Do you take your religious stories to be factual, or are they considered more as alleghory and used for their.

Question

...moral value?

Answer 1

Who gets to decide what is fact and what is allegory? Man? If that is the case, then man has become the arbiter of what is truth, and what isn't.

The Bible does contain poetic imagery, such as trees clapping their hands, and mountains skipping like calves; however, was Jonah swallowed by a great fish? Absolutely!

It is all a matter of context. If the story reads like history, treat it as such. If it reads like poetry, treat it as such. If it's a law, act like it's a law.

Answer 2

Hi,

C.L. Richardson makes a claim that without specific instruction to the contrary a realistic interpretation always holds but offers no reasoning for her view.
Religious writing is full of allegory and conveying moral value is an important aspect of this but not the only one. After all it is by nursery tales, which are simple moral tales, that we learn of moral values. But whereas history or factual matters may best be communicated directly some ideas are best communicated indirectly, where the particular style and manner of writing augments the content of the writing. Those who insist unreasonably on sticking to interpreting stories factually miss out on a whole wealth and richness of meaning in such stories. Literally they miss the point.

Hope that helps PP

Answer 3

The Bible is really just a fake story, perhaps a bit like the Loch Ness monster tales.

When we pass on information to another (example: story, joke, description of something etc) by the time these details are passed on by word of mouth, interpreted by others, and then written down, the final details are typically quite different than the original information.

Since the Bible is just a man-made story passed down over many years in various forms, the chance of it being accurate in any shape or form is remote.

There are people who swear blind that the Loch Ness monster exists regardless of all the evidence to the contrary, but a fence post bobbing up and down in the Loch does the trick. Similarly there are people who swear blind that God exists and the Bible is fact, yet there isn’t one blind bit of evidence to support such theories.

Biblical tales are really no different than Loch Ness monster tales, just the era is different.

Answer 4

Factual

Answer 5

Both, because the stories have been passed from generation to generation without failing to be relevant to our times. The bible is my best resource for life's problems. When I pray and just flip open my bible afterwards, the story is always relevant to my situation. God reveals things in many ways, you just have to be open to receive without questioning what you know is obvious. Why do people always question religion and don't question the politicians or the news? They rarely ever tell the truth, but we base our lives on what they say. Faith is very important.

Answer 6

The answers to this question show that many people take these stories to be factual. It absolutely amazes me that so many people today seem to have been infected with some sort of insidious mental virus that leads them to the insane certainty that the myths, superstitions, fairy tales and fantastical delusions of a bunch of ignorant Bronze Age fishermen and wandering goat herders represent some kind of cosmic 'TRUTH' about fundamental aspects of existence and reality. They inhabit a delusional reality which contains a magical universe in which consists of a 6,000 year-old earth and heaven, a solid 'firmament' structure (the sky) separating the earth from heaven (terrarium earth), talking snakes (with legs) and donkeys, a shepherd staff that turns into an asp, demons chased out of people and into pigs, friendly spirits, evil spirits, walking on water, multiplying loaves and fishes, food falling from the sky, conception by a ghost, people raised from the dead, the sun stopping in its tracks, parting seas, people being bodily sucked up into heaven (which, by the way, lies on the 'other side' of the sky), world-wide flood that drowned the earth to a depth of 40 feet above the tallest mountain, creating people from a dust bunny and a rib, a magical tree of knowledge, god speaking from a burning bush... and ritual cannibalism, by eating god in the form of a cracker.

In a sane world, anybody running around spouting ANY of that crap, would be locked up in the State Farm for the Funny. Apparently, though, mass insanity seems to convey some sort of free pass for the loony.

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"When one person suffers from a delusion, it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called Religion." ~ Robert M. Pirsig

Answer 7

Both kinds of stories (historical and enigmatic) exist, but the difference, and value derived from each type is apparent.

Answer 8

I take them in the normal sense of the literature they would be understood as... which is generally the sense being factual and real history.. the sotries of Genesis are historic for example as they are portrayed and apporved by Moses as history and believes as history by Jesus

a parable is more lke an allegory, but its kinda obvious which ones they are

Answer 9

I consider most religious stories to be fictional, written metaphorically, like a fable.

Answer 10

The religions stories are all factual.