Genesis Reconsidered

[USincognito]

Argumentum ad hominem. Millions of people throughout history have believed in a literal global flood. So?

I've seen you use ad hominem incorrectly repeatedly and this is an example. What you're looking for is argumentum ad popularum or argument from numbers, and Mallon wasn't using his numbers fallaciously. He was just showing that vast numbers of Christians have no theological issue with a non-literal Genesis.

 

[laptoppop]

I stand corrected. (well, I'm sitting now, but you know what I mean)
The fallacy Mallon used was that somehow the use of numbers of adherents. showed the truth of the argument. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_populum

 

[Mallon]

I admit that I appealed to numbers in order to make the point that most Christians don't read the opening chapters of Genesis literally, but this isn't intended as an argument in itself. I hoped it might spark some thought into WHY this is so. Is it possible that so many Christians take some of Genesis allegorically because it is a completely consistent position to take?

 

[laptoppop]

Nope, not a chance.

 

[OldWiseGuy]

I admit that I appealed to numbers in order to make the point that most Christians don't read the opening chapters of Genesis literally, but this isn't intended as an argument in itself. I hoped it might spark some thought into WHY this is so. Is it possible that so many Christians take some of Genesis allegorically because it is a completely consistent position to take?

The whole bible story read like a fairy tale the first time I read it. But as the years go by...........

 

[artybloke]

God says what is or isn't Holy, take it up with Him as i have never read where that which comes from evil is holy.

I see you're still claiming to speak for God.

 

[artybloke]

Actually, the problem is in assuming the Hebrew culture was the same as other ANE cultures. They were called out - distinct.

They were not so distinct that were totally uninfluenced by the culture around them. In fact, the prophets are always berating the kings of the time for not being distinct enough. Of course, they were doing so using the cultural norms of the time, so they were not uninfluenced either, just as fundamentalist theologhy is infected with modernist positivist philosophy (however much it denies it.)

People do not live in bubbles. Even the terms they use to describe the world are taken from the surrounding culture, and in their turn affect the surrounding culture, which in turn affects the Hebrews. It's still going on today. No man is an island.