Language, what is it and can God write a book using it that only has one interpretati

You know exactly what I said before on this subject, why ask the question again?. Language is language, so if you believe Barthes' death of the author then it doesn't matter who is speaking or how they are speaking it. I could just about concede that God may be capable of doing something with language that humans are not, but if all he is doing is dictating to human brains and human scribes then no, there's no scope for God to have special, just-this-once exemption from the rule. If you go by Barthes, then it's all language that's affected; if you don't then it's none of it and you can believe in your one true interpretation of The Bible, The Qu'ran or the Little Engine That Could for all it matters.

Like I said above, you want a fresh start because you doubt that I'll be willing to go through and explain Barthesian theory over and over again to your incessant faux-dumb incredulity. And you'd be right. I can't be bothered. You can't be bothered, so neither can I.

I guess because you know most people wouldn't bother to click them. There was no reason to start another thread to discuss this, OWB, no-one was using the original for anything else and we weren't disrupting any other ongoing debate by talking about this. You backed out of it.

 

Because you brought it up again?

No I don’t believe Barthes' death of the author, you do but I don’t.

Also you keep using the word language like you have any idea what it is or how it works and yet many scientists are still trying to figure out those very things.

God doesn’t need a exemption from some manmade rule, being God he makes his own rules.

Once again I don’t go by Barthes and thanks for allowing be to believe in what I already believed, that so nice of you .

No, I don’t have any desire for a “fresh start” and please, I can do without another rehashing of Barthes half baked theory.

It was comments like these that are the reason I started a new thread.

As for the ongoing debate if you look at the original Thread there are now people trying to use the thread for its original purpose, now that we are out of the way.

As for backing out, here I am and I’m not going any where. Why, are you wanting to back out?

 

Sorry, but at what point has anyone claimed that what they've written has one and only one possible interpretation (apart from you, obv)?

Moreover, your point proves nothing. So what if x amount of Hipforums users did hypocritically delude themselves that Barthes' theory doesn't apply to them? It wouldn't indicate that it doesn't apply to God, because you know: x amount of Hipforums users could be wrong.

 

When? When I made this thread?

Then what makes this thread any more worthwhile than a gazillion threads by atheists saying (in effect) "God can't exist because I don't believe in him; also a bunch of people died"?

I'm not even sure what you're referring to here. The fact that scientists are still studying language doesn't mean that it's impossible to know even roughly what language is or how it works. Most theories aren't totally complete - otherwise they'd be theorems - but that doesn't mean no-one can make an argument based on them. You're clutching at straws if you seriously think this weakens my argument.

Who said this is a "man-made rule"? It's a consequence of the existence of language, a human observed it but that doesn't mean he just made it up.

That's okay. In fact, just for being so thankful, I'll go you one better and allow you not to initiate debates and then try and use your faith as a flimsy excuse to ignore reasoned argument whenever you feel like it.

You say "half-baked", I and a hell of a lot of other people say "pretty sound and coherently argued". "Half-baked", "pretty sound and coherently argued"; "half-baked", "pretty sound and coherently argued"; let's call the whole thing off!

Probably would've been easier to just put relaxxx on Ignore.

Its original purpose was obnoxious and retarded. So we just made the world a little worse.

That's one interpretation. But then, I'm not God, so maybe yours it's the right one.

 

If you really don't want to continue the discussion we don't have to.

 

I would be willing to talk about it, but there doesn't seem much point if you'll just respond with "yeah, but Barthes is all hogwash" whenever it gets difficult.

 

Whether things are difficult or not, that's my opinion of Barthes, I'm sorry if somehow that bothers you.

 

Ok, let’s talk about this Barthes' death of the author that you’ve based your whole argument on.

Let’s see, Barthes says something like it doesn’t matter what the author originally intended to say, that because it was written in a human language it is open to interpretation and there is no correct interpretation or probably closer, all interpretation are correct and thus has no real meaning except what the reader gives it.

The logical problem is that Barthes' death of the author is written in a human language and thus is self referring, meaning that Barthes' death of the author, itself has no real meaning and thus is Hogwash.

 

I'm pretty sure that's not what Barthes says, actually. I'm sure he is as aware of the irony that, in attempting to talk about language in this way, he undermines his own ability to communicate his ideas.

It's a moot point though. If what you have observed above is correct then it's not just Barthes that is "Hogwash". Anything else written in a human language would also be "Hogwash". That's if you choose to dismiss anything that does not have one absolute correct interpretation (or infinite, equally correct/incorrect interpretations, since you seem to prefer to believe that that is what Barthes meant, as if to frame him as a nihilist) as "Hogwash", which I would argue is a fucking ridiculous thing to do.

So, next up: if you're arguing that Barthes is wrong, rather than that you just don't like what he's saying, then please cite some characteristics of the Bible's language that would make it less subject to what Barthes describes than any other text.

 

Yes he does.

It is not a moot point. It seems you have missed the total impact of what I said. As I said; Barthes is not true because when you apply it to itself it makes itself untrue, thus making it Hogwash. If it is Hogwash then it doesn’t apply to anything else or at the very least if applied to something else makes what it says about it Hogwash. Thus Barthes not being able to apply to itself means that it doesn’t apply to anything else and can not make anything else Hogwash.

That’s what I’ve been saying all along and if Barthes is wrong why would I care or need to care whether there would be some characteristics of the Bible's language that would make it less subject to what Barthes describes? Unless you're saying that you just want to get back to the original topic of why I believe the Bible has only one correct interpretation.

