The universal depravity of the human family

[Benjamin McGuire]

15 hours ago, telnetd said:

How do you explain the following verses in a figurative sense:

Why are we going in circles?

Why do you think it should be read literally as real history?

15 hours ago, telnetd said:

I don't believe the earth as we know it is that old. And I don't believe in the infamous chart showing man's evolution from apes, from one stage to another, getting more upright as we go from left to right.

So we have challenges over interpretation that are at a much more fundamental level than this question of how I manage to read something in a figurative way. Unless you want to address those more fundamental differences, this discussion is just going to keep going in circles.

Let me ask you a question about your literalistic reading of the biblical text. Is there any part of the Bible that you believe should be read figuratively?

[Navidad]

1 hour ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

Let me ask you a question about your literalistic reading of the biblical text. Is there any part of the Bible that you believe should be read figuratively?

Let me jump in. The distinction in my mind (such as it is) isn't a reductionist difference between literal and figurative. However, that is how many define it. There are also value judgments attached by some to these two words. For the very conservative exegete from non-LDS traditions, the word figurative implies a kind of "without truth" "without meaning" "false"  "without the oversight of the Holy Spirit, therefore if anything fictional. Therefore the idea that Scripture is to be read "figuratively" is rejected. I believe this is an important difference in the use of words when referring to the Bible.

I don't know of anyone who doesn't believe there are different styles of literature or teachings in the Bible. There are parables, poetry, history, metaphors, apocalyptic literature, hapaxlogomenes, and on and on. However in the thinking of the conservative, none of these are to be taken "figuratively." That is in essence a word of the liberal, the progressive, the Deutero-Isaiahist - therefore it is rejected. We are taught there are rules to determine which kind of literature we are reading in the Bible. I assume the same is true for the reading of the LDS texts. Then there is the whole idea of the supernatural in the Scripture. The idea of a donkey talking, or the sun standing still is of no problem to the one who believes that the God of the world is not bound at any point in time by the laws of that which He created and holds together. To the naturalist, the supernatural in and of itself is a fallacy. These are all wonderfully complicated questions that make our heads spin! However what they are not, is a simple reductionist perspective of literal versus figurative. Literal is a bad word for the progressive; figurative is a bad word for the conservative! Word do get in the way!

In postrevolutionary Mexican history (the 1930s) the progressives loved to gain leverage over the conservatives by deeming them "backwards" (atrasado). It was the classic and somewhat effective slam-put down. The conservatives liberally (ha!) coated the progressives with the label of being "atheists" - a classic and somewhat effective slam, put down Sometimes these same kinds of put downs enter the world of Biblical exegesis. Take care all.....sorry for jumping in.

 

[Benjamin McGuire]

On 4/27/2023 at 8:56 AM, Navidad said:

Let me jump in. The distinction in my mind (such as it is) isn't a reductionist difference between literal and figurative. However, that is how many define it.

I am not sure which English language you are used to using - but in standard usage, this is exactly what it means. According to Oxford, figurative literally means "departing from a literal use of words; metaphorical." The distinction between literal and figurative is by definition a simple dichotomy. If we have to take this discussion to an even more fundamental level - about whether or not we should consider the text of scripture so fundamentally different from other texts that we don't actually read scripture in the same way that we read other texts, then this entire discussion has already become meaningless.

My question isn't aimed at this lower level discussion. We could say that there are two poles - one is a strictly literalist position - and in that position there is no figurative language in the text. We could claim that there is a strictly figurative position, in which the text is purely figurative (that there is no literalism in it at all). I don't actually believe that there are people who hold to either position (regardless of your take on what the term figurative may or may not mean). This isn't, of course, the limit of positions that can be taken (which seems to be what you are suggesting). After all, the individual who thinks the text is fiction doesn't care about the question of truth in the way that you mention it, any more than we believe that an actor in the cinema is lying when he portrays his role. The distinction simply doesn't make a lot of sense. Truth - as you note - can be conveyed in figurative language in the text represented by things like parables and metaphors. To recognize those elements in the text is to recognize figurative language. The concern is simply to determine where others draw the line (where they position themselves on the spectrum) and how they define what text they should read literally and what text they should read figuratively. A metaphor is by definition figurative language.

