Jesus's Parables: Historically Accurate?!?!

There were two men who lived in the same city. One was a kind man, well liked by those who knew him. The other was a known criminal. Though they had never met and were not closely related, they did have the same name and the same surname. Books are likened unto this, as you should not presume upon one by its name.

Jesus spoke a lot in relation to what is recorded in the Gospels; (thankfully, for) everything He spoke was good. After a recent discussion with a friend, I have come to question: are the parables that Jesus spoke historically accurate? This may seem an unusual question for I have never heard anyone question their historical accuracy, for even among Biblical Creationists who view the Bible as accurate to a straight-forward reading (which insists that Jesus in fact did actually speak the words indicated) the stories Jesus spoke were possibly, though indeterminately, entirely fiction.

However, I maintain that there are parables that Jesus spoke are demonstratively historically accurate (presuming the Bible's accuracy itself). Now, I've gone through all the items listed here and have come up with three categories that describe the parables.

Firstly, situational directions which are in the format, "if you are in this situation, do this", e.g. The Guests (and it may be likened to the kingdom of Heaven, as well as useful in other Earthly situations).

Secondly, there are hypothetical situations, in the format of "if you are in this situation, wouldn't you do this?", e.g. Friend at Night (which also may be likened to the kingdom of Heaven, etc.).

And thirdly, full Earthly stories that with a spiritual meaning, in the format "there was a certain so and so who did such and such" or "the something is like a such and such that did something or the other", e.g. The Two Debtors, The Parable of The Ten Virgins. (This is the primary meaning of the word parable.)

Demonstratively accurate are the last of the examples, most easily: If the scriptures are accurate and Jesus is God, who is always truthful, then his statement that there was a certain person, must indicate that there truly was an actual historical person.

But, to cover all the examples, my primary thought is this: If Jesus is God and God is all knowing, why would he need to make up fictitious stories to prove His point? The world currently has billions of people, God can see and has seen all of these since the beginning of the world. More than likely is that these stories have occurred fully by their descriptions many many times. But frankly, Jesus could very well have seen each of these stories with His own Earthly eyes during His time here on earth in the 30 or so years before His ministry.

Lost My Psycotic Status

Apparently I've lost my "Most likely to go postal" status at work. Jeff, the boss-guy who originally bestowed this beloved honor on me has stolen it from me and given it to this guy:

Relative Truth

"What is your answer to someone who believes truth to be relative?" (From discussion group on facebook.com.)

I hope you don't mind me responding to some of your comments. The thread seems to be progressing very slowly. I obviously couldn't extrapolate on Father Johnny's comments as I wouldn't know where he would go with them, but hopefully my comments will still add something useful. Please don't take this in any offensive way; I fully respect you as a sister I love and though our viewpoints may differ, I am only trying to provide light to the situation and not condemn you in any way.

You made it clear that you believe that truth is relative, however, relative truth is something that cannot be honestly rationalized. That might seem to be a strange statement to make considering that most people who cling to the notion of relative truth consider themselves to be intellectuals, however, it is quite easy to demonstrate.

Strictly speaking, any attempt to rationalize relative truth comes with an insurmountable paradox. Honest rationalization requires faithful adherence to the laws of logic. One of these is the law (or principle) of contradiction. The idea of absolute truth is really just a rewording of this law. The law of contradiction is the notion that two contradictory ideas cannot simultaneously be true. That is, there is one, and only one ultimate truth and not multiple contradictory truths. Therefore, the process of rationalization itself requires a prerequisite of the existence of absolute truth.

If the principle of contradiction is removed from logic, in essence removing absolute truth from the prerequisites of logic, we encounter a separate problem. Without this principle nothing is reliable: contradictory ideas may be simultaneously true, thus a single idea may be simultaneously true and false (additionally violating the principle of identity, another fundamental law of logic); thus, nothing is ultimately determinable and all logic is unreliable. So even removing absolute truth from the requirements of logic does not cause relative truth to be rationally determined; it simply provides that nothing can be determined, effectively destroying logic and rational thought. It could be extrapolated that because of this, logic itself is an illusion, but this comes with the paradox that you must insert absolute truth (i.e. the law of contradiction) for reliable logic to form such an extrapolation, thereby voiding that extrapolation and, for the same reason, any other potentially useful extrapolations of this idea.

