Intimacy

[Zecryphon]

Fundamentalists are those who claim to take scripture literally. Of course, they are highly selective about that.

All "taking scripture literally" means is that you read it and interpret it as written. If it's poetic you read and interpret it as poetry, if history you do the same thing, if prophetic, you read and interpret it as such. Not everyone who reads the Bible in this way is a Fundamentalist. For instance I am not a Fundamentalist, because I don't meet the criteria to actually be a Fundamentalist. One of which is to hold to a pre-trib ratpure view of the end times. As a Lutheran I am Amillenial, therefore I can not be a Fundamentalist. You should familiarize yourself with what makes a person a Fundamentalist, before you throw this word around as loosely as you do. Because often times you call people Fundamentalists, who really aren't, then you end up looking like you don't know what you're talking about. You don't want that do you?

Here are the 5 points of Fundamentalism:

1) Divinely inspired scriptures which were inerrant in the original writing;
2) Christ's virgin birth and deity;
3) Christ's substitutionary atonement;
4) Christ's resurrection, and
5) Christ's personal pre-millennial and imminent second coming.

A person must be in agreement with all 5 points to be considered a Fundamentalist. I do not, therefore I am not a Fundamentalist.

*The 5 points of Fundamentalist were taken from:

http://www.drury.edu/ess/philsci/fundamentalism.html

 

[Tissue]

All "taking scripture literally" means is that you read it and interpret it as written.

Unfortunately, this boils down to little else than 'Reading the Bible and honestly trying to figure out what it says.' While doing that, many people come to wildly different conclusions.

A person must be in agreement with all 5 points to be considered a Fundamentalist. I do not, therefore I am not a Fundamentalist.

Alvin Plantinga put it best, I think, when he said (paraphrased):

'The term fundamentalist has come to mean little more than simply: 'Someone who is more conservative than I.''

 

[Texas Lynn]

But people can promote homosexuality & premarital sex HERE freely???

Ok, sorry but that makes absolutely NO sense whatsoever; esp. when
premarital sex/romance issues are seriously prevalent for singles specifically.


Honestly, I wonder about this place anymore

Promote?

 

[Zecryphon]

Unfortunately, this boils down to little else than 'Reading the Bible and honestly trying to figure out what it says.' While doing that, many people come to wildly different conclusions.

Alvin Plantinga put it best, I think, when he said (paraphrased):

'The term fundamentalist has come to mean little more than simply: 'Someone who is more conservative than I.''

Tissue, people come to wildly different conclusions because they do not go back to the original languages and learn what the author was saying to the audience. They filter what they read through themselves and what they think it means. That is not the proper way to read the Bible. You can't read it like any other book, because it is unlike any other book. There are proper ways to read it and there are also improper ways to read it. The study of hermeneutics helps greatly when reading the Bible, but most people don't care enough to learn how to read it.

 

[Texas Lynn]

We better be selective about that!

& you should be selective about what ISN'T literal.... like.......
oh.......... say.............
JESUS CRUCIFIXION & RAISING FROM THE DEAD perhaps?
Gosh, maybe that wasn't literally true either!
& neither were Jesus' teachings about love & giving to
the poor & not judging ....
Gee, what else can I claim isn't literal - selectively

If fundamentalists were stating that all portions of scripture were
in the literal sense, then you couldn't have any analogies, or parables, or poetry or metaphors, or anthropomorphisms, or euphamisms, etc. that we KNOW exist within the Bible.

Please - talk about being darned if you do & darned if you don't.
You spun that to attack fundamentalists either way & put us all
in a negative light.

If we claim it's ALL literal, then we're obnoxiously overboard when things
are obviously NOT literal to any sane person.
(unless of course, Jesus is a door & a mother hen with wings)

If we claim it's literal with exceptions where text obviously allows for
non literality, we're "SELECTIVE"... as if that's a bad thing.

It's in fact the ONLY way to interpret correctly since not all scripture
is literal and not all is metaphorical.
Unless we want to claim Jesus didn't LITERALLY come to this earth
in human form, fulfill the entire Law & die on a cross for sin.

Claiming the "gotcha" passages are literal when others are not merely shows how the claimant uses scripture to confirm his or her existing prejudices. Thus we see how the so-called scriptural basis for wagging fingers at LGBTs and sexually active het singles is entirely invalid. Thank you.

 

[Texas Lynn]

I was trying to make you see Lynn that you are a fundamentalists in the ways you have set in your mind. It's like there's no wiggle room in there because you are so stoic about your beliefs that one cannot even plant a seed in there. I pray your heart softens some for seed planting.

If you want to plant seeds in me that I become a right winger you dishonor Christ by making that a prayer.

Your entire argument there means only "I know you are but what am I?"

"Stoic"?

Wikipedia:

The stoics considered passionate emotions to be the result of errors in judgment, and that a sage, or person of "moral and intellectual perfection," would not have such emotions...

Obviously you don't know me very well.

 

[Texas Lynn]

All "taking scripture literally" means is that you read it and interpret it as written.

...according to the claimant, but it passes through the prism of their beliefs and experiences and is thus reduced to merely confirming their prejudices.

You should familiarize yourself with what makes a person a Fundamentalist, before you throw this word around as loosely as you do. Because often times you call people Fundamentalists, who really aren't, then you end up looking like you don't know what you're talking about. You don't want that do you?

Meanings of terms change. In present usage it means exactly what I said. If you don't like it that's your problem.

 

[Texas Lynn]

Unfortunately, this boils down to little else than 'Reading the Bible and honestly trying to figure out what it says.' While doing that, many people come to wildly different conclusions.