The fundamentalist issue isn't really the one that you raise, in my opinion. The fundamentalist issue comes up when someone has decided that the meaning of the text (however they interpret it) is true - and once deciding that it is true, that their interpretation should take precedence over any other source of information that might claim to be true. And I note that we see this in this discussion. But part of the problem is that the decision about what is literal or figurative in the text - this determines what we see as true - and it is the interpretation that is given authority and not the text. The real reductionist problem occurs with the fundamentalist assertion that you hint at - that the text (along with its readings) must be strictly true or false. When you argue that conservatives and liberals debate this idea using specific terms, it isn't much different than the misuses of specific words in any other debate - and I don't feel any particular obligation to change my use of those terms to match those misuses (a couple that I have routinely engaged over the past twenty years are 'cognitive dissonance' and 'historicity'). I would only add that the real reason why conservatives don't like the word 'figurative' with regard to scripture is that they feel uncomfortable with the idea that scripture might require interaction with the reader to come to a meaning for the text rather than to have its own authoritative and unquestionable meaning.

My engagement isn't with the discussion of liberalism or conservatism in terms of religious belief. My engagement is over how we read the text. And part of this is for me to point out that interpreting the text as literal in places requires us to bring certain assumptions to the text (as well as rules for interpretation) - just as much as interpreting the text as figurative does. With different assumptions or different rules of interpretation, there are a lot of different ways to understand the text. It is this point that seems to be so difficult to deal with in this discussion. And it is part of what creates the problem in the discussion between your progressives and conservatives. In this way, I suspect, I get labeled as a progressive - not because of what I believe necessarily - but because I am willing to acknowledge the fact that the text itself does not include the assumptions and rules of interpretation, while the conservatives, who believe that the text has a determinate reading, cannot accept that the text has to be read and interpreted to have any meaning at all. And so my discussion with @telnetd is in part a process of trying to determine where they sit on this spectrum of belief about the nature of the text. Without peeling back these layers, it becomes a circular argument (as we have seen). So my question to @telnetd about where they believe the text to be figurative is aimed trying to understand where on the spectrum they fit between literal and figurative reading, and what the rules of interpretation are that they bring to the text. And at that point, we both may come to some understanding of why I accept these passages as figurative, why they accept them as literal. We answer the question of 'why' so we don't have to continue to answer the question of 'how'.

And hopefully we pull the word 'figurative' back from it's inappropriate perception as a pejorative ....

[Navidad]

4 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

I am not sure which English language you are used to using - but in standard usage, this is exactly what it means. According to Oxford, figurative literally means "departing from a literal use of words; metaphorical." The distinction between literal and figurative is by definition a simple dichotomy. If we have to take this discussion to an even more fundamental level - about whether or not we should consider the text of scripture so fundamentally different from other texts that we don't actually read scripture in the same way that we read other texts, then this entire discussion has already become meaningless.

My question isn't aimed at this lower level discussion. We could say that there are two poles - one is a strictly literalist position - and in that position there is no figurative language in the text. We could claim that there is a strictly figurative position, in which the text is purely figurative (that there is no literalism in it at all). I don't actually believe that there are people who hold to either position (regardless of your take on what the term figurative may or may not mean). This isn't, of course, the limit of positions that can be taken (which seems to be what you are suggesting). After all, the individual who thinks the text is fiction doesn't care about the question of truth in the way that you mention it, any more than we believe that an actor in the cinema is lying when he portrays his role. The distinction simply doesn't make a lot of sense. Truth - as you note - can be conveyed in figurative language in the text represented by things like parables and metaphors. To recognize those elements in the text is to recognize figurative language. The concern is simply to determine where others draw the line (where they position themselves on the spectrum) and how they define what text they should read literally and what text they should read figuratively. A metaphor is by definition figurative language.

The fundamentalist issue isn't really the one that you raise, in my opinion. The fundamentalist issue comes up when someone has decided that the meaning of the text (however they interpret it) is true - and once deciding that it is true, that their interpretation should take precedence over any other source of information that might claim to be true. And I note that we see this in this discussion. But part of the problem is that the decision about what is literal or figurative in the text - this determines what we see as true - and it is the interpretation that is given authority and not the text. The real reductionist problem occurs with the fundamentalist assertion that you hint at - that the text (along with its readings) must be strictly true or false. When you argue that conservatives and liberals debate this idea using specific terms, it isn't much different than the misuses of specific words in any other debate - and I don't feel any particular obligation to change my use of those terms to match those misuses (a couple that I have routinely engaged over the past twenty years are 'cognitive dissonance' and 'historicity'). I would only add that the real reason why conservatives don't like the word 'figurative' with regard to scripture is that they feel uncomfortable with the idea that scripture might require interaction with the reader to come to a meaning for the text rather than to have its own authoritative and unquestionable meaning.

