2025 RationalWiki 'Oregon Plan' Fundraiser

There is no RationalWiki without you. We are a small non-profit with no staff—we are hundreds of volunteers who document pseudoscience and crankery around the world every day. We will never allow ads because we must remain independent. We cannot rely on big donors with corresponding big agendas. We are not the largest website around, but we believe we play an important role in defending truth and objectivity.

Fighting pseudoscience isn't free.
We are 100% user-supported! Help and donate $5, $10, $20 or whatever you can today with PayPal Logo.png!
Donations so far: $8765.50Goal: $10000

Essay:The Million Dollar Question

From RationalWiki
Jump to navigation Jump to search
Essay.svg This essay is an original work by Oxyaena.
It does not necessarily reflect the views expressed in RationalWiki's Mission Statement, but we welcome discussion of a broad range of ideas.
Unless otherwise stated, this is original content, released under CC BY-SA 3.0 or any later version. See RationalWiki:Copyrights.
Feel free to make comments on the talk page, which will probably be far more interesting, and might reflect a broader range of RationalWiki editors' thoughts.


This is an important one, and is directed towards religious moderates, specifically Christian moderates, who tend to not be Biblical literalists. This question concerns perhaps the most damning question one can think of towards Christian moderates, and needs no introduction. I think it fit to introduce the Million Dollar Question down below, ready?[1] Here we go:


   How does one determine whether or not a particular passage in the Bible is literally true, or only allegorically true?
   

This is a question that few theists dare answer, I have received responses that, are in effect, non-answers. Such a non-answer is usually along the lines of “What’s true in the Bible is true for different people,”. That’s fine and dandy, but I`m talking about truth, not interpretation, there’s a big difference.

The truth is what can be shown to be literally true, a la if evidence can be shown to support the veracity of a particular statement. An interpretation is one’s reaction to a statement, so while people do interpret the Bible differently, it still doesn’t answer my question, and doesn’t affect whether a particular passage in the Bible is literally true, or only allegorically true.

Any takers?

Footnotes[edit]

  1. Note: I copied this from my blog, original post here