Not saying you’re wrong in a practical sense, but carrying practical sense into an allegorical story from a culture and time not your own is, if not folly, at least ill-advised.
And if christians were willing to treat the bible as just a product of the culture and time that would be great. Unfortunately it is held up as an everlasting, ever correct guide to moral character. Thatsbwhy pointing out the issues with it is important, lest we get stuck with (at best) a 2000 year outdated moral framework.
That’s sort of the while point of pointing out the silliness of the fig tree story though. We poke fun at it for being ridiculous because, well, it is ridiculous, and religious people are in turn ridiculous for following a supposed holy text with such ridiculous parables in it.
Idk what to tell you man. Trying to achieve a sense of intellectual superiority over a religious person by pointing out how the literal text doesn’t make sense when the entire purpose of an allegory is the SUBtext seems just as silly to me as cursing a fig tree for not bearing fruit.
I’ll allow that you’re free to use this tactic to dunk on proponents of Biblical inerrancy, but most mainstream sects of Christianity don’t subscribe to that doctrine.
Take religion out of it for a second. Someone says, “when I was a kid, I had to walk to school for 5 miles, through the snow, uphill, BOTH ways!”. Obviously, this is a statement which doesn’t make much literal sense. However, you probably understand that the person is actually just trying to communicate that they had it hard growing up, and that their words are not meant to be taken literally.
Now, think of the message what you will. I attended a lot of Catholic school, but I’m staunchly irreligious, so if you want to keep dunking on believers, you go girl. I just think you’d be better served (and more likely to get a believer to consider their beliefs more critically) by engaging with the text the way the believer does, lest you wind up just talking past one another.
Engaging with the text the way a believer does means having blind faith, which, as a non-believer, is difficult for me to do.
I think it’s silly for a loving, forgiving God to curse anything, whether that’s a single tree, or an entire country, or whatever else. I think it’s totally valid to point out the hypocrisy of this allegory, regardless of what you think the subtext may be. It’s an easy example to pull up that demonstrates a contradiction in the Bible, that’s all.
Also I’m not dunking on anyone. I rarely talk to anyone about religion because it’s such a sticky subject with so many people. Just trying to give some context and maybe a little justification for using this particular allegory to poke some fun at believers.
well, first of all…
Not saying you’re wrong in a practical sense, but carrying practical sense into an allegorical story from a culture and time not your own is, if not folly, at least ill-advised.
And if christians were willing to treat the bible as just a product of the culture and time that would be great. Unfortunately it is held up as an everlasting, ever correct guide to moral character. Thatsbwhy pointing out the issues with it is important, lest we get stuck with (at best) a 2000 year outdated moral framework.
That’s sort of the while point of pointing out the silliness of the fig tree story though. We poke fun at it for being ridiculous because, well, it is ridiculous, and religious people are in turn ridiculous for following a supposed holy text with such ridiculous parables in it.
Idk what to tell you man. Trying to achieve a sense of intellectual superiority over a religious person by pointing out how the literal text doesn’t make sense when the entire purpose of an allegory is the SUBtext seems just as silly to me as cursing a fig tree for not bearing fruit.
I’ll allow that you’re free to use this tactic to dunk on proponents of Biblical inerrancy, but most mainstream sects of Christianity don’t subscribe to that doctrine.
Take religion out of it for a second. Someone says, “when I was a kid, I had to walk to school for 5 miles, through the snow, uphill, BOTH ways!”. Obviously, this is a statement which doesn’t make much literal sense. However, you probably understand that the person is actually just trying to communicate that they had it hard growing up, and that their words are not meant to be taken literally.
this video comes to mind. It’s not about the figs, it’s about Israel.
Now, think of the message what you will. I attended a lot of Catholic school, but I’m staunchly irreligious, so if you want to keep dunking on believers, you go girl. I just think you’d be better served (and more likely to get a believer to consider their beliefs more critically) by engaging with the text the way the believer does, lest you wind up just talking past one another.
Engaging with the text the way a believer does means having blind faith, which, as a non-believer, is difficult for me to do.
I think it’s silly for a loving, forgiving God to curse anything, whether that’s a single tree, or an entire country, or whatever else. I think it’s totally valid to point out the hypocrisy of this allegory, regardless of what you think the subtext may be. It’s an easy example to pull up that demonstrates a contradiction in the Bible, that’s all.
Also I’m not dunking on anyone. I rarely talk to anyone about religion because it’s such a sticky subject with so many people. Just trying to give some context and maybe a little justification for using this particular allegory to poke some fun at believers.