My engagement isn't with the discussion of liberalism or conservatism in terms of religious belief. My engagement is over how we read the text. And part of this is for me to point out that interpreting the text as literal in places requires us to bring certain assumptions to the text (as well as rules for interpretation) - just as much as interpreting the text as figurative does. With different assumptions or different rules of interpretation, there are a lot of different ways to understand the text. It is this point that seems to be so difficult to deal with in this discussion. And it is part of what creates the problem in the discussion between your progressives and conservatives. In this way, I suspect, I get labeled as a progressive - not because of what I believe necessarily - but because I am willing to acknowledge the fact that the text itself does not include the assumptions and rules of interpretation, while the conservatives, who believe that the text has a determinate reading, cannot accept that the text has to be read and interpreted to have any meaning at all. And so my discussion with @telnetd is in part a process of trying to determine where they sit on this spectrum of belief about the nature of the text. Without peeling back these layers, it becomes a circular argument (as we have seen). So my question to @telnetd about where they believe the text to be figurative is aimed trying to understand where on the spectrum they fit between literal and figurative reading, and what the rules of interpretation are that they bring to the text. And at that point, we both may come to some understanding of why I accept these passages as figurative, why they accept them as literal. We answer the question of 'why' so we don't have to continue to answer the question of 'how'.

And hopefully we pull the word 'figurative' back from it's inappropriate perception as a pejorative ....

Thanks - all well said. I don't question anything you said. I was only (perhaps poorly) trying to point out that to many very conservative non-LDS Christians the word figurative is indeed pejorative because of their tendency to make everything binary. So, they react badly to the very mention of the word figurative without considering its meaning beyond something pejorative being said, denigrating the Holy Spirit-led inspiration of the text. Of course, for others the word "literal" has a pejorative connotation as well. Both enable avoidance of any significant meaning of the text. The role of the Holy Spirit in Biblical Studies, theology, and hermeneutics is of great interest to me, all the way from the original writing, then collation, to the 21st century interpretation. Take care and best wishes.  

[mfbukowski]

5 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

And hopefully we pull the word 'figurative' back from it's inappropriate perception as a pejorative ....

Bravissimo!!  

I am old enough to recall the statement before the presentation of the endowment which said (circa 1990, something like) "The presentation is strictly figurative insofar as the man and woman is concerned".

I would love to see that re-included in the current presentation.

Edited April 28, 2023 by mfbukowski

[mfbukowski]

1 hour ago, Navidad said:

The role of the Holy Spirit in Biblical Studies, theology, and hermeneutics is of great interest to me, all the way from the original writing, then collation, to the 21st century interpretation.

But yet it appears to me that you only actually see your own personal interpretations as "correct".   To me, there are multiple ways of seeing these things, with nothing being strictly "correct" in the sense of representing the Words of God.

Words are ambiguous if they come from God or not.   The Word created all things as we know them, but at least He knew what he was doing.   

Unfortunately all we have is the ambiguity, absent the intelligence of the Word as a Person.

And then for literalists, language was corrupted at Babel.  But it started at "You shall not surely die, but shall be as the Gods".  Ambiguity used to the max!

The pursuit of the "correct" in Biblical Studies is folly- the best we can get is a better paradigm than most.

On the other hand, Relativism is only relatively true anyway.

"To say that truth is not out there is simply to say that where there are no sentences, there is no truth, that sentences are elements of human languages, and that human languages are human creations."

 

Edited April 28, 2023 by mfbukowski

[Navidad]

26 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

But yet it appears to me that you only actually see your own personal interpretations as "correct".   To me, there are multiple ways of seeing these things, with nothing being strictly "correct" in the sense of representing the Words of God.

Words are ambiguous if they come from God or not.   The Word created all things as we know them, but at least He knew what he was doing.   

Unfortunately all we have is the ambiguity, absent the intelligence of the Word as a Person.

And then for literalists, language was corrupted at Babel.  But it started at "You shall not surely die, but shall be as the Gods".  Ambiguity used to the max!

