The prime problem with christianity is that the structure of the religion demands that the historical validity of the stories be central (i.e. the various creeds say this). It's imperative to believe that jesus was literally the son of yaweh born of a virgin and that he comitted miracles and that he rose from the dead and that adam and eve were literal people and that a snake actually tempted them and that eden is actually a place.
All of that is ridiculous. And treating these stories in terms of its denotation instead of its connotation is the problem with ALL western religion. It makes the religion into an idol worshiping experience that can not adapt to the world its in.
This is the problem we face today. Christianity is incapable of speaking in terms that connect with the populous because it still has stories in terms of sheep herders and public stonings and the lineage of david.
The cool thing is that the underlying archetypes of the christ story are universal to humanity and christianity is not the only place that they appear. There are many intellectually interpreted versions of the same elementary ideas as those expressed in the christ story. We should be focusing on those.
That god created the universe in 7 days is a direct reflection of the summerian cosmology of the 5 visible planets in the night sky and the sun and the moon as the 7 celestial objects. Even the god (elohim) of the first chapter of genesis is the name of a 7 god-head pantheon of the sumerians and things like the days of the week and the notes in an octive (7) relate to the spheres of the cosmos and the 7 wanderers.
The story of adam and eve is an alegory of the attainment of human consciousness and is expressed in a variety of ethnic forms (for example, in sanskrit, the story speaks of aham instead of adam amongst other crucial differences).
The notion that any of these stories are literally true is ridiculous. The gods we worship are expressions of powers within our own psyches. That's what it means when jesus says "I and the Father are one."
If bible studies taught our identity with god instead of our separation from him, I'd be much happier. If bible studies presented god as the thing that keeps us from knowing identity with christ and returning to the garden then I'd be much happier. But unfortunately, the structure of the religion is such that expressing your identity with god is the prime heresy. Jesus did it, and they crucified him and they do the same thing to this day.
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Vi veri veniversum vivus vici. (By the power of truth, I, while living, have conquered the universe)
The self is not a fixed entity but a dynamic process of relationships
You & I, no distinction. - Tat Tvam Asi
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