"In ThE mIdSt Of A dIsCuSsIoN wItH pEoPlE wHo HiGhLy PrIzE rAtIoNaLiSm"
I tremble in the presence of such intellectual giants!
You people are so stupid, it's not even funny.
"For it is written, that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondmaid, the other by a freewoman. But he who was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh; but he of the freewoman was by promise. Which things are an allegory: for these are the two covenants; the one from the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar."
-Galatians 4: 23-24 (the fucking Bible)
3rd century theologian Origen said the Bible's true meaning could ONLY be found by reading it allegorically.
"This, however, must not be unnoted by us, that as the chief object of the Holy Spirit is to preserve the coherence of the spiritual meaning, either in those things which ought to be done or which have been already performed, if He anywhere finds that those events which, according to the history, took place, can be adapted to a spiritual meaning, He composed a texture of both kinds in one style of narration, always concealing the hidden meaning more deeply; but where the historical narrative could not be made appropriate to the spiritual coherence of the occurrences, He inserted sometimes certain things which either did not take place or could not take place; sometimes also what might happen, but what did not: and He does this at one time in a few words, which, taken in their “bodily” meaning, seem incapable of containing truth, and at another by the insertion of many."
On Genesis in particular, he said the following:
"For who that has understanding will suppose that the first, and second, and third day, and the evening and the morning, existed without a sun, and moon, and stars? And that the first day was, as it were, also without a sky? And who is so foolish as to suppose that God, after the manner of a husbandman, planted a paradise in Eden, towards the east, and placed in it a tree of life, visible and palpable, so that one tasting of the fruit by the bodily teeth obtained life? And again, that one was a partaker of good and evil by masticating what was taken from the tree? And if God is said to walk in the paradise in the evening, and Adam to hide himself under a tree, I do not suppose that anyone doubts that these things figuratively indicate certain mysteries, the history having taken place in appearance, and not literally."
St. Augustine, one of the most influential Christian theologians, famously concurred that Genesis was not to be taken literally. And yeah, no shit. The main character is named "Man" and his wife has a conversation with a fucking snake. Not Satan in the form of a snake like fundies will tell you. Just a regular snake. Who talks because animals talk in this kind of story, and the people of the time would have been familiar with those conventions.
It is pure arrogance to think we in the 21st century are uniquely rational. Ancient people weren't stupid. The people who built the seven wonders of the ancient world knew snakes didn't actually talk. They knew that certain Biblical stories were theological retellings of Babylonian myths. They didn't post on tumblr about the Hades and Persephone story like it was true crime. They did believe that a god or gods existed, but they understood that the stories that had been written about them were ultimately written by men. Do you think the ancient Greeks and Romans were unaware of how many different and contradictory versions there were of each story??? THEY WROTE DOWN EVERYTHING! That's how we know there are multiple versions of everything in the first place! You are not smarter than a Greek philosopher!
Literalism is a modern cope, not fucking metaphor.
I'm spraying you with a can of raid.
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