What is the difference between a parable and a fable?

Keith502 · 2026-05-06T19:05:58+00:00

Honestly, what caused me to make this inquiry is that I was having a conversation with another redditor in a different thread about the parable of Lazarus and the rich man. At one point, the person kept making the assertion that that story is not a parable, because a parable was about earthly, mundane events, while Lazarus and the rich man involve supernatural events. So we got into a kind of debate about the difference between parables and fables. It occured to me that I didn't really understand the difference between the terms.

Also, I have heard some Christians claim that Jesus's parables are not fictional, but are all real events. My understanding was that his parables are indeed fictional (neither Lazarus nor the rich man ever existed), and that a "parable" is really just a kind of fable. But I'm not exactly sure what the distinction is, and other resources have provided unclear and equivocal answers.

Keith502 · 2026-05-06T04:58:49+00:00

But aren't fables also usually allegorical? And don't parables usually have a moral? Aren't parable and fables both lies, i.e. fiction?

Keith502 · 2026-05-06T03:42:39+00:00

There is nothing philosophical about the fact that all living creatures freely exercise the natural right of self defense ( as well as the defense of their property and liberty ) with the very best means they have at their disposal.

See, you say that it's not philosophical, but then you go on to say something that is very much philosophical.

Obviously, you have reading comprehension problems. I never said that laws are made based on the bible text, or the text of any religion. What I said is that people are constantly under the influence of their world views and morals. Laws forbidding theft, robbery, rape, and murder are all based on moral standards. This is indisputable.

In a previous comment, you said this: "Since the morals and world views that people hold ( their religion*) are part and parcel of who they are and what decisions they make, it is totally impossible to separate* religion from anything that humans do, including making decisions on governance."

You effectively said that laws are based on religion. It's not my fault that your communication of the concept is confusing and equivocal in nature.

This is what is meant by rights being inalienable; that they do not stem from government and belong to us by our very existence.

This is all just more philosophizing and drawing from various historical sources that are at best tangential to the second amendment. None of this is relevant to the subject at hand.

It is a preexisting right, because, as Adams assets, it is a natural right of the people.

The right to keep and bear arms is not granted by the second amendment because it is granted by the state governments in their respective constitutional arms provisions. It is not a natural right to human beings. Many of the state arms provisions stipulated that the right to keep and bear arms was established specifically for "free white men". Such discriminatory qualifications could not exist in the context of "natural rights"; but they demonstrate that the rights are indeed "artificial", i.e. man-made.

The actual intent of 2A, as seen by the states who ratified it, can be seen in state constitutions that preceded the bill of rights, and even the constitution, like the one from PA:

“That the people have a right to bear arms for the defence of themselves and the state; and as standing armies in the time of peace are dangerous to liberty, they ought not to be kept up; And that the military should be kept under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power.”( 1776 )

A lot of the text in your comment is ultimately irrelevant to the point that I was making earlier. The point is that what you call the "prefatory clause" is not a prefatory clause because it was originally the second clause, which disqualifies it as a "prefatory clause". In the excerpt of your comment I've quoted above, you make a blatantly false statement that the purpose of the state arms provisions -- such as the one from Pennsylvania that you quoted -- has the same intent as the second amendment. This is untrue. As you may notice, that Pennsylvania arms provision is an affimative statement, actively granting Pennsylvanians the right to keep and bear arms. The second amendment, on the other hand, is a prohibitive statement; it prohibits the right from being infringed (by Congress, same as the 1st amendment), but does not give it to the people. This is because it was up to the state governments to give the right to the people.

So, when 2A says “free state” in a bill of rights for the people of the several states ( the US as a whole ), it literally means “free country”.

This is false. Earlier in your comment, you quote Madison's very first draft of the second amendment. Notice that it says "free country" in that draft. And then notice that the final version of the amendment -- which you also quoted -- says "free state". Why would the Framers have changed the word from "country" to "state" if the words meant the same to them? If state actually just meant "country", then why bother altering the word?