The pursuit of the "correct" in Biblical Studies is folly- the best we can get is a better paradigm than most.

On the other hand, Relativism is only relatively true anyway.

"To say that truth is not out there is simply to say that where there are no sentences, there is no truth, that sentences are elements of human languages, and that human languages are human creations."

 

Oh my! I must share with you. I do think you often have a strong filter of what you think I am going to say or have said and then interpret what I say through that filter. Your Navidad filter is strong! Oh and that is exactly what I meant yesterday when I said that how one thinks leads to what one thinks and then to what one says, does, or writes. It is a continuum of one leading to the other - hence differentiating between the three are distinctions without a difference. 

I don't worry about if my personal interpretations are correct, more correct, mostly correct, right, or wrong. The reason being as I have written a dozen times before I hold my beliefs with "provisional certainty." That prevents me from being certain and from using words like "correct." My LDS friends have a far greater sense of correctness and certainty than do I, as it is also with my Fundamentalist (used in a non-LDS Christian sense) friends. I tend to be strongly experientially driven in my beliefs. Perhaps my  downfall is my enjoyment of pointing out blind spots in others which may lead some to extrapolate that I don't see them in myself. I am very hard on myself; I just tend not to do that publicly!  Take care. Have a good weekend.

 

[mfbukowski]

7 hours ago, Navidad said:

Oh my! I must share with you. I do think you often have a strong filter of what you think I am going to say or have said and then interpret what I say through that filter. Your Navidad filter is strong! Oh and that is exactly what I meant yesterday when I said that how one thinks leads to what one thinks and then to what one says, does, or writes. It is a continuum of one leading to the other - hence differentiating between the three are distinctions without a difference. 

I don't worry about if my personal interpretations are correct, more correct, mostly correct, right, or wrong. The reason being as I have written a dozen times before I hold my beliefs with "provisional certainty." That prevents me from being certain and from using words like "correct." My LDS friends have a far greater sense of correctness and certainty than do I, as it is also with my Fundamentalist (used in a non-LDS Christian sense) friends. I tend to be strongly experientially driven in my beliefs. Perhaps my  downfall is my enjoyment of pointing out blind spots in others which may lead some to extrapolate that I don't see them in myself. I am very hard on myself; I just tend not to do that publicly!  Take care. Have a good weekend.

 

It appears to me that we are going in circles and not getting anywhere, as always.   Have a good weekend too- I don't want to waste mine.

For us "Saturday is a special day, the day we get ready for Sunday".   And then with callings, it can become a work day.  But yes, that IS a truly GOOD WEEKEND. 

 

[telnetd]

On 4/27/2023 at 7:04 AM, Benjamin McGuire said:

Why are we going in circles?

Because you have not clearly articulated how you believe Adam and Eve became mortal on earth.
 

On 4/27/2023 at 7:04 AM, Benjamin McGuire said:

Let me ask you a question about your literalistic reading of the biblical text. Is there any part of the Bible that you believe should be read figuratively?

It would be too time consuming to fully answer this question.  In the Book of Ezekiel and Revelation, I see figurative
themes. But as for the first few chapters of Genesis in the creation narrative, I see it as literal.

[Benjamin McGuire]

1 hour ago, telnetd said:

Because you have not clearly articulated how you believe Adam and Eve became mortal on earth.

They were never not mortal on earth. Presumably, they were born that way.

1 hour ago, telnetd said:

It would be too time consuming to fully answer this question.  In the Book of Ezekiel and Revelation, I see figurative
themes. But as for the first few chapters of Genesis in the creation narrative, I see it as literal.

So the question I have for you - how do you draw the line between figurative and literal? It isn't a simple question.

[mfbukowski]

2 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

They were never not mortal on earth. Presumably, they were born that way.

As "Everyman"? I can see many ways to construct paradigms around that story, just curious about your favorite

[mfbukowski]

3 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

They were never not mortal on earth. Presumably, they were born that way.

So the question I have for you - how do you draw the line between figurative and literal? It isn't a simple question.

Ok, missed this part of the post somehow before. Got it, good enough for me.  I agree that that is the key question 

Edited April 29, 2023 by mfbukowski

[mfbukowski]

On 4/28/2023 at 3:07 PM, Navidad said:

Oh and that is exactly what I meant yesterday when I said that how one thinks leads to what one thinks and then to what one says, does, or writes. It is a continuum of one leading to the other - hence differentiating between the three are distinctions without a difference. 

