http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,13509-1811332,00.html

Wow.

Get owned TS Eliot.

hahahah! I'M GLAD I'M NONDENOM, them waaaaaaacky Catholics

This is supposed to be shocking? I thought anyone with half a brain knew not to take the Bible literally, as there are quite a number of illogical and downright impossible events in it.

If you believe in a creator that knows all and can do all, not much can be impossible.

It's more shocking that there are those within Catholic heirarchy officially supporting this doctrine.

... right, which is why these miracles have ceased to occur in our times.

I wonder what the state of religion will be in a few hundred years. Will religion still be practiced, will those who practice it be in the minority? Will it be seen as one of the "ways of old" and just old superstition like past religions and beliefs?

While I'm really suprised that they came out in such a public statement like that, it's nothing really new. If you've ever gone to catholic high school, most religion books and scripture courses and texts teach that most parts shouldn't be taken literally.

Yeah, but now it's semi-official (or at least working towards it). I've met some of these wackos who think that "7 days" means one week using the current time system. Besides the fact that some of the Bible cannot possibly be taken seriously if read literally, it was also passed down by word of mouth for years before being written down. How long can the game of Telephone go on before the original is lost? That's why we have different versions (besides the language translation)

With the disovery of the dead sea scrolls it was found that the texts weren't changed that much from a couple thousands of time of copying. They found these scrolls that were much older than our oldest versions I think and the message was still about the same.

Ahh, so they've finally admitted to doing what they've been doing for the last 1500 years. A lot of theologians are going to have fun with this one.

This might have interesting repercussions in the ongoing evolution/creation debate/flamewar. If they admit that the bible is metaphorical (gee, who woulda thunk that?), then it's a lot easier to interpret the creation story as a simplified story of the history of the universe. There are a lot of parallels there; the only problem being, of course, that it took place over 13 billion years instead of 7 days.

People who take everything literally are completely missing the point of religion.

What a cop out. So the inaccuracies in the bible are not actually due to the fact that it was written by a bunch of regular people thousands of years ago who didn't know any better, it was just "not meant to be taken literally"...right...Religion always seems to find a way to explain away it's fallacies with things like this.

I mean, passages that encourage anti-semitism and homophobia,, how is that metaphorical? They just don't want to say the bible is flat out wrong in alot of the things it says because that would lead people to lose their faith...so they give this bull**** excuse that it wasnt meant to be taken literally...crap if you ask me.

Well, I had in mind more things like people raising people from the dead, walking on water, parting the Red Sea, etc... Of course those things aren't literal.

[QUOTE=Raoul Duke]What a cop out. So the inaccuracies in the bible are not actually due to the fact that it was written by a bunch of regular people thousands of years ago who didn't know any better, it was just "not meant to be taken literally"...right...Religion always seems to find a way to explain away it's fallacies with things like this.

I mean, passages that encourage anti-semitism and homophobia,, how is that metaphorical? They just don't want to say the bible is flat out wrong in alot of the things it says because that would lead people to lose their faith...so they give this bull**** excuse that it wasnt meant to be taken literally...crap if you ask me.[/QUOTE]

Go Raul! *jigs*

[QUOTE=Raoul Duke]...passages that encourage anti-semitism...[/QUOTE]

Come again?

I'm guessing you won't find any of those in the old testament.

The TANAK is renowned for its preaching of hatred of the Jews.

[QUOTE=The Catholic Church]Look, I gotta level with you. We've been looking into this, and we're starting to think that when God wrote the bible, he was just kidding.

Sorry dudes.[/QUOTE]

>.>

"not all parts of Bible are to be taken literally"
Catholics have been saying this for years....


Peter (?):"How many times should I forgive my neighbor? 7 times"
Jesus: "Amen I say to you, not seven but seventy times seven times"

Obviously, 490 forgivenesses is quite an arbitrary number -- Jesus means to always forgive others; he is not placing a numerical limit.

Another example, there may not have been a literal Adam and Eve -- The "Adam and Eve" story may have actually been early society introducing sin to the world

Though, there are some foundation beliefs that MUST be taken literally, according to the faith, the most obvious being that Jesus died and rose again from the dead, freeing us from sin and opening the gates of heaven (and another figurative meaning -- Heaven is a state, having no physical essence; as a result it cannot have actual gates)


The Bible is NOT meant to be, in entirety, a historical/factual truth -- it is religious truth, meaning, it is the concept behind the stories, not the events in the stories, that are most important

The 7 "days" is only the english translation, in the original jewish text it stated 7 "periods" so it could have been 7 days, weeks, months, years, millenia, etc

GOD WAS A WOMANS AFTERALL!!!!!!!!

WE'RE JUST USED TAMPON FLOATING IN THE GIANT TRASH RECEPTACLE THAT IS SPACE!

