Can someone answer me these in simple terms?

[bob x]

Nietzche maybe? Ayn Rand?

 

[seattlegal]

Nietzche maybe? Ayn Rand?

Nah, it's starting to look more like Fahrenheit 451.

 

[Thomas]

Hi Wil —

And you think that it is only modern Chrisitans that thought much was metaphor??

No, I'm saying that 'modern Christians' largely fail to comprehend the interior dimension of metaphor, rationalising it to what is, as Paul Ricouer calls 'dead metaphor' ...

... in what I would call 'traditional Christianity' the metaphor is a verbal symbol, and whilst a sign points to something, in the symbol the essence is actually present and accessible — in fact the Orthodox make far more of symbols than the Latin Church — but suffice to say that, in the West, metaphor and symbol are almost lost.

I'm not going to do all the metaphor for you....why because it appears all to be over your head, you simply aren't open to it, and whatever I say you'll disagree with.

Actually, I think it's you who've missed the point. I wish you would read the text on neuroscience I've just ploughed through and been banging on about.

One of the significant trends of left-hemisphere is its fails to comprehend the transcendent dimension of metaphor and rationalises, just as you are here. Notably also, is the rejection of myth, something you and I have decidedly different views about!

So I read metaphor as a verbal mandala, if you like.

I also read the events portrayed in Scripture as embodied symbols, or embodied metaphors ... as the Hermeticist would say 'as above, so below' ... what the rational mind misses today is not that things recorded did not happen, but are signifiers of a higher truth or reality, but rather that they did happen, being embodied metaphors/symbols ... that is transcendent realities incarnated and realised in the physical domain — the spiritual realised not just in the intelligible realm, but in the physical realm.

I know that's a stretch, and the modern rationalising mind is schooled not to accept it, but really, that's what Christianity is all about — Jesus did not just say things, He did things — and of course, the symbol par excellence of the unity of the spiritual and the physical is the Sacrament of the Eucharist.

God bless,

Thomas

 

[iBrian]

I've removed a few posts from this thread, as some had descended into personal attacks, and a couple needed removing because they qouted them.

In the meantime, it seems we started off with a genuinely interesting thread with genuinely interesting answers, before some people began to get a little too precious.

It's fine to doubt, it's fine to ask questions. it's fine not to accept every answer suggested - though it's also fine to raise such objections without trying to directly challenge the beliefs and ridicule the intelligence of those around you.

In the meantime - this is not a Christian forum, but the thread has been posted on a board usually used to specifically ask about issues that cross over Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

 

[wil]

@ Enlightenment and Thomas....

A lot of discussion of metaphor, analogy, metaphysics in this talk...

 

[enlightenment]

I've removed a few posts from this thread, as some had descended into personal attacks, and a couple needed removing because they qouted them.

In the meantime, it seems we started off with a genuinely interesting thread with genuinely interesting answers, before some people began to get a little too precious.

It's fine to doubt, it's fine to ask questions. it's fine not to accept every answer suggested - though it's also fine to raise such objections without trying to directly challenge the beliefs and ridicule the intelligence of those around you.

In the meantime - this is not a Christian forum, but the thread has been posted on a board usually used to specifically ask about issues that cross over Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

Well said, Brian.

 

[Thomas]

Hi Wil —

Watched the recording.

For God's sake, Wil ... read the book. I'm afraid it seems to me that Pastor Mosby is doing exactly what the book is saying — he does not see any meaning in the metaphor beyond the interplay of the mind, that all he sees is 'this side' of the metaphor, and as for the other side?

Nada.

The left hemisphere sees metaphor as a kind of 'lie', an untruth but a useful image, whereas traditional spiritual cultures, and not just Christianity, but the Abrahamic and the Asiatic Traditions, see the metaphor as a truth that transcends the human dimension.

So in his exegesis of the Parable of the Sower, God is replaced by the self (the mind) planting seeds in ... the self (consciousness).

I would say it's the left hemisphere of the mind, which we know from medical evidence cannot comprehend the 'otherness' implied in metaphor, is now inventing its own 'otherness', which is none other than itself, and does so by creating artificial distinctions between 'mind', 'consciousness' and 'ego'.