And yet ONE leads to ANOTHER, and another, none of which make a difference.

If you can't differentiate between " the three" how do you count them as "others?"  Where did the difference disappear?

Surely you see a difference between how a car works and why we have them. Or maybe that has been the problem all along

 You might try going to your mechanic and asking him why cars exist. That might be interesting.

 

Edited April 29, 2023 by mfbukowski

[Benjamin McGuire]

24 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

As "Everyman"? I can see many ways to construct paradigms around that story, just curious about your favorite

I don't disagree. I have suggested that in LDS thought the idea of a war in heaven has replaced most of the functions of the Garden of Eden as a figurative explanation of the human condition. And in that case, the explanation has expanded to everyman.

At the same time, it isn't necessary to do so - and here I will offer a highly simplified explanation. We believe that there is something that separates humanity, as children of God, from the rest of the living creation. Historically, this distinction was often identified as the rationality of man, or man's creative nature, that separated it from the rest of the natural world. Recently (and by that, I mean mostly within my lifetime), we have upgraded our understanding of the natural world. We have animals that can communicate (rationally). We have found creativity in nature (animals using tools, bees that play, etc.) A recent study suggested that even plants are capable of expressing distress through the noises that they make. It doesn't seem to do much to try and draw an empirical line for any particular characteristic and define this as the beginning of man - there will always be exceptions in both directions. Rather, let's simply identify something as the soul of man, and suggest that God could take what evolved naturally (a body of clay) and make that into a human soul. We could then say that humanity begins (with say an Adam and Eve - or even multiple Adams and Eves) when God chooses to do so.

Any of these views can allow for a literal beginning for humanity as children of God without requiring that we believe some literal interpretation of the Genesis narrative of the Garden of Eden. Nor do these views require that we force all scientific knowledge to be subject to our modern interpretations of scripture (I say modern because creation science is a 20th century invention).

And to answer the other concern that you will recognize here - this really only matter for those who insist that a unified theory of human origins is necessary for a coherent religious tradition. For most of us, the idea of creation in Genesis as metaphor is really sufficient for us to understand that our existence, at least in part, necessitates our struggle to become good and ethical beings.

[Benjamin McGuire]

22 hours ago, telnetd said:

Because you have not clearly articulated how you believe Adam and Eve became mortal on earth.

I wanted to add something to my previous comments - because I think it is important. You are focusing on Adam and Eve, but how do you deal with the problem between a text that says that the whole earth was covered in water and all life died, and a reality in which that demonstrably never happened. This is a much better example than dealing with parts of the texts that we can identify as visions or parables or other forms that are inherently not literal.

[Emily]

1 hour ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

I wanted to add something to my previous comments - because I think it is important. You are focusing on Adam and Eve, but how do you deal with the problem between a text that says that the whole earth was covered in water and all life died, and a reality in which that demonstrably never happened. This is a much better example than dealing with parts of the texts that we can identify as visions or parables or other forms that are inherently not literal.

Fairly easily since we still use that kind of all-inclusive language ourselves, and no one takes it literally. In fact, many people will specifically say things should be taken literally, when what they are saying clearly can't be taken literally.

"There were bugs literally everywhere!!!"

But I think flood story conflicts between reports and fact is accounted for by language and translation.

Not every language contains words or phrases to differentiate certain subtle differences in a situation. So a writer may have no access to the words needed to give a precise, scientific description of a situation.

If a word's meaning is largely determined by context (and perspective) both translator and reader may inject meanings never intended by the original writer. 

It's a situation illustrated by a fun bit of trivia about the color blue, which I'm not going to summarize since there are articles available: https://www.openculture.com/2021/06/why-most-ancient-civilizations-had-no-word-for-the-color-blue.html.

If you don't feel like reading the article. There is also the oft-repeated example of Eskimos having words to describe "snow" that we don't have in English. My husband and I spent our first winter in weather with lots of examples of different types of snow, but we are having trouble using the words that do exist in English properly. So we've spent a few afternoons debating if that white stuff pounding our back window was hail or "sleet."

To get more specific to the flood story.

We have the phrase, "As far as the eye can see" in English. So we can say, "Water covered the earth as far as the eye could see."