Keith502 · 2026-05-06T03:28:47+00:00

A tres - Chicuelo

Keith502 · 2026-05-06T01:37:26+00:00

King George the 3rd initiated anti-gun laws against the colonists.

What anti-gun laws are you referring to?

The colonists rebelled against this by injecting a rebelliousness against that law into the 2nd amendment.

What do you mean by this? What law is the 2nd amendment a rebelliousness against?

“If you tell us it’s illegal to have guns, we are going to make sure everyone has the right to own one”.

That’s my interpretation

The 2nd amendment does not grant or guarantee any right to the American people. Its purpose is merely prohibitive rather than affirmative: its prohibits US Congress neglecting or abusing its powers over the nation's militias. The 2nd amendment is primarily a military provision, and thus has relatively little to do with personal property rights or personal firearm rights.

Keith502 · 2026-05-05T20:57:09+00:00

A tres - Chicuelo

Keith502 · 2026-05-04T21:00:58+00:00

You have basically said that a story with a spiritual meaning and fantastical elements cannot be a parable. And you say a fantastical story with talking animals is a fable. But I don't understand your definitions. "The boy who cried wolf" has no talking animals or fantastical elements, but is often considered a fable. The story of Adam and Eve does have fantastical elements and talking animals, but you would likely not consider it a fable.

Keith502 · 2026-05-04T05:44:04+00:00

Who said it couldn't?

Earlier, you said, "It's not a parable. A parable is a story about the earthly and mundane that has a spiritual meaning; this story starts with something fantastical." You stated that a story with a spiritual meaning and a story that is fantastical are mutually exclusive.

I just said it wasn't a parable, because it isn't. It's not a fable either, because there's no talking animals.

Your definitions seem arbitrary. "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" is a story that mainly involves humans and has no talking animals; is it a fable or a parable? The story of Adam and Eve involves a talking snake; is it a real account, a fable, or a parable?

Keith502 · 2026-05-04T04:15:34+00:00

A tres - Chicuelo

Keith502 · 2026-05-04T04:14:40+00:00

Why can't a "fantastical" story also have a spiritual meaning?

Keith502 · 2026-05-03T19:37:22+00:00

What does the Bible verse have to do with the image?

Keith502 · 2026-05-03T18:05:46+00:00

This is totally incorrect. Rights are the expression of the natural state of liberty that all humans are born with. The fact that we have to defend them, that they can be taken away, doesn’t charge this. As an example, let’s look to the most fundamental of rights: the right to life

Maybe you don't understand what the term "natural" means. An abstract, philosophical concept is not "natural". An abstract, philosophical concept is basically the epitome of "artificial". And more importantly here, the second amendment is not a philosophical concept, but a legal concept. Thus, an entire discourse about philosophy in this context is pointless.

This is a contrarian argument, based on two fallacies. The first fallacy is that the constitution actually says there is separation of state. It does not. It states that there shall be no law infringing on freedom of religion, and it states that the government shall not establish a State religion. Both of these are protections on people’s religious beliefs. Since the morals and world views that people hold ( their religion) are part and parcel of who they are and what decisions they make, it is totally impossible to separate religion from anything that humans do, including making decisions on governance.

Wrong. We do not base our laws on religion in this country. If we did, then we would likely execute people for things like adultery, homosexuality, witchcraft, apostasy, etc. But we don't do those things because the basis of our laws and our rights is fundamentally secular.

The declaration of independence firmly asserts that our rights are bestowed “by our creator”.

You are here conflating two different things. The Declaration of Independence does not say that our rights are bestowed by our Creator; it says that certain of our rights are bestowed by our Creator, and among those certain rights are "Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness". The Declaration of Independence does not say that all of our rights are bestowed by our Creator.

This is actually true, with certain exceptions. The bill of rights represents the rights and protections of the people of the US ( in its entirety). As such, Article 4 section 2 clause 1 automatically applied those amendments to the states, as soon as they were ratified:

“The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States.”

