Religious apologists want us to believe that oral tradition, especially from a pre-scientific age, should be a trusted method to transmit truth. If one is open-minded, and a science-based thinker, this is for you:
Our brains don’t let piddling little facts get in the way of a good story, allowing lies to infect the mind with surprising ease.
Why we can't trust our unreliable brains.
Choose how you look at reality wisely. Yes, it is a binary choice.
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SCIENCE JUSTIFIES ITSELF
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New Testament scholars talk about the importance of oral tradition to reach back to discover what Jesus "really said." But with EVERY telling of a bit of oral tradition, changes will creep in. Furthermore, the assumption that oral tradition preserves something Jesus may have said is based on the assumption that Jesus was a real person. The 'words of Jesus' may have all been made up: there could have been no oral tradition at all. And it is absolutely true that lies infect the mind, as well as a lot of other stuff. It is just so obvious that so much that we read in the gospels just bubbled up out of the IMAGINATIONS of the authors!
ReplyDeleteYes, David. I make the same points in a post on the blog a few weeks ago. Thanks for the comment.
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