At first I thought that by relative truth, you really meant relative morality. Relative morality is an entirely different creature, one which can be rationalized...provided God does not exist. However, though it may be rationally attainable, it has no positive application (unless the ability to rationalize unconditional selfishness is a positive).

I have programmed computers for about 20 years, and have become very adept at the application of logic. For about 10 of those years, I wrestled internally with merging science and religion...as they both cannot be correct if they are contradictory; one has to take precedence and I chose science. I effectively operated at the level of theistic evolutionist, but I was aware that the cruel, wasteful and ultimately ineffective god of theistic evolution was intellectually indistinguishable to no God at all (and I acted that way). I could go into gruesome detail about the destructive logic attainable from this position, but what happened afterward is more important.

It wasn't until I applied the idea that God is as described in the Bible to real life, that everything began making sense. Morality makes sense. Suffering and evil make sense. Even scientific issues make more sense. Granted, I had to discard some mainstream scientific conclusions which rely on the effective nonexistence of God like the big bang and abiogenesis, but none of those ideas are particularly useful anyway except in intellectual discussion and scifi plot lines. I've never really seen a whole lot of things I would call "mysteries" in the Bible, but that's because I've always understood that the Bible only makes sense with the understanding of God existing as described in the Bible, even during my acceptance of the god of theistic evolution. Think of it as suspension of disbelief; it's like viewing Star Trek and suspending disbelief in aliens (especially Q), except it was the Bible and I suspended my disbelief in God as described therein. (And today I can still suspend disbelief in the big bang, etc. to enjoy a scifi every now and again.)

Christianity can be brutally rational because there is no logical or scientific reason that the God of the Bible not existing holds any merit over Him existing and things really do make more sense if He does exist. But if, held as prerequisite that God does not exist (or is ineffectual as the god of an evolutionary world), good and evil have absolutely no rational basis (hence, general societal confusion on the issue) and the only brutally rational moral system of which I'm aware is hedonism. When faced with the option of throwing out a few useless scientific conclusions or throwing out all reasoning behind morality and all rational explanations for evil and suffering, I'm choosing the first and I believe I am rational in doing so.

As far as the "average Joe" is concerned, it seems to me that he's already figured out the rationality of hedonism (you can apply a nicer term here if you like, but "pleasure-seeking as the highest goal" is my meaning, not some official doctrine or anything) as that's where society seems to be heading, and with hardly a church to tell them otherwise it's no wonder. Church after church is effectively conceding that the God of the Bible does not exist by conceding to the god of theistic evolution, who is NOT the same being. Mainstream scientists (at least prevalent atheist ones) are correctly explaining to the masses how that god is worthless. And everyone is calling both the same thing, "God." I've always held that at least on an individual basis, the general public is more intelligent than many give credit, but like any information processing machine, "garbage in, garbage out."

Where Did Evil Come From?

Below is a post I made in a forum previously. I thought it was pretty good and so I'm pasting it in here too.

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There are essentially two types of evil (per the dictionary definition of "evil"), suffering and immorality. Suffering is a consequence of immorality (hence both have ultimately the same source). Immorality is any disobedience to God. All immorality is a decision because we are capable of doing, or not doing, all that God has dictated for us to do and not do. This ability to make moral decisions is, of course, what we call free will. Thus, the ability to choose evil is enabled in every being capable of free will.

The ultimate root of all evil is this: Pride. The first commandment ever broken by any sinner and the only commandment which is necessarily broken every time any commandment is broken is the first. The first commandment is often broken several times just deciding to break another commandment. Pride is the direct violation of the first commandment because if you believe your opinions can be placed above God’s Word, you are holding yourself higher than the Almighty.

Angels have free will too. In all of God’s creation, only one entity with free will (out of all the angels plus 2 humans) is known to have decided to sin without external temptation; how good a creation it must have been! And his first sin also must have been pride (via the logic above). Your question, Father Johny, was, "But how, pray, did it arise in the mind of Lucifer to do such a thing?" At some point this question entered his head, "Are you better than God?" And he sinned by deciding that he was. At minimum, God set up Lucifer’s existence in such a way that he would have eventually asked himself this; at maximum, God asked him the question directly. Either way, why would God put such a question into his mind? Perhaps it was to test him. Did God know he would fail? There is no alternative but that he must have known.