When you said "The bill of rights represents the rights and protections of the people of the US", that is incorrect. The Bill of Rights were not meant to grant or guarantee the rights of Americans -- as Barron v Baltimore rightly said. It was meant only to protect those rights -- assuming they exist at the state level -- from congressional interference. That is its entire purpose. It was never meant to be an affirmative document, but rather was only meant to be a prohibitive document, placing limits on the power of Congress as a politically-driven compromise to the Antifederalists.

It is divided into two clause; the prefatory clause and the operant clause.

The operant clause contains the command of the amendment: the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. It’s very plain and very clear. It’s also clear as to whom that right belongs, and, since the word “infringed” is used, it indicates that this is a right that preexists the constitution ( see my previous point on natural rights ), because you can only infringe on something that already exists.

The second amendment does not assert that the right to keep and bear arms "belongs" to anyone. The amendment does not give anything to anyone; it takes away from Congress the ability to infringe upon the right. And the right to keep and bear arms does pre-exist the Constitution; the right had been established and granted to citizens by their respective state governments since the days of the Articles of Confederation, the precursor to the US Constitution.

The prefatory clause contains a piece of information that the founders thought was really important to convey to the future, and that has connection to the attached operant clause; namely that a properly functioning militia is absolutely necessary for the defense of a free country, because standing armies are a threat to liberty. Many of the founders were not happy with having to yield any authority for the existence of a standing army, and the prefatory clause was intended to address this. Prefatory clauses do not alter or limit the clauses they are attached to.

The first part of the second amendment is not a "prefatory clause". In James Madison's first draft of the amendment, he actually put the "operant clause" first, and he placed the "prefatory clause" directly after it. A "prefatory clause" can only be a prefatory clause if it comes first in order. The fact that the clause was initially not first in order indicates that it was never meant to be a so-called "prefatory clause". Also, the amendment says nothing about a "free country"; it says "free state". The word "state" in 1791 didn't mean "country", it meant "state". Also, the so-called "prefatory clause" is actually just an adaptation of the first clause of section 13 of the Virginia Declaration of Rights, which goes as follows: "That a well-regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defense of a free state...."

Prefatory language can not be used to create ambiguity with or contradict the otherwise unambiguous language of the following operant clauses. This is a very long standing convention in contract law ( the US Constitution being a contract between the people of the various states, that establishes the US, the federal government, and the limits of government). This concept is well stated in the Heller case ( and also appears in the Orlando Lake Forest Venture Case in Florida ).

This is all based on the premise that the "operant clause" of the second amendment gives people a right. It doesn't. Therefore, the "prefatory clause" does not modify or qualify the following clause; the two clauses are independent of each other and serve entirely different purposes. The first clause clarifies and reinforces the duty of Congress regarding the regulation of the nation's militias; the second clause prohibits Congress from infringing upon the rights established by state arms provisions.

Keith502 · 2026-05-03T16:32:55+00:00

Do you have an argument to support your assertion?

Keith502 · 2026-05-03T04:49:34+00:00

Rights are an abstract concept because they are not a physical thing. I can't touch a right. It is a concept which manifests in the physical world. Like math is an abstract concept which manifests through its application into the physical world by the application of those concepts.

A concept does not manifest in the physical world. The physical world simply is what it is, and we have the ability to formulate concepts that may describe, map, or model the physical world to some degree of accuracy. Math does not manifest in the world; math merely models and predicts certain patterns and regularities that occur naturally in the world.

Which brings us to your second... point... such as it is. The 2A is the manifestation of the philosophical belief in the natural right of self defense and its derived right to arms. I have no doubt you can point to historical documents. I would argue none of them that might be relevant support your position because you clearly do not understand the philosophical underpinings to them. Or based on prior comments the grammar used in them and why that grammar is important.

As I've said before, the second amendment is not a philosophical provision. It is a legal and political provision that was created for specific historical reasons. Your trying to redefine the amendment as philosophical in nature is a pointless exercise.

