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Bible & Critical Thinking

Dan From Smithville

What's up Doc?
Staff member
Premium Member
That is your critical thinking reply? WOW!

So the dog WASN'T talking to the policeman and DIDN'T know something was wrong with his owner? And when he saw the policeman follow, he just RANDOMLY went to his house?


WOW! You are SO perceptive. Are you an atheist? Just asking.
The dog was communicating, but he was not talking in English and is not known to utilize a language that is anything like a human language that could be translated into one. Extrapolating that and claiming God did it, is not an argument. It is not critical thinking. It is dogma in a steel trap trying to gnaw its own leg off.

Nice job attacking me personally in the manner consistent with fundamentalists that apparently cannot conceive that another Christian might actually use critical thinking and not blindly follow some self-imposed fantasy that everything written in the Bible was dictated by God. I assume this means that you have run out of anything that would remotely support your assertions.
 

Dan From Smithville

What's up Doc?
Staff member
Premium Member
I dunno if he is or isn't. But this thread might be the final push I need to get to the much-dreaded lair of atheism.
I have found that the witness of fundamentalist Christianity has probably resulted in the evolution of more atheists than any other source.
 

PoetPhilosopher

Veteran Member
Also, when it was said that my OP wasn't an argument, I had it in my head all along that it was an inductive reasoning argument. Though some people work better with plain-as-day assertions. So I provided those too.
 

dianaiad

Well-Known Member
Alright. That resolves the OP I spent 20 minutes on finding the verses, and posting in debates for careful consideration and refutation.

....and the use of these stories, which both make a rather important moral and ethical point, can't be examined through 'critical thinking...' why, precisely?

I mean, really; Aesop's fables often use talking animals and inanimate objects. They all have some rather pointed, er, points.

In the NT Jesus taught with parables to make points. Do you think that there REALLY WAS a man who left his servants with ten, five and one talent to take care of?

Do you think that there really was a Samaritan who found someone beaten by the side of the road?

What was the POINT of the story of Balaam's talking donkey?

What was the POINT of what Onan did, when he took his brother's wife for his own, and then cheated on the reason he was supposed to do that, denying her a child because it wouldn't be seen as HIS? Obeying the cultural rules so that he looked good in public even though the woman didn't have any choice, and then completely undermining the reason FOR that cultural rule, punishing her for something over which she had no control.

Talk about hypocrisy and selfishness....

As for the story of Balaam's talking donkey, here is a Jewish view of the point:

Balaam’s Talking Donkey: What Did We Just Read?

Interesting idea. Critical thinking about the text.

Of course both these stories can be examined using critical thinking.

Consider this: we use analogies all the time; analogies, parables, fables, which might not be factual...but the lessons they teach are valuable and true.

If you are going to, say, decide that the lesson of the 'good Samaritan'....of discussing who our neighbors actually are...is false because there was no actual 'good Samaritan," you are missing the entire point, and NOT using critical thinking.
 

Dan From Smithville

What's up Doc?
Staff member
Premium Member
I grew up in a fundie family with an atheist dad. Was hard.
I live my life rather conservatively, and I was probably the most conservative of my siblings. My parents were conservative too, but not by modern, fundamentalist, conservative standards. They were, more realistically, moderates with some views that leaned conservative and some that leaned liberal. They were definitely not religious fundamentalists.

I am sorry to hear that it was difficult for you. Some of the problems of the past are hard to forget. But a person can change the present and the future and focus on those accomplishments, leaving the past as a reminder of the reasons for any improvements. The past should not be an anchor holding us down. You seem OK to me and are here to find further improvement and that is good thing.
 

PoetPhilosopher

Veteran Member
....and the use of these stories, which both make a rather important moral and ethical point, can't be examined through 'critical thinking...' why, precisely?

I mean, really; Aesop's fables often use talking animals and inanimate objects. They all have some rather pointed, er, points.

In the NT Jesus taught with parables to make points. Do you think that there REALLY WAS a man who left his servants with ten, five and one talent to take care of?

Do you think that there really was a Samaritan who found someone beaten by the side of the road?

What was the POINT of the story of Balaam's talking donkey?

What was the POINT of what Onan did, when he took his brother's wife for his own, and then cheated on the reason he was supposed to do that, denying her a child because it wouldn't be seen as HIS? Obeying the cultural rules so that he looked good in public even though the woman didn't have any choice, and then completely undermining the reason FOR that cultural rule, punishing her for something over which she had no control.

Complex question(s): Complex question - Wikipedia
 

dianaiad

Well-Known Member
Okay. A literal interpretation of the Bible doesn't fit a traditional definition of Critical Thinking. Donkeys don't talk. A good God doesn't kill people over small indiscretions.

If you are talking about Onan, that wasn't a 'small indiscretion." THAT was huge.

Consider; the widow had no choice here. SHE had to marry Onan. HE, however, could have released her to marry someone else, the way Boaz's relative released Ruth so that she could marry Boaz. Onan did not HAVE to marry the widow. However, he did...knowing why that particular custom was in place.

He did it because the 'rule' said he had to, and he wanted to look good; to look like he was doing the right thing by his brother and the widow.

And then he refused to obey the spirit of that rule, because he wanted any children to be seen as HIS children, not those of his brother. Do you see what he was doing to the widow? SHE would have been blamed for being barren, for both brothers. No blame would have been ascribed to ONAN if she didn't get pregnant, even though HE was sabotaging the process and injuring her.

Were I her, I wouldn't have waited for God to off Onan. I would have been tempted to do it myself. It was that nasty a hypocritical trick to pull, and it put HER in a really bad position.

As for the donkey...I provided a link to one examination of the story.

There are other options, and every one of them involve critical thinking about the text.

Whether or not Ballaam's donkey actually talked, or whether there was a real man called Onan, the points of the stories are very worth a critical thought or two.

Or ten...
 

dianaiad

Well-Known Member

Non sequitur.

I didn't commit that fallacy. YOU sort of pulled a false dichotomy, by assuming that 'critical thinking" regarding those stories MUST BE LIMITED to whether they were literally true, when in fact the bible is full of stories that are NOT literally true (Jesus' parables, for instance) but that can indeed be examined through critical thinking about the point of the text.

You did not mention, in the OP, that you were concerned about biblical literalism. After all, to those of us who don't have a problem with parables and stories that might not be factual, but which have lessons to teach, THAT assumption would make no sense.

Didn't even occur to me that you were attacking the literal truth of those stories, push come to shove. You should have said so.
 

PoetPhilosopher

Veteran Member
Non sequitur.

I didn't commit that fallacy. YOU sort of pulled a false dichotomy, by assuming that 'critical thinking" regarding those stories MUST BE LIMITED to whether they were literally true, when in fact the bible is full of stories that are NOT literally true (Jesus' parables, for instance) but that can indeed be examined through critical thinking about the point of the text.

You did not mention, in the OP, that you were concerned about biblical literalism. After all, to those of us who don't have a problem with parables and stories that might not be factual, but which have lessons to teach, THAT assumption would make no sense.

Didn't even occur to me that you were attacking the literal truth of those stories, push come to shove. You should have said so.

Alright.
 
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