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Originally Posted by Tomasz  Yes, yes, yes. We have absurds of the Bible. Now what do we do with this ? Mhh ... oh, we employ theologians(you're a very good one) and turn these stupidities into a set of metaphores and allegories so that reasonable thinking people like you could accept it and for stupid masses we leave literal interpretation. That methaphorically transformed Christianity looks almost like grown up buddhism and is almost unrecognizable for overwhelming majority of Christians who literally believe in God as the creator of the universe and Jesus' torment on the cross and consider it to be the core of Christianity. |
I tend to think of this as a reclaimation of christian philosophy which is entirely identical to buddhism except for the ethnic inflections. I don't see this as destructive to christianity at all. The buddhists tell a story of The Buddha being born from his mother's side at the level of the heart and of cutting his princely top knot and casting it up to heaven where it was caught. But none of the buddhists actually believe that this is literally true.
I believe that this is the essence of the metaphors. The are pointers (from a time when we didn't have science) to the transcendent mystery of existence. I think this is clear to ANYONE who studies comparative mythology and history. That a large volume of christians are stuck on the literal truth of the religion is a product of the dark ages and of a church led by saint peter's philosophy. Peter was the idiot child of the group. Even at the end he was still pulling his sword and cutting the ear off of a centurian. Even at the end jesus had to continue to try to give him his message of peace by saying "put down that sword".... And even to this day, outside the vatican, the statue of saint peter still has his sword.
The catholic church is real, but so is the study of history and world religion. I don't feel at all intimidated by this old collection of churches and bishops with access to physical archeology of the area and of the other religions of the world.
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That metaphorical transformation of Christianity is nothing but conscious effort to turn it into something more reasonable. You pick up bits of the Bible and interpret it in the way that makes it acceptable for you, but in fact that's not an interpretation anymore, that's an obvious conversion and not to see it is intellectual dishonesty.
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Not acceptable... I don't accept a lot of what is in the bible. It is interpreted in a way that is based on rationality and intelligence and cross correlation with facts about history that exist in archeology and the other sciences. It's not a conversion. It's an understanding based on fact and not (wrong/ignorant) opinions that have been handed down.
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You seem to say that by any reference(less or more methaphorical) to the Bible you can call yourself a Christian. Well, you're in the sense, but in the sense you may call yourself anything you like
For me you're an atheist undercover, a member of the fifth column of Christianity which is about to bring about its end  |
This bold statement is the essence of Joseph Campbell's work and I recommend it to all people. He's the one responsible for star wars and the matrix and all manner of amazing understandings in the world of art and religion.
I like to say that he's uncovered the DNA of religion and the human psyche. The fundamental building blocks. There is one myth of man and there are many ethnic inflections of it.
I think that ethnic religions NEED to come to an end given the nature of the world and globalization and interconnectedness that is unparalleled in the history of mankind. I think it's necessary and that all the conflicts in the world can be directly tied to this kind of geocentric/ethnocentric crap.
But I know what the core of chrsitianity is and its the same as the core of buddhism and many american indian faiths and others. It's not this silly man in a throne god literal crap. It's interconnectedness and transcendence of categories of thought. That is jesus' message. Its plain for any intelligent person to see in the gospels (both canon and non).