[/color][/size][/font]

Alvin Plantinga put it best, I think, when he said (paraphrased):

'The term fundamentalist has come to mean little more than simply: 'Someone who is more conservative than I.''

Richard Mouw (President of the fundamentalist Fuller Theological Seminary in California) took umbrage at being called "the worst sort of fundamentalist", protesting "I have been fighting the worst sort of fundamentalists all my life!"

It appears objection to the term is based on the fact that the public perceives the term negatively.

 

[Texas Lynn]

Tissue, people come to wildly different conclusions because they do not go back to the original languages and learn what the author was saying to the audience. They filter what they read through themselves and what they think it means. That is not the proper way to read the Bible. You can't read it like any other book, because it is unlike any other book. There are proper ways to read it and there are also improper ways to read it. The study of hermeneutics helps greatly when reading the Bible, but most people don't care enough to learn how to read it.

At a conservative school of religion or theology hermeneutics consists of "methods by which we verify right-wing political correctness". At a liberal school of the same sort it consists of addressing cultural contexts of scripture as "this is what the Elohimists or priestly writers or whomever believed" with no demand made of the audience that they believe the same.

 

[Tissue]

The study of hermeneutics helps greatly when reading the Bible, but most people don't care enough to learn how to read it.

I don't disagree with this sentence.

 

[Zecryphon]

[/color][/size][/font]

...according to the claimant, but it passes through the prism of their beliefs and experiences and is thus reduced to merely confirming their prejudices.



Meanings of terms change. In present usage it means exactly what I said. If you don't like it that's your problem.

Why are you copping an attitude here? I was trying to be nice towards you and help you out. The meaning of fundamentalist has not changed. You use the term to describe anybody who dares to have the audacity and unmitigated gall to disagree with you. That is not the proper usage of the term.

If you wish to go around accusing everyone of being a fundamentalist when indeed they are not, then you are the one with the problem and everybody who reads your posts can see how absolutely set in your ways you are and they can also see your absolute refusal to change any position you hold. Now if you wish to still believe that the definition of fundamentalist has changed to mean something like someone who is set in their ways and absolutely will not change their mind regardless of what is presented to them, then the previous poster is right, YOU are a Fundamentalist. You have become the very thing you hate.

 

[Zecryphon]

At a conservative school of religion or theology hermeneutics consists of "methods by which we verify right-wing political correctness". At a liberal school of the same sort it consists of addressing cultural contexts of scripture as "this is what the Elohimists or priestly writers or whomever believed" with no demand made of the audience that they believe the same.

Hermeneutics is about going back to the original languages and figuring out what the author was trying to convey to the audience. There are two main methods that are used to interpret the Bible. The Historical-Critical method that the left is fond of and the Higher Grammatical method that the right is fond of. There may be a conservative school of religion that uses hermeneutics to defend previously held beliefs, but that is not what the practice of hermeneutics is for. So such an institution would indeed be in error and teaching falsely.

 

[Nadiine]

Promote?

yes promote.

 

[Markus6]

I was kind of interested in the original topic. Can we take the rest somewhere else and get back to it?

 

[Tissue]

Again, Markus, any discussion of Intimacy will necessarily be informed by Scripture, and any discussion informed by Scripture will inevitably come down to what people believe about Scripture.

 

[Texas Lynn]

Why are you copping an attitude here? I was trying to be nice towards you and help you out. The meaning of fundamentalist has not changed. You use the term to describe anybody who dares to have the audacity and unmitigated gall to disagree with you. That is not the proper usage of the term.

If you wish to go around accusing everyone of being a fundamentalist when indeed they are not, then you are the one with the problem and everybody who reads your posts can see how absolutely set in your ways you are and they can also see your absolute refusal to change any position you hold. Now if you wish to still believe that the definition of fundamentalist has changed to mean something like someone who is set in their ways and absolutely will not change their mind regardless of what is presented to them, then the previous poster is right, YOU are a Fundamentalist. You have become the very thing you hate.

IOW you have no argument. If you don't like it, tough. I will continue to use fundamentalist to mean adherents of right wing Christian sects and that is that. Any objection you have to it is juvenile.

 

[Texas Lynn]

Hermeneutics is about going back to the original languages and figuring out what the author was trying to convey to the audience. There are two main methods that are used to interpret the Bible. The Historical-Critical method that the left is fond of and the Higher Grammatical method that the right is fond of. There may be a conservative school of religion that uses hermeneutics to defend previously held beliefs, but that is not what the practice of hermeneutics is for. So such an institution would indeed be in error and teaching falsely.

It sounds like you're kind of an idealist.

I recall in 10th grade, in response to a social studies teacher describing a Congressional Committee Chair whose aides had to prop him up, a naive rich girl spoke out incredulously, "A Congressman drinks?"

 

[Texas Lynn]

yes promote.

OK, how?

 

[Tissue]

IOW you have no argument. If you don't like it, tough. I will continue to use fundamentalist to mean adherents of right wing Christian sects and that is that. Any objection you have to it is juvenile.

Actually, this sort of language sounds pretty juvenile. Why don't you just use the phrase 'right-wing Christian' instead of fundamentalist? Not all adherents of right wing Christian sects are fundamentalist.

 

[Markus6]

Again, Markus, any discussion of Intimacy will necessarily be informed by Scripture, and any discussion informed by Scripture will inevitably come down to what people believe about Scripture.

And so every thread in this entire forum completely stops talking about the original issue and becomes a debate about the nature of scripture? That doesn't sound like a constructive way to do things.