Hebrew, or whatever language the original source of the flood story was in, may not have had a phrase similar to "as far as the eye can see" so the narrator had to suffice with, "whole earth" and the readers would naturally understand he means "as far as my eyes could see", because obviously the guy had no way to actually observe "the whole earth" even if the ancient readers associated "Earth" with the concept of a semi-round globe floating in space. (Which they probably did not.) 

"Earth" itself is an ambiguous word in our language that is only clarified by punctuation and context. Earth can mean globe, the land beneath your feet, the dirt in your garden, etc.

I like to interpret the passages as follows:

"There was no high ground available. Every inch of dirt as far as the eye could see was covered with water, so anything that needed to breath was drowned."

Edited April 30, 2023 by Emily

[Emily]

9 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

Any of these views can allow for a literal beginning for humanity as children of God without requiring that we believe some literal interpretation of the Genesis narrative of the Garden of Eden. Nor do these views require that we force all scientific knowledge to be subject to our modern interpretations of scripture (I say modern because creation science is a 20th century invention).

Any time these kinds of discussions come up, I'm reminded of High Nibley's speech, "Before Adam."

It's got a few outdated comments (for example, we now know western Europeans have Neanderthal DNA, so Neanderthal didn't just go extinct) but the logic behind his reasoning still holds. There were and are lots of hominids on the planet. Humans have books. And Adam's "seed" is any one that chooses to follow God. 

https://youtu.be/kYGmZwoYWOQ

https://www.deilataylor.com/free-hugh-nibley-sources/hugh-nibley-books-online/before-adam-hugh-nibley/

He's got lots of good arguments, but one of my favorites is this:

Speaking of Noah, God promised Enoch “that he [God] would call upon the children of Noah; and he sent forth an unalterable decree, that a remnant of his seed [Enoch’s through Noah] should always be found among all nations, while the earth should stand; and the Lord said: Blessed is he through whose seed Messiah shall come.” (Moses 7:51—53.) Methuselah boasted about his line as something special. (Moses 8:2—3.) Why special if it included the whole human race? These blessings have no meaning if all the people of the earth and all the nations are the seed of Noah and Enoch. What other line could the Messiah come through?

If we would just stop reading assumptions into text based on our world view - (generations that have looked at the Earth from space) - and confined ourselves to the perspective of the people who actually wrote the records, (someone living in a fifty mile square of land their entire life whose knowledge of the world was limited to stories brought in from traders), we wouldn't have people believing that the New World was empty when Lehi landed,  that the flood wiped out the entire human race, or that "the earth was divided" passage in the Bible is a reference to Pangaea. (Ugh, bad scripture reading and bad science education. Nasty combination.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

[mfbukowski]

On 4/30/2023 at 7:39 AM, Benjamin McGuire said:

I don't disagree. I have suggested that in LDS thought the idea of a war in heaven has replaced most of the functions of the Garden of Eden as a figurative explanation of the human condition. And in that case, the explanation has expanded to everyman.

Yes I think you are "speaking my language" here.  We all had our opportunity, in that paradigm, to choose good from evil right then and there, still in pre-earth lifeand in the story, that also gives Eve perhaps, an inkling that perhaps choosing choice for humanity was the best way to go.  Great point!  Hadn't seen this that clearly.  

Quote

At the same time, it isn't necessary to do so - and here I will offer a highly simplified explanation. We believe that there is something that separates humanity, as children of God, from the rest of the living creation. Historically, this distinction was often identified as the rationality of man, or man's creative nature, that separated it from the rest of the natural world. Recently (and by that, I mean mostly within my lifetime), we have upgraded our understanding of the natural world. We have animals that can communicate (rationally). We have found creativity in nature (animals using tools, bees that play, etc.) A recent study suggested that even plants are capable of expressing distress through the noises that they make.

I think that that separation is language itself not simply "rationality"- we are separating the "natural" world from that made by humanity through language.  And especially in the 20 th century noticing how animals communicate, and noting the problems that the idea that "correspondence" between language and nature cause, that separation becomes less clear as we abandon the "correspondence" between language and nature and see it more and more as a human-created world- hence postmodernism.  Modernism and Descartes maximized that separation and now we see it disappearing!  The arts perhaps led the way- through first Impressionism when we first noticed that the way we saw the world was based on human experience, and not the "way it is".  Pointillism invented the idea of pixels that force the world to be seen as synthetic assemblages pasted together in human perception- much like Kant's "synthetic apriori".  The gap between the mind and body began to disappear, as we realize more and more that the world AS WE KNOW IT "corresponds" only to our human experience, including emotions, comprehension of right and wrong, varying opinions, and relational truth.   In other words- postmodernism.

