Literal

Namaste awitch,

thank you for the post.

awitch said:

How many people here take their scripture/spiritual-texts literally? How literally?

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well.. i can only speak for myself, of course

i take mine literally when they are supposed to and take them allegorically when they are supposed to

the Buddha Dharma contains teachings which are literal and ones which are allegorical and ones which are provisional. fortunately the Suttas also contain an index, if you will, of which Suttas are which and, more importantly, how to tell what sort of Dharma talk it is

When you find the real world conflicts with them, do you dismiss the observed world and keep the faith, or re-evaluate your faith and change the interpretation? Which is harder to do?

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the Buddha said that if we find his teachings are in conflict with observed reality, we need to abandon or change the teaching. more recently His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama was asked how to reconcile Buddhist teachings on cosmology with modern cosmology and he explained that if the Buddhist teachings were shown to be incorrect that we need to modify the teaching or abandon it altogether.

metta,

~v

I've found you don't often get an honest response from people when you start asking if they're literalists (at least from Christians.) Especially if you accidentally call them a fundamentalist first (which they will blatantly deny, even if they are one.) haha It just seems like the thing to evade when someone asks you directly.

Anyway, I definitely do not take my religious texts literally. They're meant to be poetic and they don't exactly tell me how to live anyway. Even if they were comparable to the Bible or something, I would have a hard time accepting anything 100% since I know it's all come down through human hands. I believe there are many different ways of living and experiencing things, so I'm not too worried anyway.

vajradhara said:

more recently His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama was asked how to reconcile Buddhist teachings on cosmology with modern cosmology and he explained that if the Buddhist teachings were shown to be incorrect that we need to modify the teaching or abandon it altogether.

metta,

~v

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Can you expand on how Buddhist teachings on cosmology differ from modern cosmology? Which parts are not reconciled?

awitch said:

How many people here take their scripture/spiritual-texts literally? How literally?

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I have a Literal Translation bible.

. . .

I am in full agreement with Vajradhara, I think that the modern world is important and thus the teachings of the Buddha should be made to fit with it; though I am a liberal so what do I know?

If, for instance, a text claimed that the sun revolved around the Earth we shouldn't take that to be real as science has proven otherwise. That is one of my whole problems with fundamentalist Christianity, it claims that everything in the Bible is true and therefore science must be false!

Perhaps you should define what you mean by the idea of "literal interpretation." At some level, most of us don't interpret anything literally, including spoken English. I read the Bible in the way that seems to most naturally agree with authorial intent. As such, I don't take things literally (idioms, poetry, etc.) if the author's obvious meaning differs. This is not to say that I don't regard the Bible as being fully authoritative on any matter to which it speaks. So before I give a definitive answer, you might want to provide a working definition of literalism.

awitch said:

How many people here take their scripture/spiritual-texts literally? How literally?

When you find the real world conflicts with them, do you dismiss the observed world and keep the faith, or re-evaluate your faith and change the interpretation? Which is harder to do?

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Baha'is usually view much of the Bible and the Qur'an in allegorical and spiritual terms rather than literally.. So stories like the seven day creation, Garden of Eden, the great flood, and apocalyptic prophetic references are taken spiritually as allegorical for the most part. We also view the resurrection of Jesus as spiritual..and not as literally physical.

The Baha'i Writings See: Baha'i Reference Library

are pretty current from around 1844 to 1921..and they deal with a multitude of spiritual and social topics and many are responses in the form of letters or what we call Tablets to various personages who had questions from average people to religious leaders to monarchs, rulers. They are authenticated for the most part but there are some which have less weight were written down by various people who took notes at lectures and are what we call "pilgrim notes".

- Art

awitch said:

How many people here take their scripture/spiritual-texts literally? How literally?

When you find the real world conflicts with them, do you dismiss the observed world and keep the faith, or re-evaluate your faith and change the interpretation? Which is harder to do?

Click to expand...

For the most part I take the Qur'an literally. There are exceptions which are based on a few things:

1. Context - Is the rendering consistent with the ideas presented around it? The entire Qur'an? Some Arabic words have multiple meanings as well, which makes consistency all the more important in selecting the intended meaning for the sentence to make sense and for the idea presented to mesh with the rest of the Scipture

2. Type - Is the text labeled or mentioned as a parable?

3. Language - The original language is not English. So taking the English literally would be a grave mistake. Sometimes statements in English seem conflicting or odd. This warrants investigation into the original text (Arabic) in order to determine the idea that is being conveyed in the original language.

Penumbra said:

Can you expand on how Buddhist teachings on cosmology differ from modern cosmology? Which parts are not reconciled?

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Namaste Penumbra,

thank you for the post.

well.. for instance Buddhist cosmology teaches that this current universe (this is simply another arising of an endless cycle of arisings of universes) is 12.7 billion years old. modern cosmology evidences a universe that is between 13.5 to 14 billion years old... thus the Buddhist view will have to change on this point.

of course this aspect of the teachings has very little to do with most of our day to day practice

metta,

~v

vajradhara said:

Namaste Penumbra,

thank you for the post.

well.. for instance Buddhist cosmology teaches that this current universe (this is simply another arising of an endless cycle of arisings of universes) is 12.7 billion years old. modern cosmology evidences a universe that is between 13.5 to 14 billion years old... thus the Buddhist view will have to change on this point.

of course this aspect of the teachings has very little to do with most of our day to day practice

metta,

~v

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Buddhist cosmology teaches that it's 12.7 billion? What scripture was this taught in, and what year was that scripture written? Do you have a link or no?