Then Lucifer enters history in the serpent of Genesis, tempting the lady with none other than pride, "when you eat of it...you will be like God." Through Adam's sin at this temptation passed on to him by Eve were he and all of his righteously cursed by the Almighty, hence all our suffering. We make it worse every day by continuing to be prideful and continuing to sin in every manner under Heaven. Every manner of suffering ultimately goes back to some cause of immorality (some more directly than others). I believe it was Paul who said that the entirety of creation groans because of this curse. Could God have stopped Lucifer from tempting Eve or her from tempting Adam? Certainly. Did God know Adam would fail the temptation passed to him by Eve and He would be forced by His own infinite justice to curse the world? He wouldn't be God if he didn't.

It all comes back to the main group topic, the confusion of why. Why would a loving God create a world He knew was destined to be cursed by His own mouth? He did it for us. For you, Father Johnny, and you, my wonderful sister Moniqua, and for me. You see, He wants us to know Him. He wants us to see His absolute justice and terrible wrath; without this curse, we could never have known Him this way. He wants us to know His incomparable jealousy, but how could we have known that if we had never put anything above Him? He wants us to know His infinite mercy and unimaginable love, such that He sent His Son, God, to suffer and die for all our sins and without our sins, we could never have known Him this way. He wants us to know His incredible forgiveness, but how could we have been forgiven had we never strayed. And His forgiveness is unlike that of anyone; He forgave us before He even created us, knowing that we would sin. He forgives us before we even ask Him to forgive us. All we have to do is love Him and choose Him and he will free us from all bonds. And compared to an eternity in the perfect world he plans for us, a few thousand years in this cursed world is not even a blinking of an eye (though it does seem like a long time when you're only twenty something).

Much of this may not mesh well with those who are not young earth creationists because of the alternate position that the fossil record contains history of millions of years of suffering before humans came about, much less sinned (instead of being a vivid reminder of God's terrible wrath executed in the flood). Though I would beckon any Christian who is not a young earth creationist to find out who it is that they are elevating above God and His Word (thereby breaking the first commandment), for God, Himself, said as recorded in Exodus (among many times in the Bible): "in six days Yahweh made the heavens, earth and sea and all that these contain." Besides that, the evolutionary worldview does not answer any ultimate question of where anything came from and doesn't even support the concept of evil, so a discussion of "Where did evil come from?" couldn't possibly make sense from that view anyways.

On Tollerance, Continued

As I was taking a gander around, I noticed an article pop up this morning on the subject of my post yesterday and I thought that I would add some of the ideas from that to my ideas yesterday. Now, yesterday, I was focused specifically on homosexuality. I was thinking that it might be unfair for Christians to be more focused on the ways of the gay when in fact the Bible is totally against any non-marital sexual interaction, and even to focus on that, when there is so much more immorality out there, but I digress. I was asked about homosexuality, which is why I focused on it. Additionally, I don't remember the Bible using the word, "abomination," about any other sexual activity (though it's pretty harsh on bestiality, but I don't believe bestiality is quite as common as homosexuality).

What might have been unclear (but might have been if you read to the end and inferred appropriately), is that I believe Christians should not be judgmental. You might say that my continuing on talking about the immoralities in western culture is a sign of my judgment on western culture or those participating in these immoralities, but consider this (and this):

A close friend of yours is driving and you are a passenger. Your friend has a habit of not stopping at stop signs and he is about to pull up to one when you notice a police officer coming around the corner where your friend probably can't see. What do you do?

I know what I do, and I hope you would do something similar. I would tell my friend, "You better stop, the authorities are watching." Does that make me judgmental? I think not. I think that is specifically a sign of me being a caring individual. Even if I have my own problem stopping at stop signs, I think no one can disagree that it is caring for me to warn my friend.

