More important for religion - tradition or interpretation?

[enoch]

The rise of the evangelical movement, not just in the US but throughout the world (the pope is in south america partly to deal with the massive number of converts from the catholic church)

raises a very interesting question

To be very simple - evangelicalism basically allows anyone and I mean anyone to create their own religion <church> based on an individual or group interpretation of the bible -
remember I am keeping it very simple

this, of course, runs contrary to the big Christian religions that have long histories and ritualized traditions that have been instilled beyond interpretation
for centuries or millenia

so what is more important to a religion

a tradition that can be linked to the early christians or the protestant reformation whose religions adopted many familiar catholic rituals
ie the past


or is it all about interpretation - which includes the churches that try to appeal only to the young to the snake dancers (which does have a tradition but not in the same sense as the mainstream rituals) to the guy who starts a church his garage that turns into a multimillion dollar TV and print empire (true story)


poll included - I will comment later - I don't want to start any trends

[Ummon]

To summarize: Egg or chicken?

Personally, I would say egg. Reptiles deposed eggs as well. :wink:

In any case, the most important thing is living contact with symbols. Thus, neither of the above.

[Sadreddine]

Why putting "a religion" (generic) when you mean "christianity" (specific)?

It tends to happen, but it is still confusing. You said:

"so what is more important to a religion

a tradition that can be linked to the early christians or the protestant reformation whose religions adopted many familiar catholic rituals
ie the past [...] or is it all about interpretation"

Anyway, I think there must be a reasonable mix of the two, depending on the particular verse and context.

[enoch]

Why putting "a religion" (generic) when you mean "christianity" (specific)?

It tends to happen, but it is still confusing. You said:

"so what is more important to a religion

a tradition that can be linked to the early christians or the protestant reformation whose religions adopted many familiar catholic rituals
ie the past [...] or is it all about interpretation"

Anyway, I think there must be a reasonable mix of the two, depending on the particular verse and context.

common example that will make sense to the majority of members

[Darth Wong]

I would prefer neither, as you probably know, but if you have to pick one, I would tend to think that tradition is better than interpretation. The reason I say that is the malleability of tradition. Traditions can change, however slowly. But interpretations of source documents are limited by the fact that the source document cannot be revised or improved in any way. No matter how far we advance, we still use the same documents, in many cases written so long ago that they didn't even have running water yet, and they thought the world stopped at the mountains.

[Tom Paine]

Interpretation is my personal one, for others - I myself am not religious, but talking to various religious people having a bit of a mither over their faith tends to lead to me saying they should interpret their holy texts themselves, not rely on the interpretations of others; by all means talk to others, but in the end your faith must be one you believe in and can hold with intellectual integrity, and that means one you yourself constructed. Some people embrace the idea, others are terrified of it.

[Darth Wong]

Interpretation is my personal one, for others - I myself am not religious, but talking to various religious people having a bit of a mither over their faith tends to lead to me saying they should interpret their holy texts themselves, not rely on the interpretations of others; by all means talk to others, but in the end your faith must be one you believe in and can hold with intellectual integrity, and that means one you yourself constructed. Some people embrace the idea, others are terrified of it.

What if the text itself has serious problems? The argument that you're always better off interpreting the text yourself presumes that the closer you get to the text, the better off you are. If a religion is indeed a living, growing, organic thing, then you're better off not always going back to the source.

[Tom Paine]

What if the text itself has serious problems? The argument that you're always better off interpreting the text yourself presumes that the closer you get to the text, the better off you are. If a religion is indeed a living, growing, organic thing, then you're better off not always going back to the source.

Depends. I work on the basis that if you want to have a religion, at least make it faithful to the relevant deity, not to a human interpretation you assume to be correct; exercise your godgiven reason.

[Darth Wong]

Depends. I work on the basis that if you want to have a religion, at least make it faithful to the relevant deity, not to a human interpretation you assume to be correct; exercise your godgiven reason.

The relevant deity is not necessarily accurately represented by the source text.

[enoch]

EDIT

thank you for changing it

[imb39]

could someone wiser than I change my poll so who voted for what is not public

I think it will be better that way

thank you

Done!

[Thanatos]

The problem with interpretation is that you keep interpreting things "to modern times" and you'll eventually come up with this "thing" that has no real resemblance to the original doctrine.

[Tom Paine]

The problem with interpretation is that you keep interpreting things "to modern times" and you'll eventually come up with this "thing" that has no real resemblance to the original doctrine.

