I agree it is all interpretation. And all about the sum total of my expereiences and my perception of them.
Think about how you thought about a song before the video came out. The song was interpreted by you, you made the connections, the emotions rang out of your thought...then you saw the video and the artists interpretation.
So yeah, the poet's thought may be interesting contemplation, but the end effect is personal.
Although this isn't the Abrahamic forum, let me say it would be nice if everyone thought and felt that way about the Bible . . .
The whole idea of one single meaning for a Religious Text just doesn't seem right. It assumes that a person's life experiences are adequate for an objective interpretation. Two smart people can summon the best of their knowledge and seek to be as rational in their interpretation as possible, but their interpretations will be different. Even when employing the best of our knowledge, the meaning of a Religious Text is dependent on the sum total of our life experiences.
The resulting interpretation is a product of your
personal values and different people will put
emphasis on different things. There is no single meaning. It's a matter of emphasis.
Even the question of whether something is propaganda is itself subjective. Pretty much everything you write that isn't "factual" can be propaganda. People call something propaganda because they're suspicious and skeptical of it. They call it propaganda because they believe it serves some immoral, evil, devious or sinister purpose. Newspapers and magazines that are filled with sensationalism can be considered "propaganda." People just don't normally call it propaganda because they don't consider it as serving an "evil" agenda.
It's propaganda because you want to think of it as propaganda. Nothing is propaganda as a fact. The statement or assertion that something is propaganda is itself propaganda because you
want to attach an evil connotation on the item.
The meaning of any literature, including a Religious Text, is what you want to make of it.
I don't doubt that the author had an intention. But if you do know the intention, you probably have a relationship with the author. The relationship causes you to want to interpret the text a particularly way. No problem.
Do you have a right to see things that way? Yes, you are entitled to your opinion. Besides, since you have a relationship with the author, you have a good idea what he meant. But remember that that is
your relationship with the author, not someone else's. You cannot decide what the text means to someone else. You can talk about what the author told you, but you can't get past the fact that it was
your experience of the author.
I believe that even if
everyone had a relationship with the author, they'd still see things differently. Everyone having a relationship with the author does not mean that everyone all of a sudden loses their individuality and spontaneity.
People bring their personal life experiences, temperaments, attitudes, idiosyncrasies, habits, etc. and this influences what the author introduces in a conversation. It influences what the recipient, guest or visitor learns from the author. It influences the guest's experience of the author.
So Paladin,
I cannot
tell you what the authors of the New Testament meant when they wrote whatever they wrote but I can tell you what it means to me (over in the Christianity forum whenever we discuss it).
