and we are clearly designed to be omnivores. We have teeth designed for the consumption of both meat and vegetables.

Maybe you aren't angry, but your posts reveal a deep seated anger. Maybe it's towards the church or maybe you have simply made the church the focus of your anger. I know one thing, nothing I have said or done has earned your anger.

Well, there is only one part of the bible that needs to be taken literaly, at least if you're a christian. That's the two commandments Christ set out for his followers (and the two which almost never get followed):

1. Keep NO gods before THEE

2. Love thy neighbor as thyself

Other than that, most things in there are parables and alagories anyway, maybe a little bit of a history lesson for those that want it. However, the history lesson most be interepted. Joshua's horns didn't cause the walls of Jericho to fall. They did signal the troops inside the walls to open the gates so the city could fall. So, you have to be careful with that book. Read it wisely, more than once, and with an open mind, you should be able to find the real message buried inside. Which suprisingly enough, is the two rules I listed above.

Actually, Christians do not have to follow the strict sexual mores of Judaism. We are not bound by the covenant with Israel. DUHH!!! That's why it's called the NEW testimant. It is a new covenant with God given to the Christians through his son.

Murder, falls under the love thy neighbor part, can't do that. Can't steal, not loving the neighbor. However, if you want to be specific, love thy neighbor as thyself, that allows for wife swapping, as long as it is mutually acceptable. Of course that's just an opinion and I'm not saying to pick it up in practice, unless your in to that kind of thing.

Archeologists have found and studied the city of Jericho, the wall did fall down in all places except one.

Why do you believe that there were troops in the city who opened the gates? There is no evidence that such an event occurred. It actually makes no sense that a small force inside of a city with three concentric walls and three gates could somehow get them all open before they were killed by the archers on the walls. In this case, a miracle actually makes a lot more sense. Jericho was incredibly well defended. The city was built on a hill and had three walls surrounding the city. Each wall would have had archers and murder holes and all of the other things people have come up with to defend their cities. For an army to somehow get enough troops into the city to open one of the gates is hard to imagine. But enough troops to open all three? It's far easier to believe that God destroyed their walls when the Israelite army sounded off.

That's completely untrue. Christians aren't saved by keeping the law, but we keep the law out of love. The law still exists, so sexual immorality is a sin to Christians. Wife swapping is a sin to Christians. Christians are told to love their neighbors, but that is an admonishment to show brotherly love, not romantic love.

It's all right there in the text.

Why did the prositute hang a rope from her window "outside" the walls for six days? So that when the troop paraded around the city blowing their horns they could secret their soldiers into the city. There would be no reason otherwise. Why would they even need to mark that window when every other man, woman and child of that city was slaughtered? Wouldn't she also be if the walls crashed down?

No what happended was the Israelis got troops in, the army crashed the city and the walls came down alright, when they were torched from the inside. And since this happened almost 3000 years ago, I would imagine the city walls would have to be excavated by archeologists.

Why is it that Christians have to attribute all of God's miralces to something gradniose? Why can't these miricales be simple in nature. I feel I'm speaking on deaf ears when I say this, cannot God just give wisdom to a man? We believed it with Solomon, why not with Joshua the chosen of Moses? Why can't God's chosen people have a brilliant military stratagist? Why can you not accept that these are parables alagories and mistold tales?

The walls of Jericho fell everywhere except on the north, where archeologists found houses built against the wall. That's where Rahab's house was.

Why would Rahab put a rope outside of her house? She didn't it was a scarf.

I'm not sure why you have a desire to claim that the Bible lies about what happened at Jericho. Archeology supports the Biblical story of how Jericho fell.