That's not necessarily a bad thing - the original doctrine was, as we all know presumably, designed for the time in which it was written/spoken, not for all time.

[David Deas]

The problem with interpretation is that you keep interpreting things "to modern times" and you'll eventually come up with this "thing" that has no real resemblance to the original doctrine.

Central ideas and themes should remain the same. So that shouldn't be a challenge to modernization. The issue comes in when they don't, which is not necessarily related to modernization. Like, for example, all of the Christians who interpret the Bible in ways that conform to their own lifestyles. Those guys have been around ever since the beginning of the religion.

[Thanatos]

If that's the case, you might as well just create a whole new religion then.

[Tom Paine]

That's what Luther and Calvin did, in the former case accidentally. Its a matter of interpretation of the same texts, that's the only reason we call them the same religion.

[Chaigidel]

Im gonna go with interpretation just because its so widespread

but the value of a correctly kept tradition cannot be understated either.

:O

[David Deas]

Problems with the text is exactly how a lot of individuals become atheists.

[Zenith Darksea]

When you look at a religion such as Christianity, there are revealed truths and unrevealed truths. The revealed truths (belief in the Holy Trinity, the complete humanity and divinity of Christ, etc. etc.) are necessary for salvation, and so are not open to interpretation. God revealed them, and that is how they are. Unrevealed truths are not necessary to salvation, and so there is room for interpretation.

However, more broadly speaking, tradition is to be trusted over personal interpretation. I'll post here an analogy that I posted in the 'Orthodox Christianity' thread.

Imagine a jug of clear water. You pour this water into ten different glasses, but in each case the water in the glasses has its own individual hue. Why is this? Has the water changed? No, it's simply the colour of the glass.

It's a pretty straightforward analogy, but basically if you leave important matters of religion to personal interpretation you will get all sorts of different ideas about doctrine when there was only originally one truth (and still is only one truth). The point about religion is that it ought, in theory, to be an exact truth. Christianity, for example, was not something that was true in the first century but not true anymore. It is always true. Indeed, the New Testament itself points this out - that is why it does not say that the Bible is the sole source of doctrine (which would have been difficult for the first few hundred years of Christian history, as it wasn't a single book that everyone had complete access to), but the Church. A lot of Protestants, believing in sola scriptura, seem to think that the Bible came down in one piece from heaven and that the Holy Spirit will make them all interpret it correctly. But only one interpretation can actually be correct, and not many Protestants actually end up with it (though some do). However, it is not the individual who is infallible, but, as Holy Scripture itself says, the Church, which acts as a vessel of teaching. That is how early Christians preserved their faith, through Church tradition, and that is how the Orthodox still go about things.

[enoch]

When you look at a religion such as Christianity, there are revealed truths and unrevealed truths. The revealed truths (belief in the Holy Trinity, the complete humanity and divinity of Christ, etc. etc.) are necessary for salvation, and so are not open to interpretation. God revealed them, and that is how they are. Unrevealed truths are not necessary to salvation, and so there is room for interpretation.

However, more broadly speaking, tradition is to be trusted over personal interpretation. I'll post here an analogy that I posted in the 'Orthodox Christianity' thread.

Imagine a jug of clear water. You pour this water into ten different glasses, but in each case the water in the glasses has its own individual hue. Why is this? Has the water changed? No, it's simply the colour of the glass.

It's a pretty straightforward analogy, but basically if you leave important matters of religion to personal interpretation you will get all sorts of different ideas about doctrine when there was only originally one truth (and still is only one truth). The point about religion is that it ought, in theory, to be an exact truth. Christianity, for example, was not something that was true in the first century but not true anymore. It is always true. Indeed, the New Testament itself points this out - that is why it does not say that the Bible is the sole source of doctrine (which would have been difficult for the first few hundred years of Christian history, as it wasn't a single book that everyone had complete access to), but the Church. A lot of Protestants, believing in sola scriptura, seem to think that the Bible came down in one piece from heaven and that the Holy Spirit will make them all interpret it correctly. But only one interpretation can actually be correct, and not many Protestants actually end up with it (though some do). However, it is not the individual who is infallible, but, as Holy Scripture itself says, the Church, which acts as a vessel of teaching. That is how early Christians preserved their faith, through Church tradition, and that is how the Orthodox still go about things.

I thought this was incredibly well said - but according to you it would not be the Orthodox Church, but rather the Roman Church that is infallible??????

wouldn't it?