I'm intrigued at how accurate it is.

Are there any other inconsistencies?

Namaste Penumbra,

thank you for the post.

Penumbra said:

Buddhist cosmology teaches that it's 12.7 billion? What scripture was this taught in, and what year was that scripture written? Do you have a link or no?

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well.. it's in Indian numbers and units of measurement so it says something a bit different... transliterated it's about 12.7 billion years

by and large the bulk of the cosmological teachings in the Buddha Dharma are found within a section of the Tipitaka (canon) called the Abidharma which is not divided into Suttas.. which is rather like scripture but somewhat different.

perhaps more importantly the notion of how old the universe was, 12.7 billion years was not particular to the Buddha Dharma. the Sanatana Dharma and Jain Dharma also contained information related to this as well since the mathematics which were formulated to derive this number were part of the overall Indian cultural millieu. though given their understanding of the unit of measurement (kalpas, yonga, manvanratans and the rest) they come up with slightly different calculations.

I'm intrigued at how accurate it is.

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pretty close but not as accurate as the information that we have at our disposal today.

heck.. the Vedic scriptures talk about how the earth rotates around the sun and the sun rotates around the galactic core!

Are there any other inconsistencies?

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yep.. for instance, in once Dharma talk the Buddha was talking about how physical illness arises in a human being and indicated that, amongst other things, imbalance in the bile, phlegm and wind can cause illness and disease. we know that bacterian and virii are responsible for a great many of those diseases and illnesses and thus the Buddhist view has had to change.

here's a link to an interesting article from a modern Buddhist doctor's perspective: http://www.eubios.info/EJ145/ej145b.htm

metta,

~v

awitch said:

How many people here take their scripture/spiritual-texts literally? How literally?

When you find the real world conflicts with them, do you dismiss the observed world and keep the faith, or re-evaluate your faith and change the interpretation? Which is harder to do?

Click to expand...

I don't view any scripture or spiritual texts as literal. They're all metaphor or used to teach life lessons or explain forces of nature by our ancestors. Does that mean the gods do not exist? No but I also am of the opinion that they're not omnipotent either. I don't find that anything really conflicts with them because they're not literal to me. They are however very important to understanding our ancestors and how the topography came out in their mythologies is extremely fascinating to me.

I would say there are parts that I take literally and there are parts that I take figuratively. As an Orthodox Christian, I make use of the guidance of the Fathers and Mothers of the Church in interpreting the Scriptures.

What are the Scriptures you use, awitch?

M.

Pulverizeportable,

Especially if you accidentally call them a fundamentalist first (which they will blatantly deny, even if they are one.)

What is your definition of a fundamentalist Christian?

How many people here take their scripture/spiritual-texts literally? How literally?

I take the majority of scripture literally with the exception of some prophecy and the parables of Jesus.

When you find the real world conflicts with them, do you dismiss the observed world and keep the faith, or re-evaluate your faith and change the interpretation? Which is harder to do?

That depends on what you mean by the real world. Scientifically, I don't believe that the "real world" conflicts with the Bible at all. If anything I believe the bible to be way ahead of its time.

norswede said:

Especially if you accidentally call them a fundamentalist first (which they will blatantly deny, even if they are one.)

What is your definition of a fundamentalist Christian?

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You want my definition? I'll refer you to Wikipedia, which lists the same "five fundamentals" I learned in Baptist school.

• Inerrancy of the Scriptures
• The virgin birth and the deity of Jesus (Isaiah 7:14)
• The doctrine of substitutionary atonement by God's grace and through human faith (Hebrews 9)
• The bodily resurrection of Jesus (Matthew 28)
• The authenticity of Christ's miracles (or, alternatively, his pre-millennial second coming)

I would like to add that anyone who puts scripture before science and common sense gets the endearing label 'fundie' from me. I use the two terms separately... Fundie is obviously derogatory whereas fundamentalist is what you see above.

pulverizeportable said:

You want my definition? I'll refer you to Wikipedia, which lists the same "five fundamentals" I learned in Baptist school.

• Inerrancy of the Scriptures
• The virgin birth and the deity of Jesus (Isaiah 7:14)
• The doctrine of substitutionary atonement by God's grace and through human faith (Hebrews 9)
• The bodily resurrection of Jesus (Matthew 28)
• The authenticity of Christ's miracles (or, alternatively, his pre-millennial second coming)

I would like to add that anyone who puts scripture before science and common sense gets the endearing label 'fundie' from me. I use the two terms separately... Fundie is obviously derogatory whereas fundamentalist is what you see above.

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Well then from that definition, I am a fundamentalist and proud of it. As for putting the Bible ahead of science, I personally don't think the 2 contradict eachother. Science is just the term for the discoveries man has made about the way God created us and the world.

I always believed the term Fundamentalist to mean someone who relies on the Bible rather than the teachings of any particular denomination. I fit that definition as well.