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It doesn't seem to do much to try and draw an empirical line for any particular characteristic and define this as the beginning of man - there will always be exceptions in both directions. Rather, let's simply identify something as the soul of man, and suggest that God could take what evolved naturally (a body of clay) and make that into a human soul. We could then say that humanity begins (with say an Adam and Eve - or even multiple Adams and Eves) when God chooses to do so.

 

Agreed- again I would mention advanced communication skills that lead us to be "gods" creating our own worlds, metaphorically and literally all at once.  As a curious atheist, when I read Moroni 10, I could not shake the wonder of the idea that God could communicate with me.  I never saw "the conscience" as nearly an entity in itself- but here, I believed, that it could be exactly that part of Man that was missing in all my theories.   I experienced my answer, and never looked back.  Direct experience, whatever we want to call it, IS REALITY- we cannot define reality any other way.   And spiritual experience is just as justifiable as seeing a bear charging toward you, or a traffic light changing to red.  All three of these experiences can be life changing. 

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Any of these views can allow for a literal beginning for humanity as children of God without requiring that we believe some literal interpretation of the Genesis narrative of the Garden of Eden. Nor do these views require that we force all scientific knowledge to be subject to our modern interpretations of scripture (I say modern because creation science is a 20th century invention).

Agree fully.  Many paradigms can be seen as justifiable, as long as they are consistent and coherent within themselves, and those paradigms would be included in the "traditional literal" point of view- things appear differently to different people but that does not mean one is "correct" and the other "incorrect" since all are based on the variations of human perception.  A pyramid from directly above is a square, from the side it is a triangle, and only reveals its full potential for human classification as a "pyramid" by seeing all sides,and then synthesizing those shapes into one experience.  A reminder of this is also found of course in the story of the three blind men and the elephant.

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And to answer the other concern that you will recognize here - this really only matter for those who insist that a unified theory of human origins is necessary for a coherent religious tradition. For most of us, the idea of creation in Genesis as metaphor is really sufficient for us to understand that our existence, at least in part, necessitates our struggle to become good and ethical beings.

Yes, and virtually every "tribe" has its own origin story- and typically among indigenous peoples (but I am no anthropologist) my understanding is that "human" or "people" is often a translation of the name of their own tribe.  They are the chosen peoples of all their gods; and the only "humans" what a wonderful coincidence! 

But we of course are boundlessly lucky for being born into a Judeo-Christian Universe where the first real humans really WERE the first.    But what I find actually impressive is our insistence that we identify the "Light of Christ" with the conscience.  

Many dismiss that with the assertion that "it just evolved".   Unfortunately for that argument, to be consistent it requires all else to be "just evolved" as well.

It's like writing a check with zeros in front of the first numbers.   It is as important as you can pretend it is- it is worthless and irrelevant.

 

 

Edited May 3, 2023 by mfbukowski

[telnetd]

On 4/29/2023 at 2:09 PM, Benjamin McGuire said:

So the question I have for you - how do you draw the line between figurative and literal? It isn't a simple question.

If it can be explained in a literal way, then I view it literally.    Jesus being described as a hen gathering her chicks - I
would view as Jesus being like a figurative hen.

Maybe not the simple answer you were expecting.

[telnetd]

On 4/30/2023 at 10:41 AM, Benjamin McGuire said:

You are focusing on Adam and Eve, but how do you deal with the problem between a text that says that the whole earth was covered in water and all life died, and a reality in which that demonstrably never happened.

I have no reason to doubt the Bible's description of a world-wide flood, where only 8 humans survived.

[telnetd]

On 4/29/2023 at 2:09 PM, Benjamin McGuire said:

They were never not mortal on earth. Presumably, they were born that way.

If Adam and Eve were already created mortal on Earth then what does the Fall mean to you? What
do you make of these teachings:

1994 Ensign

In the morn of creation, Adam, Eve, and all forms of life existed in a paradisiacal 
condition. All things were physical. They were spiritual in the sense that they were 
not mortal, not subject to death. 