The Unity trinity?

A human trinity.

God, as the saying goes, has left the building. Or rather, to be more precise, He was never invited in.

Sorry friend, but I've got to say it as I see it. This is Christianity without God, a pseudoChristianity in which the divine is actually nothing outside the mind that thinks it.

+++

God bless,

Thomas

 

[wil]

Sorry friend, but I've got to say it as I see it. This is Christianity without God, a pseudoChristianity in which the divine is actually nothing outside the mind that thinks it.

Hopefully you aren't surprised.

http://www.interfaith.org/forum/nontheistic-christianity-9546.html

 

[China Cat Sunflower]

This is an interesting thread. I've been buried in homework for my college classes, and haven't had the time to return to some of the threads I was following. A lot has transpired, I see. I've very much enjoyed reading the comments of Thomas, as always, and vizenos and Will, of course, and I appreciate Enlightenment's willingness to play the goat. Someone has to.

As someone who has actually read and studied the Bible, and gone through the various, possibly perfunctory, stages of doubt and rational examination to arrive at a fairly non-ideological point of perspective, I'd like to make a couple of observations for whatever it's worth:

There is a lot of ideologically sanctioned xenophobic violence in the OT. Consider, if you will, a comparison between the violence and war in the OT, and that which has resulted from the meme gods of modern mythology: Colonialism, Capitalism, Marxism, Manifest Destiny, Aryanism, Communism, Maoism, Islamo-facisim, etc. Each of these doctrines includes the same basic elements as the theocratic musings of the biblical writers. Each incorporates the concepts of chosen people, global ideological domination, intrinsic justice, etc. So these themes that we see illuminated in the OT are but an early example of processes that are altogether human and understandable from the vantage point of any age.

With that in mind, I think that the real value of the Bible, and by extension all the world's religious, foundational mythology, is that it illuminates universal, cultural themes that continue to reinvent themselves in our own modern mythology. The function of good science fiction is to extrapolate current sociological themes into a setting where they can be considered objectively without the weight of cultural programming. Ancient scripture can serve the same purpose. We can learn something about ourselves and our motives, something important about the intrinsic makeup of culture, that can't be accessed anywhere else. Without an understanding of how cultural mythology is made we can't understand our own programming. There is no better information source for this kind of almost secret knowledge than ancient mythology. That's the value.

Whether some, or most people take the information literally is really inconsequential. There's no arguing with peasants and monks. What is of concern is how the power structure uses the process of myth creation to control and placate the masses while attending to the needs of the elite and entrenched special interests. There are definitely lessons to be learned from the ancient texts in this regard, and that is perhaps why there is such an institutional interest in presenting them as literal narrative.

Chris

 

[vizenos]

Thanks for the history lesson, but I already knew his origins.[/QUOTE

Ah, so you were being deliberately inaccurate, rather than innocently ignorant, in characterizing Santa Claus as a "fairy tale" rather than as a folkloric embellishment of an historical figure. I fail to see how this enhances your credibility.

Hey, fairy tales, wild stories, and fable, they can all have a function, for entertainment purposes, for example. Look at how much Lord Of The Rings took in, at the box office. And Avatar. People have always been drawn to fantastic stories.

Doesn't make them true, and usually pretty dangerous when one begins to accept them as literal truth, or instruction.

True, although most of us, with the exception of fundamentalists (including fundamentalist atheists), are capable of distinguishing fact from fantasy. In fact, a reality-syntonic viewpoint is, in some circles, regarded as an attribute of mental health.

Regards,
vizenos

 

[vizenos]

This is the standard cop out of many Christians, these days.

And that statement is the "standard cop out" of many fundamentalist atheists, these days.

Realising that a modern society would have no truck with a god or a book in which there were some terrible instructions ordered by the 'loving' god, not to mention the mass killing of innocents, and realising that anyone who felt motivated could soon find those texts, they have had to adapt, just as religion has had to adapt to the process of evolution (although in many cases, only to rather sadly believe that it was a process which god put in place, on purpose).