If I tell an immoral person, "You better stop, the Authority is watching?" How is that any different? Just because I'm not perfect doesn't mean that I should not care that that person will get in trouble and if I see a way to help, I will.

Unfortunately, it often seems difficult for the onlooker to distinguish someone who actually cares from someone who is prideful in his own position and looks down on those who he views as lesser because of their problems (in this case with morality). Acknowledging this, I encourage anyone wanting to enlighten another of their iniquities, to first consider their own and then consider the person's willingness to hear constructive criticism (and your ability to provide it constructively and not pridefully).

Many view those who are trying to get governmental support for Christian morality (i.e. ban homosexual "marriage", ban the slaughter of the unborn, ban prostitution, etc.) as trying to, "impose," their morality, but I disagree. I view it as trying to get the government to stop condoning the morality of humanism and materialism, which are directly opposed to the laws of the true Authority.

On Tollerance

Before I loose this idea, I wanted to convey the thoughts from a conversation I had earlier today. Here's a story of a fictional conversation based on the conversation I had earlier. I was posted the question, "What are your thoughts on homosexuality?" I replied, "It's an abomination." Unfortunately, at that point in the conversation, this topic stopped in preference for another topic.

A few minutes later, my colleague came back to this issue posing a hypothetical situation. "Let's say your cousin was gay, what would you think."

"Well, I wouldn't let him bring his boyfriend to sleep over at my house," I replied.

"But I thought Christians were supposed to accept each other no matter who they are." Obviously my comments struck him as uncaring.

But I disagreed, "No, I would accept him. In fact, I love him. I love everyone because they are, like me, created in God's image. It's not him I would oppose, but his actions."

"But I thought homosexuality was genetic."

I chuckled at his comment and replied, "How exactly are two homosexuals supposed to pass on those genes? I imagine this is one anomaly that natural selection would have eliminated for uselessness."

He acknowledged the humor and irony in his statement and then we moved on. "I thought that people couldn't control whether or not they were gay."

"Sure they can." I probably paused a bit too long after saying that before I continued as he felt confused. "I will admit that it might not be possible for someone to stop having homosexual thoughts and desires, but thinking and doing are two quite different things. If they weren't, I'd be dead right now." At this point, I probably paused too long also, because if I had stopped there, I think I would have confused myself. "I had a number of suicidal thoughts a few years ago in my depression during the period of time when I abandoned God. Also, some other people would be dead because I also had a number of homicidal thoughts. It isn't what a person thinks that makes him (or her) gay, it's what he (or she) does."

I needed to leave, so the conversation was about over. Before parting, I pointed him at Romans 1:18-32 for him to notice that homosexual lust is one of the consequences of abandoning God. I believe western culture in general has done a mighty thorough job at pushing God out of their lives, out of their schools, workplaces, government, history, science, art, literature (am I missing anything?) and for most, out of their homes and hearts. It is not unexpected that these desires arise in a society like ours. There's a good bit other wrong just as described and it's only likely to get worse.

As for some of my comments, here's some Biblical representation:

"Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable." Leviticus 18:22 (NIV). Other translations call it "an abomination", "abhorrent," "a detestable sin," "disgusting," "a hateful sin," and in one, God personally says about this, "I hate that." Most of the English translations say "abomination."

"A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." John 13:34-35 (NIV).

"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law." (emphasis added) Galatians 5:22-24 (NIV).

And if you've forgotten how to pray, perhaps this would be a good starting point: Matthew 6:9-13. "This, then, is how you should pray: 'Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.'" (NIV) I will note that if you do address God with this prayer, you might want to contemplate your own habits in the field of forgiveness.

Congratulations Kristy!

Big shout out (whatever that means) to Kristy for winning Augusta's Biggest Loser competition. She lost 77 pounds. That's freaking amazing. It's also very motivating for me. You can see to the right here, I'm in a distance competition at work and I can use all the motivation I can get. To see Kristy looking just like she did in High School (hint, she was very cute in High School) makes me want to work to look like I did back then...well, maybe without those huge glasses (Kristy, why didn't you tell me my glasses were huge?). Looking at those old pictures, no wonder everyone thought I was a geek...not that they were wrong, but... Anyways, big congratulations, Kristy!