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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.
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.
Obviously that whole story is a metaphor for "stick with what you know."
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How do you know which parts to take literally and which to read as symbolism? This is the main problem. I dont think any of it should be taken literally. It's not supposed to be factual. They are fictional stories, the bible is not (or meant to be) an accurate historical documet and anyone who tries to make it so is kidding themself.
How do you select which parts you want to believe as historical truth? As it stands, things are literal until proven otherwise by historians, scientists, etc. Then the stories become symbolism.
The way I see it, the bible was written to teach morals. Nothing else. and it does this well (albeit some parts are pretty outdated now). The problem lies with people taking the stories literally. None of the charaters were/are real nor were they ever intended to be portrayed as such. Sure, the stories may have been set in actual places (for the most part) but it doesn't mean they ever happened. There are plenty of other stories which teach morals. Ever read Aesops Fables when you were a kid? They taught morals rather well but they weren't supposed to be taken literally at all. Hell, there was talking animals and stuff. (genesis, anyone?).
Hmm, i've typed more than I wanted. Ah well.
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