A purpose of a religious text is to control people. They do that through well-known ways. It says “blah-blah, but look at this fallacy you aren’t aware of, so believe in god”, at different zoom levels. Every one of these is trivially deconstructible cause their main target was uneducated masses which had no scrutiny. Those who had it were religiously “educated” and accounted for. Religions that didn’t do that didn’t survive. That’s the framework of understanding. This thing wasn’t written by “god”, it’s a work of a few scammers, sadly the biggest in our history.
It seems to me that your stand is analogous to anarchists' about law and government. Sure, there's a tyrannical aspect that can get out of hand, but it's far from the whole story.
I don’t think this is a good analogy, since laws and government don’t tell you how the world works, it’s either observable without explanation or left unexplained. In religion there’s no whole story, it all made up. It may contain some real life parts, but it could do so without religious parts. Real life stories doesn’t make it more credible in sentences containing “god”. In fact, the quote of this subthread is wrong, false, debunked. There’s no need to look at it in context, cause whatever role it plays in it can’t make it look good. Looking at falsehoods “in context” and referring to “deeper knowledge and proper understanding” is a beloved theme of religious manipulation.
I think the disconnect is that you seem to consider religious texts as a dry statements of fact. That doesn't make any sense, they're clearly not that.
Would you say the same about great works of fiction, or old fairy tales that for some reason keep grabbing our attention and we repeat them for generations? That they're just falsehoods because duh, frogs obviously can't talk? Or can they have some deeper meaning? Stating facts is not the only way to describe the world.
> Would you say the same about great works of fiction, or old fairy tales
Do you thing religious followers, such as Matthew, see god/heaven/etc as being merely a metaphor?
> That they're just falsehoods because duh
per previous poster: "laws and government don’t tell you how the world works"
works of fiction doesn't purport to either. They might have morals, or subtexts, as much of the contents of the Bible does - but some things in there are meant to be at least partially literal, such as the existence of a divine being that created the world.
What's the greater message behind "God takes care of lesser creatures" when there's no proof of such a thing? That things will generally turn out alright if you don't plan ahead (demonstratably bad advice)..
> Do you thing religious followers, such as Matthew, see god/heaven/etc as being merely a metaphor?
No, I'm not suggesting that. The alternatives to just reporting facts are more than "merely a metaphor".
> works of fiction doesn't purport to either. They might have morals, or subtexts
Disagree - I think they distill patterns from the factual and present them in the form of stories, encoded in the structure of the story. If you're a materialist you might say that the story is less true than the factual manifestations of the patterns, I'd say it's more true; and that it's telling something about the world.
> What's the greater message
We're debating if zero even exists, don't ask me about analysis ;)
Actually the purpose of that whole chapter is about not being a hypocrite, being authentic, not being greedy, and having faith. It's a quick < 5-minute read.
Yeah, a bunch of dudes created a book (which costed a fortune or two before typewriter age) to tell everyone to be good just for the sake of it. As plausible as it can get. /s
It’s a medieval gaslightenment and it would be great if people kept it private at least.
PS. purpose is different from meaning, the latter is just a medium for purpose and may be arbitrary.
