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Comment by CameronNemo | Hacker News Reader

Generally, wouldn't a religious organization be a biased source? They use religious texts to derive power, establish a narrative, and influence people's actions.

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I reject this blanket characterization of religious organizations, but anyway the Eastern / Greek Orthodox Church is interesting here because it descends directly from the original Greek speaking Christians in the Eastern Roman empire when the Bible was written.

It's like asking a Jew about translating the Torah - it's about historical continuity and subject matter expertise.

like asking a Jew about translating the Torah

But it is not. A single person of Jewish faith has no conflict of interest.

A better example would be a centralized rabbinic authority, which hasn't existed since the fall of ancient Israel.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanhedrin

The Gospels were written in the first century AD, when the (Catholic) Church was not in any way a powerful organization. Christianity didn't because the official religion until many centuries later:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edict_of_Milan

And just because someone is biased, does not make them wrong:

* https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/genetic

* https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/ad-hominem

This has nothing to do with anything I said.

You have an interesting point. However, if a biased, power-hungry organization says that the temperature outside at a certain time & location is 27° C and that really is the temperature there, the bias and ambition are less relevant.

Good thing atheists don't have any biases.

You are putting words in my mouth. I specifically called out religious organizations, not religious individuals.

I would have just as much doubt in the analysis of an atheistic organization.

Secular =/= atheistic.

Are you aware that the Orthodox church doesn't have a single leader? It is several organizations which co-exist as one united body.

(More or less. There are some recent schisms which are probably temporary. There aren't currently any partitions, ie Constantinople and Moscow are still united through Antioch, etc.)

Technically Christ leads the church, but even among God there are 3 of them who co-exist.

In this case no. Even if we accept your argument - which really can only be partly true - I don't understand how the interpretation of epiousios could change.

How would they derive power, establish a narrative and influence people's actions?

On big issues that may be something to keep in mind, in an issue such as this, which a word could be taken to mean either "daily bread", "supersubstantial bread" or anything in between, I don't really see why they'd try to spin it any way other the one they honestly understood it as.

I began my comment with the word "generally" for a reason. The person I replied to gave broad advice to consult the Eastern Orthodox church for religious interpretation. I was responding to that broad recommendation, not this specific case.

No. This text belongs to a religious tradition. Texts are not free-floating bits of meaning somehow unrelated to the traditions in which they were written. So reading text in light of tradition is arguably the best way to interpret text.

Indeed. Its a clear case of trusting the cat to keep the cream. But most poeple dont seem to notice, which is indicative for how strong the illusions the churches have created are.

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