You are over-simplifying. People who were, as you put it,“were submerged in a world of superstition” are the ones who developed the concept of rational vs irrational thought.
I’m sure that the people who thought up the Garden of Eden intended to convey an underlying message - possibly that everyone should obey God’s rules or that the pain and suffering in our lives is the fault of our ancestors. But it doesn’t follow that their message was a truth.
Just because you can find an interpretation of the story that is possible relevant for our times, does not mean that the author(s) of the story were sending it.
What you are not paying attention to is that, for many people, the knowledge of good and evil what makes us liable to moral judgements, for good and bad. They think this is why moral judgements do not apply to animals, who do not have that knowledge. The knowledge of good and evil enables us to do evil things, but it also enables us to do good things.
The story of Adam and Eve is in the Old Testament, so written up to 1,000BC. Also it was written for the consumption of the uneducated. I would hazard a guess though, that the myth is far more ancient than that.
Well truth was given by the learned in those days. Also there was a tradition that quasi religious writings were attempting to convey truths throughout early history. Also that the people reading them were doing so to glean truths.
Yes, but we are engaging in an exercise of interpreting the story and what it says about our world and/or God.
I might for example interpret it in the way medieval scholars did. That the story was about the evil in women, that they tempt men into fornication and have to endure menstruation for their sins. We now see that this interpretation was about the subjugation and demonisation of women.
It is possible to analyse what is written in the Bible and derive meanings which are meaningful, helpful and we’re performing a social and cultural purpose in the times they were written and widely used.
Also, that if God were giving messages to people of that time, to write down in the Bible. That the messages might be for future generations to interpret, might be unintelligible to the authors, or readers and might serve other purposes.
With your dismissal of all allegorical tales, you are missing out on some of the greatest stories ever told. Stories of morality, love, and the endurance of the human spirit.
They can and must be used in rational arguments.
I agree. Premises with unreasonable contends are unsound.
Yes, true. I was not meaning they are worthless or futile. But I was meaning that they could be the themes in literature and art.
Knowledge and wisdom can be passed on, and understood via imagination and fictions too via meditation and reflection in the form of art and literature, rather than rational reasoning or logic.
They are just different type of knowledge which are in different categories. I was just drawing the boundaries between them.
That’s very satisfactory. It isn’t easy to reach agreement in philosophy. But this is philosophy and so that’s not the end of it.
Are all the stories in the Bible allegorical, or are some historical? (There might be some that are a bit of both).
Given that there are precursors of some of the stories in other, non-Judaic traditions, notably the Fall and the Flood, how to we classify those predecessors - allegorical, historic, both, or just superstitions?
Which raises the question whether the Bible has any special status at all among the various Middle Eastern mythic traditions and whether those traditions are in some way special among the many variegated world-wide traditions.
The Bible is still a very interesting text and the great source for reflections and discussions, because it raises many metaphysical issues such as the creation of life and world, the existence of God, moral laws and the universe, and predictions on apocalypse and faith, resurrection and existence of soul, paradise and hell etc.
Yes. But the question is a fundamental shift in thinking about it.
I would hope that you can recognize that opinions differ about this. I don’t expect that logic will change your thinking, but it seems to me that it is not really a question of truth or falsity, but of how you look at and interpret the world.
Personally i belive that “god” plays no role in happiness . God is simply an image created by humans as they need something to place their hopes on , without hope, hell and heaven ,the world as we know it will sink into despair with mass killing and other crimes . Having an entity called a ‘god’ gives us humans a reason to not commit crimes as there will be a supposed price to pay . this has been expressed by figures like Sigmund Freud ,who viewed God as a projection of human desire for a “father figure” and security and Albert Einstein, who described God as a “product of human weaknesses” .
Happiness is another topic completely - it can be achieved by releasing hormones such as dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, and endorphins by physical movement, social connection, and achieving goals. Or you can ‘hack your happy hormones’ by engaging in specific behaviors, you can naturally stimulate the production of these four neurotransmitters to improve mood, reduce stress, and increase feelings of satisfaction.
The source of happiness is God. Tell me which of the two dyads makes the most sense,
(Happiness, God)
(Happiness, Human)
?
For more on dyads or n-ads or n-tuples, read my previous posts.
Humans can be the source of happiness, even inanimate dolls can be, but God is the final word. Read your own post again; this fact is evident therein.
Yes, the chemistry of happiness has been worked out to a great degree. We may be able to help ourselves with that knowledge. However, there’s Godly happiness.
I’ve tried to explain the connexion between God and happiness here with dyads and Eden.