So then what do you think is the yes or no answer to your question from your point of view?
actually you should take it as an insult. so far you have been showing that you dont know what the word allegory means, but now you've let the world know that the word "or" is above your comprehension too![]()
So then what do you think is the yes or no answer to your question from your point of view?
No, I will take it as a complement, thank you very much.
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Since you are so intent on taking something I consider to be allegorical to be literal, you tell me how you resolve that paradox.
a) i just said it in the post you quoted "there's no real reason to believe so"... basically my answer for ANY "do you think this happened" question will by default be "no" unless there is reason to believe otherwise.
do i believe in god? no. as i find no reason to believe that god exists, i obviously find no reason to believe that said god had a conversation with a man named abraham
do i believe in the flying spaghetti monster? no.
do i believe that there is a green ostrich somewhere in antarctica? no.
were there to be evidence provided for those, my mind could certainly change
b) i asked you first. what's your answer? do you believe that god spoke to a man named abraham and instructed him to murder his son Isaac?
something cannot be both allegorical and literal. if something is merely allegorical and thus symbolic, than it is not historical fact. the fable of the fox and the sour grapes is not based on a true story. it is allegorical. if you find the bible to be allegorical, then you do not find it to be literal, or factual. if you do not find it to be factual, then you find it fictional
its a very basic line of reasoning
There are no strawmen or false accusations in my previous post.
It's really sad that a man requires several paragraphs to respond to a yes or no question, and still can't answer it properly.
Since you do not believe in God then how can you believe that such an incident took place?
You can't.
Far be it for me to try to dissuade you from your belief.
It makes it even further remote that we can discuss it because you would never believe my answer, you haven't so far, so why should I think you'll change now?
I shouldn't.
But I can tell you that it is an "allegorical" story IMHO that may or may not have happened, and with much deeper symbolism than a nonbeliever would and could ever understand.
We will have to leave it at that if that isn't good enough for you, because to go into the allegory would take a of a lot of conjecture since I was not there, and it would require you to suspend your disbelief for you to understand.
I seriously doubt you have an open mind to any of it anyway since you were so anxious to sidetrack the allegory basis of it by trying to force it into being something literal.
It is not simply a yes or no answer IMHO.
I would love to read your reasoning behind this horse .
All those words and you can't say "yes" or "no"![]()
I'm not asking you if that event occurred with 100% certainty. I'm asking if you personally believe it occurred
Then go ahead and write my dialog for me since you are already labeling it as horse .
That is certainly a great and appealing way to get anything ohter than horse thrown right back at you.
Or were you too ignorant to realize this before you wrote your bull ?
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Dodge # 1
Something tells me xmas won't back up his claim with anything.
I think it could have happened, but maybe didn't because I think the author had a deeper more symbolic reason behind telling the story, one that was meant to teach a lesson perhaps, or give an instance of right versus wrong, or maybe even scare some lazy believers into toeing the line at the time.
It is all conjecture really, and we could discuss it all night, the ramifications, etc.
I do not believe it was meant to be interpreted LITERALLY, and that it is ALLEGORICAL, thus it, as well as the rest of the bible, needs to be examined from an allegorical perspective, and not a literal one.
If you feel the stories are purely allegorical then you believe those events did not actually occur as written and thus are fictional. Can you follow this line of reasoning?
And your posts tell me and everyone else here that you are doing what you always do, trying to confuse, trying to distract, and trying to twist things all over the place to suit your own agendas whatever those may be, and as a last resort you make your patented false accusation in hopes someone out there will believe your, what did you call it, "horse ".
You haven't changed one iota, and furthermore are as predictable as the sun rising in the morning.
So it is no wonder few like or enjoy discussing anything with you, because that is not your aim.
A "discussion" is the furthest thing from your goal on here. But you are somewhat amusing to toy with.
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I follow your reasoning, but how do you know for sure what you say is true?
You don't.
Besides which, you don't believe any of it in the first place.
So why are we having this discussion?
I am not trying to convince you of anything.
Are you trying to convince me of something?
If so, why?
I'm not making any claims. You are the saying you believe it is allegorical, and thus fictional, end of the day. Something cannot be both allegorical and literal (factual).
I haven't been preaching to you, I've just been asking about your beliefs and you've still yet to give me a straight answer. Calling it allegorical means it's just a feel good story meant to inspire and teach us lessons, and not based in historical events
Why must it be anything more than that tbqh?
But you can't equate literal as meaning the same thing as factual, those are too different things.
Nor can you say that allegorical means it is fictional, it does not mean that.
Interpreting the bible literally indeed implies that you are taking every story and word as factual. Ask robdiaz.
And you will never find anybody describing a historical event as allegorical
There is a reason you use fictional to describe something versus allegorical.
And the same goes for literal versus factual.
They aren't identical terms. It's like saying every thumb is a finger. But wrong to say every finger is a thumb. Every fictional tale isn't allegorical, but every allegorical tale is fictional
All this jibber jabber and you've yet to say yes or no![]()
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia:
allegory
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Home Library Miscellaneous Britannica Concise Encyclopedia
Work of written, oral, or visual expression that uses symbolic figures, objects, and actions to convey truths or generalizations about human conduct or experience. It encompasses such forms as the fable and parable. Characters often personify abstract concepts or types, and the action of the narrative usually stands for something not explicitly stated. Symbolic allegories, in which characters may also have an iden y apart from the message they convey, have frequently been used to represent political and historical situations and have long been popular as vehicles for satire. Edmund Spenser's long poem The Faerie Queen is a famous example of a symbolic allegory.
Read more: http://www.answers.com/topic/allegory#ixzz39CY9uPCa
Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms:
allegory
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Home Library Literature & Language Literary Dictionary
allegory, a story or visual image with a second distinct meaning partially hidden behind its literal or visible meaning. The principal technique of allegory is personification, whereby abstract qualities are given human shape—as in public statues of Liberty or Justice. An allegory may be conceived as a metaphor that is extended into a structured system. In written narrative, allegory involves a continuous parallel between two (or more) levels of meaning in a story, so that its persons and events correspond to their equivalents in a system of ideas or a chain of events external to the tale: each character and episode in John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress (1678), for example, embodies an idea within a pre‐existing Puritan doctrine of salvation. Allegorical thinking permeated the Christian literature of the Middle Ages, flourishing in the morality plays and in the dream visions of Dante and Langland. Some later allegorists like Dryden and Orwell used allegory as a method of satire; their hidden meanings are political rather than religious. In the medieval discipline of biblical exegesis, allegory became an important method of interpretation, a habit of seeking correspondences between different realms of meaning (e.g. physical and spiritual) or between the Old Testament and the New (see typology). It can be argued that modern critical interpretation continues this allegorizing tradition
Read more: http://www.answers.com/topic/allegory#ixzz39CYlZXbm
I'm glad you understand that the story of Paul Bunyan is allegorical and not historical
Whoops it said john not Paul Bunyan lol. Still, all the examples of text there are fictional works. Further proving my point
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