But you, of course, are sufficiently acquainted with God to know that He didn't do anything of the sort. Riiiight.

Therefore, the fluffy option is to then turn around and claim that it is methaphor and allegory.

In many cases, this is precisely the case. For example, I doubt if even the most rabidly ignorant fundamentalist atheists would care to claim that the psalmist who wrote about hiding under the shadow of God's wings believed that God was literally some sort of bird. Or would you?

Well, if we can safely write off the many direct killings by the god of the OT as being merely metaphor, we can safely write off all the stories as metaphor. Virgin Mary - allegory. Jesus? Metaphor. The crucifixtion? Metaphor. And so on and so on.

Actually, most of the accounts, at least--with the notable exception of Sodom and Gomorrah, of course--attribute the killings to human or other physical agencies, and claim that those agencies were acting according to God's will. Most of us understand that as arising from a primitive religious understanding of God as a tribal deity, but apparently the fundamentalist atheists never got the memo.

Regards,
vizenos

 

[enlightenment]

True, although most of us, with the exception of fundamentalists (including fundamentalist atheists), are capable of distinguishing fact from fantasy

Are you sure?

Look around.

Are you still very confident that what you write is accurate..?

 

[enlightenment]

, I doubt if even the most rabidly ignorant fundamentalist atheists would care to claim that the psalmist who wrote about hiding under the shadow of God's wings believed that God was literally some sort of bird. Or would you?

Well, since I am not a rabidly ignorant fundie, you are asking the wrong person. However, since I have personally met many who believe Genesis is a literal sense, then it would probably follow that, yes, there are those who believe god had wings, as well.

I personally believe he flew a plane -

 

[vizenos]

I see. Are you sayig then that Christians really struggle to make a point without defaulting back to bible quotes? Oh - seems I have the answer to that, right there in front of me!

An excellent beginning! Now, perhaps, you will find ways to broaden and deepen your ability to see what is right in front of you. I wish you all the best success in this endeavor!

This is a Christian forum? Really? That is news to me, perhaps you might explain why it doesn't actually say that as a header?

Is it possible that you are unaware that Christianity, together with Judaism and Islam, is an Abrahamic religion?

And even if it is, are you afraid of anything which challenges your own chosen superstition?

Most of us aren't, but then most of us aren't theistic or atheistic fundamentalists, either.

This is common among the religous, when faced with requests for evidence, fact, and contradiction, they take it as a personal attack on them...

Enlightement, I'm coming to the conclusion that you are rather bigoted on the subject of religion in general, and that it is therefore rather useless to attempt to have any sort of reasoned dialogue with you on that subject.

The irony is that most Christians would utterly reject that Islam or Judaism or Buddism were the one truth(sic), and yet they get pissy if anyone suggests that maybe their one belief system is full of misinformation and error.

See what I mean? Your prejudice insulates you from even the most basic information about Christianity, such as the fact that Christianity is not "one belief system", but a rather amazingly large collection of very disparate belief systems, ranging from literalistic fundamentalist bibliolatry to hesychastic mysticism to Alexandrian gnosis to Coptic, Ethiopian, and Syriac miaphysitism. Concerning the vast majority of these disparate belief systems, you appear to be abysmally ignorant--possibly willfully so, since you approach Christianity, not with honest questions, but with bombastic declarations which gain you no new information whatsoever and merely showcase both your ignorance and your complete unwillingness to tolerate any viewpoint other than your own.

I see no reason to continue attempting to have any sort of dialogue with you, so long as your closest approach to dialogue remains a rather tiresomely repetitious monologue. Should you ever manage to change that behavior, I will of course revise my opinion accordingly.

Regards,
vizenos

 

[enlightenment]

I see no reason to continue attempting to have any sort of dialogue with you

Fair enough - this is your personal choice, and entirely entitled to it, sir.

 

[vizenos]

Fair enough - this is your personal choice, and entirely entitled to it, sir.

Well said! Hopefully time, which eventually changes all things, will change this as well.

Regards,
vizenos