My mind is freaking BLOWN.

Will the earth exist in a few hundred years?

Not if I have anything to say about it.

OMG NO BECUASE GOD IS GONNA COME AND DESTROY IT LOLz!!!11

I thought we were definitely going to blow ourselves up...?

Um, yes.

[QUOTE=Raoul Duke]I mean, passages that encourage anti-semitism and homophobia,, how is that metaphorical?.[/QUOTE]Now, I don't claim to be overly religious, or read the bible regularly, but where the hell are you pulling this from? The bible says that homosexuality is unnatural and therefore a sin, but I hardly think that qualifies as "homophobia." And, if I remember correctly, the Jews were labeled as God's chosen people. Not exactly anti-semitic (is that even a word?).

Will existence be possible in a few hundred years? What if by some cosmic event quantum particles decay to a degree that its impossible to form matter :O

That's a Cold War mentality.

You now what would be cool; if we could slow down the orbit of the moon enough to make it crash into the Earth. That would be pretty much total destruction, and it would take a lot less energy than other forms of total destruction. (i.e. a Death Star type explosion would take more energy than the sun outputs in a day or something like that)

That's Grade A Logic.

"Hey, maybe a book written by a bunch of different people at a bunch of different times isn't completely true."

Well, technically, encyclopaedias were written by a bunch of different people at a bunch of different times.

But yeah, I see what you're getting at.

[QUOTE=The Catholic Church]Encyclopedias are LIES[/QUOTE]

You tell 'em, Catholic Church!

I think that some are missing the point that those (including myself) that do believe that the bible is literal try to get to. There are a few things that you may want to think, at least hypothetically, about.

The Bible was written by ordinary people: Okay, ordinary people yes, but the very fact that if there is a God who is omnipotent don't you think he may just have had a hand in making sure it stays accurate?
Additionally, passed on by word of mouth yes, but this isn't like your standard kindegarten telephone scenario, these people revered these words to no end which inherently means that they'd have them memorized to the fullest extent the aforementioned God seeing to its accuracy could very well fit in here as well.

But these are ordinary people trying to convince us that there exists an omnipotent God.. If we must accept the existence of an omnipotent God as a pre-requisite to accepting this work as accurate, then what is the point of this work? What about this work makes it any different from the millions of others produced by ordinary people across history?

I thought it was always obvious you shouldn't take the whole thing litteraly. That's one of the first things you get taught.
Like:
"Do not covet thy neighbours wife"
You're not supposed to go around thinking the only thing you can't covet is the nieghbours wife.

Fun Fact: St Augustine originally took symbolic passages in the Bible literally, and in doing so grew disillusioned with Chrisitianity and turned to other religions for philosphoical and spritual help.

Eventually he listened to a pastor/bishop/whatever who taught him about the symbolicness of these passages, and he realized Christianity actually made a whole lot more sense than the other religions he had tried.

And anyone who knows the story knows he went to become a great defender of the Christian faith, a bishop, and a bunch of other things.

And to Raoul, who's comments seriously irk me: They are referring to the "7 days" and other parts of the Bible, not the whole thing. God has always communicated with his people through symbolism so they/we could better understand through metaphor. One of the better known examples of this is Jesus' parables. Jesus told a story of three men who had 10, 5, and 1 talent (monetary unit) and where the first two guys invested theirs and doubled them, and the last guy kept his safe by burying it. When the guy who had loaned them the money came back to collect it, he blessed the first two but cursed the last for not using what he had been given wisely.

Of course, Jesus just isn't saying this to tell a story. He was (and still is) telling the people that they should be like one of the first two, whether given a lot or a little.

Another famous example of symbolism is the book of Revelation. Not only is John forced to describe some things by metaphor because he doesn't quite know what they are (some would say he saw modern day things) but the book was also intentionally written, replacing some words with code words, as was the practice in the day. The reason for this was, for example, if a book laid out insults about Rome, the author would write Babylon instead, so the book wouldn't be censored or burned or whatever they did to such things.

I'm not sure where you get the homophobism from. I've read the Bible cover to cover (I don't claim to remember it all, but still) and I'm fairly sure Chirstians are commanded to love the world (and those in it) above all else, and hate the ACTION of sin, one of which we believe is homosexuality, but not the sinners.

Also I've only seen anti-seminism in all the enemies in the Old Testament who've tried to beat the @#%^ out of the Hebrew people time after time in battle.

Deadman: If by saying that you mean that it's meaning is closer to "don't covet anything that belongs to someone else", then yes. I imagine this is just the most "extreme" example of coveting, and by relation it was understood that lesser things shouldn't be coveted and you shouldn't covet someone else's things either.

Are you saying that kyle90 is God?