After taking physical bodies, Adam and Eve brought mortality into being through 
partaking of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. With the fall of 
our first parents came blood and posterity and probation and death, as well as the 
need for redemption through a Savior, a “last Adam.”

Edited May 3, 2023 by telnetd

[Benjamin McGuire]

1 hour ago, telnetd said:

If it can be explained in a literal way, then I view it literally.    Jesus being described as a hen gathering her chicks - I would view as Jesus being like a figurative hen.

Maybe not the simple answer you were expecting.

No, it's fine. I just don't see it as being meaningful. So I have to follow up on the answer with 2 questions:

1: What is your basis or reasoning for preferring a literal interpretation? Or, in other words, what sorts of things do believe justify believing that the text shouldn't be read literally in some place?

2: How willing are you to create complicated reasons to justify your literal interpretation?

The second question deserves something of an example - suppose that we look at the stars at night. Our telescopes have gotten much better. The new James Webb telescope has observed galaxies that are so distant, that the light that it has captured was emitted more than 13 billion years ago. That is, the light has been traveling towards us for 13 billion years. Your idea isn't merely that God created the earth a few thousand years ago, along with the stars, but that God created stars and then produced the light that they would have been emitting along the entire path between here and there across this unfathomable distance so that it would appear to us as though this galaxy came into existence 13 billion years ago ... do you in fact have a line you are willing to draw that where the argument becomes too complex?

[Benjamin McGuire]

3 hours ago, telnetd said:

I have no reason to doubt the Bible's description of a world-wide flood, where only 8 humans survived.

But most people do. Why? Because we have reasonable evidence for populations that existed in the same place before, during, and after the alleged universal flood. That is, we can find evidence for far more people than 8 (and their subsequent descendants) being alive when they couldn't have been according to your reading of the biblical text.

So this brings up the next question here - how much scientific knowledge are you prepared to claim must be wrong as part of your preference for reading the biblical text in a literal way?

Is there any way for you to have your belief falsified or contradicted in a meaningful way?

Edited May 3, 2023 by Benjamin McGuire

[Benjamin McGuire]

2 hours ago, telnetd said:

If Adam and Eve were already created mortal on Earth then what does the Fall mean to you? What do you make of these teachings:

*shrug*

Why don't we start with this one. 1987 Ensign:

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The different roles science and religion play is illustrated in a study of the dinosaurs. From the fossil record we learn that the dinosaurs were the dominant animals on earth between 225 and 67 million years ago. Some were carnivorous, others herbivorous. Some were small, while others were gigantic, weighing up to eighty tons and growing to lengths of more than ninety feet.

The existence of these animals is indisputable, for their remains have been found in rocks all over the earth. What eternal purpose they played in the creation and early history of the earth is unknown. The scriptures do not address the question, and it is not the realm of science to explore the issue of why they were here. We can only conclude, as Elder Talmage did, that “the whole series of chalk deposits and many of our deep-sea limestones contain the skeletal remains of animals. These lived and died, age after age, while the earth was yet unfit for human habitation.” (“The Earth and Man.”)

...

The relationship between scripture and what is currently understood in science is ever changing. Science continually learns more about the history of life on earth, and we have every reason to believe that much more will be learned as research continues.

Edited May 3, 2023 by Benjamin McGuire

[telnetd]

22 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

No, it's fine. I just don't see it as being meaningful. So I have to follow up on the answer with 2 questions:

1: What is your basis or reasoning for preferring a literal interpretation? Or, in other words, what sorts of things do believe justify believing that the text shouldn't be read literally in some place?

2: How willing are you to create complicated reasons to justify your literal interpretation?

The second question deserves something of an example - suppose that we look at the stars at night. Our telescopes have gotten much better. The new James Webb telescope has observed galaxies that are so distant, that the light that it has captured was emitted more than 13 billion years ago. That is, the light has been traveling towards us for 13 billion years. Your idea isn't merely that God created the earth a few thousand years ago, along with the stars, but that God created stars and then produced the light that they would have been emitting along the entire path between here and there across this unfathomable distance so that it would appear to us as though this galaxy came into existence 13 billion years ago ... do you in fact have a line you are willing to draw that where the argument becomes too complex?

For #1, it depends on the text. 

For #2, I am not knowledgeable enough to speculate on what the universe was like before God created earth.