I like understanding how others feel, or learning about their beliefs. Respecting their beliefs. (Unless they're some kind of rage psychotic) And occasionally help them understand where there are misunderstandings about my beliefs.
That is of course understandable, and as you have mentioned elsewhere, something that is necessary.
That, however, does really require a principle of '
following the argument, and not the person.' (A certain open mindedness, and resolve to try to get as close to the actual matters of things as possible.) Learning and education are really key players, and discussion and debate are partners of the process of thinking things through as carefully as possible. I am very much for these, and will always strongly urge and encourage these.
To Mars' earlier post; I don't debate when I think it's useless to. Trying to prove who is right through a debate? Rather, I'd correspond with someone if trying to understand others', regardless of whether we agree or not. You sounded condescending.
Allow me to approach from the rear, here. While some may take, and have taken, my tone to be a condescending one, and while I may lean towards that direction a bit, from time to time (depending on the level of serious thinking any certain one may have thrown out), my drive is to shake the thinking process. I have found time and again that a far more unhealthy laziness will have been allowed by some, to have overtaken their reasoning skills. I would not say that
that would be a preferable thing in any way. My posts on this thread have by far and large not been of any condescending nature, or intent. Sometimes, folks do read me wrongly.
It is of course a most important thing (see two paragraphs above) to be in the position of trying to understand what another person in discussion or debate is putting forward. Failure to listen (read) so as to understand, is failure to produce a more beneficial situation. I will go without mentioning (or should, at least) that when details of a matter upon which a certain understanding will have been built are known to be at fault, we will have to go back to those very details firstly--regardless of how involved they may be. There are several different apporaches for trying to accomplish this. I usually go straight to the problem matters (or at least try to), but often find some are not willing to do that.
That, is doing just what we both have agreed upon is necessary. It is therefore detrimental to progress in understanding and correcting towards more sound and valid understandings to refuse to attempt to listen (or read) to more fully understand.
The matter of agreeing, is different from the matter of the actuality of a thing under inquiry, or observation. There will of course be times, nevertheless, when a position held will disagree with another due to in lack of the soundness and validity of things--often leading to degrees of possibility at best. It is not a matter of the person, but of the argument's being more accurate, more correct, and more pragmatic and so on. In one better style of formal debate, there is no winning team, but simply the matter of logical points made which hold up under scrutiny. Here, of course, on this thread, we have nothing resembling formal debate, but are exercising (at least some of us) the same general principles involved.
My intention is to encourage deeper, serious thought, and stimulate learning. It is also my hope that all would be--
as we both agree to on the benefit of such--willing to listen (or read) so as to understand and learn, to work towards accuracy and correctness, as much as humanly possible, as much of the time as possible, and over as large a range of matters as possible.
To answer one of your questions about my beliefs: I think the biggest issue I have with the translation of the bible is the Old Testament at times uses 'sin' to describe what in Hebrew could either be "rebellion" or unintentional "error" that is "misguided but not unconditionally negligent or culpable. Purpose of the translation should be to carry the same meaning it had in the original language. I also believe the passage that outright tells you to sin was also a funny mistranslation! I don't care to debate, so I won't even bother finding it.
Yes, I understand the problem--of course, it will also depend on which translation a person will be using, however. There is the translating method of using one word assignment. It is the best method. It does maintain contextual adherence on both the immediate and the overal context, yet usually assigns one English word to the original language word. So, we get the English '
sin' all over the place, and the English '
error' too. Some translations (I'd have to do a specific search) may rendering in a larger spread than this two, even, but it may be uncomon. The trick will be to allow the English '
sin' to be freed from the later Christian emphasis it has received, and allowed to work with the context within which it sits in the Hebrew documents.
The Hebrew word
תחטא (
root is חטא khetia) found at Job 5:24, for example is probably usually not translated '
sin' in most, if not all English translations. The same would be true of Gen 31:39a. As for any rebellious attitude, especially towards YHWH, or his servants, that was clearly put into '
being in the wrong' by the system, so we have to take that as it is. It would invalid to demand that the best understood intention of the authorship was not what it had been. Keeping that range of flexibility of nuance with the English '
sin,' is not going to give us any real problem with that, actually.
I really wonder about what it is you are talking about with your '
passage that tells one to sin,' however. Would you please see if you can run that down? It's not Ps 69:27, right? I wonder. Again, either your understanding of the actualities of the involved matters are accurate and correct enough, or room for further understanding is the case. Being lazy at this point would be of no benefit for any discussion or debate--
since learning is the intention and it goes with the data, matters, and arguments, not the people involved.
Thank you for dissecting my post and telling where I was right and where I was wrong all mighty knowing one.
You are of course, most welcome. Again, it is not a matter of your being '
wrong or right,' but a matter of what is '
acccurate and correct' (to the comparative or superlative degrees). Where did that final epithet come from, I wonder? What I know, I know, to the degree that I know it, and what I don't know, I don't know... so...?