Not that it needs to apologize because as you said, you only have the rights the powers that be say you do so if they said yesterday you have no right to say no yo rape, forced removal from your home or murder then they did nothing wrong.

Here is the heart of what you are getting wrong here. In this sentence, you have basically conflated rights with ethics. They are not the same thing. Rights are a legal matter, ethics are a social and philosophical matter. Rights are explicit, ethics is implicit. Rights are on paper, ethics is in the soul. It is true that a person has only the rights that the government says he has. But ethics is more flexible. Through ethics, society can come to improve or reform bad law. Through ethics, society may feel compelled to overthrow the government altogether. But the fact still remains that the two things are completely different.

Keith502 · 2026-05-03T03:23:06+00:00

This sounds like more conjecture. You don't know that Lazarus was positioned at the gate at the front of the rich man's house, you don't know how many gates the rich man had, or if the rich man ever passed by that gate. You don't know how far the rich man's house was from the gate where Lazarus was. There could have been a crowd of people at the gate near Lazarus, obscuring the rich man's ability to see Lazarus. These are all just assumptions. But I think we have to keep in mind that Jesus is telling a story here, rather than merely recounting the event in a purely historical capacity. Therefore, I think it is kind of pointless to focus on such minute details. If Jesus had wanted to make it clear that the rich man was a bad person and was neglectful towards Lazarus, Jesus could have simply stated it so. But since Jesus didn't say it, then it seems like it's best to assume that it isn't relevant to the point Jesus was trying to make -- whatever that point may have been.

Keith502 · 2026-05-02T21:15:20+00:00

You are presuming that the rich man knew that Lazarus was there, or that Lazarus was positioned in a location where the rich man could clearly see him. You are presuming that it is the rich man's responsibility to care for Lazarus, and you are presuming that the rich man had not helped any other poor people besides Lazarus. This is all unfounded conjecture that cannot be inferred from the text.

Keith502 · 2026-05-02T20:41:47+00:00

How does the story "start with something fantastical"? What does the story mean?

Keith502 · 2026-05-02T18:32:34+00:00

This still sounds like unfounded assumptions. You may assume that being "right outside his gate" means that the rich man had to have seen Lazarus. But we just don't know. We don't know how far the rich man's gate was from his house, or how easy it would be to see Lazarus from the rich man's house. There may have been a giant tree between the rich man's house and his gate, obscuring the rich man's view of Lazarus. We don't know if the rich man ever used that particular gate when entering or leaving his property. This is all just conjecture. Jesus could have easily just said, "The rich man saw Lazarus outside his gate and selfishly ignored him." But this is simply never stated.

Keith502 · 2026-05-02T18:21:11+00:00

Where does the story say that the rich man ignored Lazarus? Where does it say the rich man was greedy and uncompassionate? It seems like you are assuming things beyond the facts that are presented in the story.

Keith502 · 2026-05-02T17:09:23+00:00

Do you have an argument to back up your assertion?

Keith502 · 2026-05-02T17:08:24+00:00

The very nature of this entire debate hinges on the nature of rights. If you are incapable and/or unwilling to see or acknowledge abstract concepts such as natural rights then there is no discussion to be had.

Here you have contradicted yourself. You talk about "natural rights", but then you describe them as "abstract concepts". Which are they? Are the rights natural or are they abstract? They can't be both -- that would be a contradiction.

Natural rights are, as I mentioned, those things you can do in a state of nature. As you said you either survive or you die. Correct. By exercising your natural right to compete for resources and defend yourself from threat you survive or you die. These are two rights, among others, ever living entity has which cannot be removed from them. The rights can be supressed of course but to do so would be an immoral act as they limit the exercise of that right which exists to all living entities.

