What if you owned your own country...?

[Lief Erikson]

Originally Posted by sisterandcousinandaunt

As I explained. When human definitions are involved (as they always are) error is inevitable. Therefore, the "truth" you wish to embody in law is flawed, because the only way you have to embody it is in flawed language, and not in the direct apprehension of God.

I think that human understanding comes to all kinds of contradictory conclusions on religious texts, but when the Holy Spirit illuminates the meaning of an inspired texts for the human mind, this problem is eliminated. Also, doctrines in the Bible are repeated in multiple places, so the possibility of misunderstanding is further reduced by that. There is also a lot of exposition on the meaning of Biblical doctrine in the Epistles.

There may be some errors, as you say, but in my view it's much easier to go wrong when you're going on human understanding than it is when you are listening to and applying God's understanding.

Originally Posted by sisterandcousinandaunt

Interesting, but not relevant. I wasn't saying God used analogies, I said that men did, in trying to explain their slice of direct perception.

Fine, well the same thing I said still goes if contradictions between religions are the result of men's analogies. If basic statements of fact in religious texts and whole passages that are contradictory are actually analogies of various kinds, then religion itself would be essentially worthless. For if that's the case, then we could not understand a thing God's talking about from those religions and would be forming all of our decisions and ideas about religion on our own without any assistance from any religion. Then it would be subjective, in the human mind, and comes down to being imagination. We'd be believing in our imaginings.

Besides, that's a ridiculously broad generalization when applied to all religious writers.

Originally Posted by sisterandcousinandaunt

No. Opinions about the truth is not the same as perceptions of the truth. I think there is one truth, like one elephant for the blind men. Their inability to perceive it in total doesn't mean it's not an elephant, but it doesn't mean they weren't perceiving something true, either.

Okay, well I believe something similar to that. I believe that most religions involve blind men feeling an elephant, or people knowing part of God's truth and making a lot of mistakes in other ways (and partly being led astray by demons), but I would go a step further and say that through Christ one's eyes can be opened so that he or she can see the elephant.