reply to post by undo
hrm, no you seem to have missed the point. what you appear to be saying is: yes the church made ancient history into a myth, but that's where they
were wrong - it's a myth. you appear to be saying they were wrong because it's really what they said. lol
No, you have missed the point. I'm not saying they were wrong. Quite the contrary. You are still stuck on the definition of "myth = false; end of
story" and that is not the essential feature of myth. Myths are not required to be factually true in the sense that you mean. They are required to
teach and explain something about the human condition and the human relationship to the world around, and it is in this sense that they are true.
This should not be a difficult concept, Jesus spoke in parables, stories understood to reveal an underlying truth, not necessarily precisely,
factually, true on a surface level. "The good Samaritan" is not a story about a man who did a good deed. It is a lesson that helping your fellow man
is the right thing to do, even if that fellow man is not 'one of our tribe' and it causes us hardship.
Do you see the essential difference here? Read as a simple story about a man who did a good deed, then if the story is false it doesn't place any
obligation on us at all, its just a lie and who cares? If it is true then it is 'just' a story of an individual who did a good deed and that means
nothing to me.
But, when read as a life lesson describing the behaviour that should occur between fellow human beings on their shared life journey, it doesn't
matter if it is actually factually true or not, that kind of truth is irrelevant to the lesson. The lesson is true, that is the important thing.
You can see the difference in this interpretation all around you all the time. Those who would see the "Good Samaritan" as a ripping yarn could not
care less about their fellows and anything to with welfare, foreign aid, emergency relief, etc, etc, etc, is completely unreasonable to them. Those
who see the "Good Samaritan" as a lesson on responsibility to others do have a care for their fellow man, and look upon welfare, foreign aid,
emergency relief etc as part of their duty to others; we are all on the same life journey (yes, I'm generalizing here to make a point, please don't
over analyze this too much).
So I'm saying (actually I'm interpreting Joseph Campbell here) that every society requires a mythological structure that awakens us to the wonder of
the world, describes that world in a coherent fashion that enables us to react to real life events in a sane manner, explain our relationships and
responsibilities to our fellow humans and the rest of the world, and give us guidance on how to live our lives and die our deaths in a sane and joyous
manner.
The Pentateuch admirably fulfills all four of those functions for tribal Hebrews 4000 years ago. And the New Testament modernizes it for the world of
2000 years ago. Science and Secular Government and Art/Culture/Psychology modernizes it for the world of today.
church insists on virgin birth. erm, it's not scientifically impossible, which was the reason given before! the enlightenment period offered up as
rationale for labelling ancient history "religious" and tossing it out of historical consideration, that these things were not scientifically
possible! But they ARE scientifically possible. this is the thing that i don't understand about your argument. you really should clarify and just
state that you don't believe it was historical. and your reasoning for that is ..........what?
You have again missed the point. I'm not arguing the scientific plausibility or otherwise of the virgin birth, or resurrection of the dead, or how
many angels can dance on the head of a pin. I am not even really talking about Judaism/Christianity/Islam, though that tradition is most familiar to
me so it is easiest to draw examples from.
I am asserting that religion (perhaps 'spirituality' would be a better word but it just sounds too 'airy-fairy' for what I am trying to say) has a
role to play in modern society and the lives of individuals, and by fanatically and single-mindedly insisting on roles it is manifestly no longer
required to fulfill, it is leaving the societal roles it
is suited to to rot from neglect. And by doing so they are leaving a huge gap in the
psyche of modern society, and society is suffering as a result.
What I'm saying is that those vocal "religionists" have
explicitly abandoned the two "psychological" functions of the necessary
mythological structure (those of awakening our wonder at the beauty of the world and guidance on our life journey) in order to pursue the
"operative" functions (cosmology and social law) beyond their ability to maintain credibility. And by doing so they leave a void that can be filled
by charletons and hucksters.
People understand that religion has little role to play in either Science or Governance in today's world and desperate attempts to regain that role
with obvious irrationality just defeats the purpose. So if it abandons the other vital functions where it does have an important role to play, then
that leaves no reason for people pay attention to religion for anything.
Does that not ring alarm bells when you look at failing church attendances and difficulty in finding priests and pastors to minister to those who do
still find the church useful to their lives?
[edit on 19/5/2010 by rnaa]