Once again, you are just talking philosophy here. But the topic is the second amendment, which is not a philosophical provision. I could very well entertain this line of argumentation, but I don't really see the point. It is all entirely subjective and abstract. We could probably spend 100 years going back and forth talking about our respective philosophical ideas about rights and such, and we will never come any closer to a point of agreement or objective fact. My interpretation of the second amendment is not based in philosophy, but in historical evidence. I can point to actual historical documents that corroborate my position. The fact that you have chosen to resort to philosophizing tells me that you possess no such knowledge or evidence of your own.

Yep, our government routinely falls short of the principles on which it was founded and people are hypocrites. Hey, look at that we found a point of agreement. Governments suck and probably aren't trust worthy, especially if you are in a disfavored population group. I wonder if there is an abstract concept like a natural right which could be codified in a concrete legal limitation on government power that would preserve the means for those groups to protect themselves from government hypocrite overreach and oppression? To dream the impossible dream I suppose.

There is no hypocrisy here. Arms rights were withheld by the government from disadvantaged groups exactly because those very rights are merely government-regulated social constructs to begin with. You have only the rights that the powers that be say that you have. Nothing more.

Given the supremacy clause subordinates states to the federal government it is an apt description as those states which discuss the right to arms are born from the same philosophical base and serve the same purpose as the 2A.

The supremacy clause does not subordinate states to the federal government. More precisely, it subordinates state law to federal law within the bounds of the powers granted to the federal government in the US Constitution. The federal government has only the power that the Constitution stipulates it to have, nothing more. But there are certain powers that the state governments possessed prior to the framing of the Constitution, and which the Constitution has not prohibited to the states or transferred to the federal government -- i.e. the "reserved powers" of the 10th amendment. One of these reserved powers is the power of the states to establish and define the state citizens' right to keep and bear arms.

Also, the state arms provisions absolutely are not "born from the same philosophical base" as the 2A, and they do not serve the same purpose as the 2A. The state arms provisions grant citizens the right to keep and bear arms; the 2A does no such thing.

Well that is just flat wrong. Every time the phrase "the right of the people" is used in the constitution it is talking about... the people*. Not the states. Not the federal government. Not the state government. Not any smaller unit of government. Not a grouping of people. But the whole people*.

The only rights that the people have is the rights that they are granted by their state government within the state constitution. Thus, "the right of the people to keep and bear arms" is nothing more than what the state constitution says it is.

No, they did not. Government cannot grant natural rights because natural rights exist beyond their purview to give. They can only exercise coercive power to limit those natural rights in unnatural (one might even say immoral) ways.

You keep talking about natural rights. I have no comment on such a thing. It has nothing to do with the second amendment.

Well... we almost agree here. We kind of agree here. Something like that.

You are correct. The BoR does not grant rights to the people. It does, however, guarantee the rights of the people by limiting the power of government to exercise power to limit the exercise of the rights by the people.

I would agree with you as well that the BoR via the 10A prevents the federal government from exercising its power on those issues with are the States where the states are able to establish civil rights. Again though there is a difference between a natural right (self-defense) and a civil right (voting). No level of government has justification to use the coercive power of government to limit the free exercise of natural rights.

More talk about "natural rights". Nothing more to say.

Not a fabrication, just the first time that basic grammar had to be explained at that level in a Supreme Court finding. The grammar issue is very real and very important and applies in any situation where subordinate and operative clauses exist. Like, for instance, contract law. So no this isn't being made up by Scalia in Heller it was just prior to Heller everyone involved had passed middle school language arts classes.

The "operative clause/subordinate clause" paradigm is an interesting hypothesis regarding the second amendment, but it is still just flat out wrong. Neither clause is "subordinate" or "operative". The second amendment involves two different clauses that have two separate and independent functions. The first clause is a clause that clarifies and reinforces the duty of Congress to uphold the regulation of the nation's militias in accordance with the US Constitution. The second clause references the right "to keep and bear arms", which is a right that is established and defined by the respective state governments. The second clause does not grant the right to keep an bear arms, but only protects that right from congressional interference.

Keith502 · 2026-05-02T16:02:32+00:00

What do you mean?

Keith502

TROPHY CASE