 

that is a great way to look at it. It is very cool how the bible cross references itself 1000's of times. There are many hidden secrets, available to anyone with an open heart.

 

Thanx! That's what I've been trying to say but many just don't want to hear.

 

If the premise is not true then it doesn't apply to itself. Only if it is true would it be self-refuting, and therefore untrue. An interesting paradox, but one that doesn't really engage with the content of Barthes' essay. Yes Barthes is aware of the irony; the essay is, I like to think, largely a joke. Nonetheless its argument about the problems of authorial intention and "direct" interpretation raises some serious difficulties with the kind of "naive" understanding of language that would posit the possibility of a book (especially one as complex and equivocal as the bible) as being capable of having one and only one meaning. The argument cannot be dismissed in such a trite way.

 

If you've been trying to say that the Bible is a complex puzzle that has to be decrypted, you're been using some very strange words to do this. "Self-interpreting", for example. Maybe you could learn a little from Barthes' "hogwash".

Sorry, that's not the case. Even if Barthes was saying that no idea could ever be communicated because of the death of the author (which he doesn't), that would not prove that the idea did not exist. So if the death of the author prevented Barthes from expressing a description of it effectively, that would not mean that it did not exist.

Even if you think that Barthes is hogwash, and that a single, correct interpretation of anything is possible, you must surely concede that a reader's interpretation is subject to the eloquence and articulacy of whoever communicates it. Dropping a physics textbook into a pen full of monkeys doesn't undo the laws of physics purely because the monkeys can't make sense of the book.

You seem to be trying to find a paradox where one does not exist. I don't believe that, at any point during Barthes' essay on the death of the author, he makes any claim that the phenomenon would not apply to his own essay. But I do believe, strongly, that simply because an idea breaks down if taken to its so-called "logical conclusion" (which is usually nothing of the sort), it does not cease to have any use or application.

I cite again the pen full of monkeys. No amount of interpretation is going to lead them to grasp an author's intention, correct and absolute or otherwise. Is that a flaw in the text? A flaw in the reader? A flaw in the author? Or all/none of the above?

I guess because you don't seem interested in any interpretation of Barthes that might inconvenience your worldview. The reason you need to care is that you've previously derided me for apparently only being interested in reading the Bible with a view to attempting to discredit it (and offered little evidence to back that up, might I add). If I damn you for doing the same with Barthes now, it is only in the name of consistency of debate.

However, you might also care for the reason given: that your explanation for why you dismiss Barthes as "hogwash" doesn't make sense unless Barthes makes some claim to not being personally affected by the linguistic phenomena he describes (which he does not, to my knowledge anyway, do).

Other linguistic ideas, such as the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis would seem to support this theory. One has to ignore a lot more than just Barthes' "hogwash" in order to believe in the kind of "absolutes" you would need for a book to be "self-interpreting", as you have claimed the Bible to be. The nature of human language simply prevents this, unless you're proposing that everything we observe about language is wrong. Are these people, these linguists, doing the Devil's work? Because it doesn't seem much like His style.

As implausible and absurd as it initially sounded, your claims that God and God alone might be able to circumvent these linguistic "problems" (see below) would make a lot more sense, although I suspect that might have more to do with you not having gone into as much detail with them than anything. If God can simply disregard the nature and "rules" of his creations (since you presumably believe God rather than Man invented language), then there's no reason why he couldn't write a "self-interpreting" Bible, although that still leaves us with the question of why he does so little to explain to the billions of people who must be interpreting it wrongly (given the vast range of interpretations extant throughout the world, which by this definition cannot possibly be correct) that they are DOING IT WRONG.

I'm also unclear on why a god so concerned with creating this one, correct interpretation that he would circumvent his own rules and intervene directly in the human world (something he doesn't often do, even in the Bible!) would then choose to express that one interpretation as having "hidden secrets". You've told me I'm wrong any time I've suggested that the Bible is even slightly cryptic or unclear. I'd like you to explain what's so wrong about that suggestion.

I am more interested in statements you made before dismissing Barthes as hogwash, which implied that you believed a single, correct interpretation of the Bible could exist in spite of the "death of the author" phenomenon.

 

Apparently it can be though. Apparently the Bible is neither complex, nor subject to the same rules as other books written in the same language and put through multiple translations. Apparently it's just really bloody clever, but also incredibly bloody simple, so much so that anyone who doesn't "get" it must be going in with a closed mind. Possibly also apparently, intellectuals just don't get it because academia has taught them who to close their minds and blind themselves to These (not at all falsely) Obvious Truths.

I'm purely speculatin' though. OlderWaterBrother might just be really bad at expressing totally legitimate ideas. Just as one should not shoot the messenger, one should not shoot the message.

 

Somtimes I wonder if you even bother to listen to yourself let alone others.

 

I think you're begining to get it! But although the Bible is a very complex book it can be understood.

Almost as bad as you.

 

Do you have any idea how arrogant you come off as when you express these ideas? I mean, even if by some miracle you turn out to be 100% right, you're still tremendously arrogant to think that you have the right to criticise others for not just going along with this stuff when you really offer no evidence or argument in your favour at all. God doesn't like Pride. I read it in a book.

 

Wow, what a clever thing to say.

 

God also doesn't like pork, shellfish or menstruating women. Though I believe Jesus went nuts for a kentucky fried chicken...