Posted by Sambersil on October 29, 2000 at 09:00:30:
In Reply to: God is a metaphor? posted by bill on October 28, 2000 at 19:07:23:
VOTING on what people said and did? The idea of it is more than a little ridiculous. A vote indicates that opinion is important. A vote on personal beliefs makes no sense; the number of other people with differing religious opinions is almost never a factor in determining whether or not anyone changes their beliefs. People will keep on believing what they want to believe until something CONVINCES them otherwise. A popularity vote to determine doctrine is foolish, because despite the existence of a majority, the people who believe otherwise will not change their beliefs to suit that of the majority of the group. Look at the US jury system: either all of the people in the jury agree that the person is guilty, and none have to change their beliefs, or only some believe that the person is guilty, and the trial is not resolved, so none have to change their beliefs, or all of the people in the jury agree that the person is innocent, and none have to change their beliefs. The US government was wise in forming a system where a disagreement of absolute beliefs can never lead to an absolute statement.
God is NOT a metaphor. If one attributes a name, in this case God, to a set of things, in this case the creation of the universe and some miracles and the source of all knowledge and power and goodness and the image in which Man was made, then by definition, those are what God is. The metaphor is exactly perfect; therefore it is not a metaphor.
: Has anyone been keeping up with the machinations of the Jesus Seminar?
: Being a good 5 with my antennae out for subversive issues on the horizon,
: I went to one of their meetings and found it all very interesting, and not boring
: at all!
: Among their pronouncements:
: -There was no resurrection
: -There was no virgin birth
: -The 3 wise men and star etc is a fable designed to fulfill prophesies of the Talmud.
: -Jesus was probably born in Nazareth
: -Jesus had no interest in forming a church
: -Most of the Gospels were heavily edited by later authors to conform to
: what the Church needed in order to control people's lives (8s and 1s?)
: -Most of the miracles were added to compete with very similar
: 'pagan' (Greek) hero feats.
: FYI the J Seminar is composed of about 75 or so phd level bible scholars
: or ancient language scholars from the academic world (specifically; not
: affiliated with any churches....too dogmatic). They vote on what Jesus
: *really!!! ;-}* said and did, and have produced a book "The Fifth Gospel,"
: by Robert Funk to document their sorcery. A good intro to all of this is
: "Honest to Jesus" by the same author.
: One of their discussion topics and postulates was 'God is a metaphor' that
: needs updating.
: I doubt this is a very high stakes topic for most 5's...or maybe it is....anyway
: I'd be interested in anyone's views.