Discussing Religion today

Philosophy Forums Religion and Spirituality
1

Dear ILP-Members,

whilst we have been discussing the subject of Religion, in my case primarily Christian Religion, I have been in criticism of supernatural theism (as Marcus Borg calls it) but I have made a case for an evolving spirituality. I believe that spirituality has to evolve with new information that becomes available to us with time. What to a pre-scientific society were demons and spirits, still understood to be a part of the material universe, albeit supernatural, have now become understood as various kinds of influences which lead us to believe or to act upon right or false impressions, or on intuition or prejudice. The effect remains the same, it is just that the influence hasn’t got a tail or hooves.

What couldn’t be explained conventionally two thousand and more years ago was seen as a miracle, much like healing blindness with vitamin A capsules, a drug called Mectizan or a tube of Tetracycline eye ointment is today received by people without medical care with wonder. The pre-scientific explanations for disorders nearly two thousand years ago from monastic orders, especially with regard to psychology and psychosomatic illnesses, have been praised by researchers today for their exactitude. It is merely their use of pre-scientific language that veiled the knowledge already available.

The value of contemplation and meditation, already being made use in treatment of numerous complaints and to enhance recovery from major surgery or treatment, has been proved but comes from traditions that have been around for thousands of years.The approach to major problems are increasingly being looked at with a leaning towards Zen, and in fact, there is a ever increasing awareness among people who look away from conventional answers and instead towards wisdom-traditions, that the conventional approach is slowly killing us, or driving humanity into a dead-end from which we might not recover.

This means for me, that we can argue about the details that have been a speck in the eye of religious tradition for as long as we want, but untile we have recognised the plank in our own eyes, we won’t make any progress but continue down the highway to destruction. If we can learn to regard religion as a poetic expression of the soul/psyche, regarding the legends, myths and allegories with respect for the wisdom of the authors, and recognise that they also wrote with a bit of humour, we could overcome the poor people infatuated by their supernatural gods and start recognising the common denominators that exist within these very diverse traditions.

What do you think …?

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Hi Bob,

Would that we could… To at once acknowledge the mystery and then let it go and be about the business of being alive is more than can asked of the majority of peoples. The need for the supernatural is with us and I can’t see it ever changing. While the plausible reasons for this are many, two quickly come to mind. First, is convenience. For all our not knowing, we need an answer. What better answer than “god did it”? I don’t need to know, I just need to believe that there is a reason for everything, and that reason resides in the supernatural. Second, man has always experienced death. We see the coming into being, maturing, and returning to the flow everywhere we look. We know too that we will eventually die. Everything returns to the flow, even our sun which is the engine that supports life will eventually die. There has to be something “fixed” in the universe, an immutable rock that persists beyond any imaginable end. Otherwise, what is the point? The answer is obvious: The creator, the guiding hand, the “man behind the curtains” HAS to be there. Regardless the form of the supernatural, it is our solace, our justification for being alive in the face of our not knowing. While the original intent behind what becomes religion is benign, religion becomes a malignancy that obscures and smothers our sensitivity to sentience in general and in specificity to ourselves.

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Hi Tentative,

I understand you, but I just seem to find that the celebration of life would be enough – especially if we could accept the less popular times as a part of life and not as having one foot out of the door. I know that I have a professional interest in this subject, and perhaps I have found a way that others haven’t to be thankful for having known those who have died,something which overtakes and is bigger than the mourning. The source of sentient and non-sentient (if there is such a thing) life is awesome and even if it is only a short appearance that we have here, I recognise the potential life has.

I think that, to a large degree, it is the idea that we must have an answer and we can’t hold out not knowing for what reason everything happens that makes us so hysterical. The supernatural is in fact the metaphysical, but this is more than just some great Dad in the Sky. The speculations about ontology and cosmology, or epistemology are unavoidable, but we are often dead before we die, just as we stand when we are supposed to be sitting, and walk when we should be standing. One event at a time life is quite pleasing.

Yes, I tend to agree. How can we change that?

Shalom

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Bob, as always; it’s interesting how similar and yet slightly different our perspectives are (yours and mine); like parallel universes.
As I’ve put it elsewhere; Religion involves an allegorical language for what cannot be conveyed in simple words.
What is Spirituality without allegory? It is a dumb tongue stumbling to explain a non-transferable sensation.

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Hmmmm… There are probably lots of answers here, but I would probably pick one and then beat the drum loudly. INEFFABLE That point where words and thought fail the experience. That point where there is nothing but being, not being as.

Would that work? Probably not. Too simple.

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Allegory transmits abstract ideas that can be understood. It does not represent concepts that cannot somehow be expressed in words. It is the task of the theologian to interpret, analyse and systematise allegorical, parabolic and other figurative devices. The result of that process will no doubt be somewhat ‘dry’ and prosaic in comparison, but it may also form a rational philosophy and basis for practical living.

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allegory

allegory, in literature, symbolic story that serves as a disguised representation for meanings other than those indicated on the surface. The characters in an allegory often have no individual personality, but are embodiments of moral qualities and other abstractions. The allegory is closely related to the parable, fable, and metaphor, differing from them largely in intricacy and length. A great variety of literary forms have been used for allegories. The medieval morality play Everyman, personifying such abstractions as Fellowship and Good Deeds, recounts the death journey of Everyman. John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, a prose narrative, is an allegory of man’s spiritual salvation. Spenser’s poem The Faerie Queene, besides being a chivalric romance, is a commentary on morals and manners in 16th-century England as well as a national epic. Although allegory is still used by some authors, its popularity as a literary form has declined in favour of a more personal form of symbolic expression (see symbolists).
See C. S. Lewis, The Allegory of Love (1936); P. de Man, Allegories of Reading (1979); M. Quilligan, The Language of Allegory (1979)
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia Copyright © 2004.

In this way I find that the Gospels are allegories to a certain degree, although the Characters do have individual personality, but then again, those authors didn’t know how we would define allegories nearly 2000 years later. There are a number abstractions in the Gospels which are probably veiled by the fact that the main character also uses parables and metaphors, but I think that these hidden aspects become clear when you read them as though for the first time. In fact, reading the NT is for people without experience quite daunting, because so much springs off of the pages and demands attention. The conventional way to read the Gospels is to slice bits out of them and concentrate on their content without appreciating the larger picture being presented, which appeals because it helps prevent that feeling of helplessness.

I also believe the fact that Tentative points to simplicity is important. We tend to overload our speech, prose or symbolism and loose sight of the simplicity of the stories, which we re-present as obese moral lectures. We use the wagging finger, whereas the Gospels present us with Jesus full of compassion and passion, teaching peasants and healing the sick, confronting the pious of the age and performing signs and miracles in their face. He “performs” his lesson, and his teaching is more a case of spreading hope and a sense of direction. His criticism is pointed but also clear – sometimes too clear.

Religion is always a story about me, and I can find a poetic expression which the soul/psyche can connect with, or some ritual that speaks to my heart. Once the academics grab it, it becomes complicated and bogged down and loses its momentum. Theologians seem to think we need their help understanding these allegories, but what we need instead is help to overcome our unwillingness to understand – a task for which theologians are unfortunately not well equipped to cope with.

Shalom

8

That’s difficult to do when people (in general) are seemingly more interested in forcing their viewpoints upon you rather than seeking a common ground that their beliefs share with others.

Religion could be a fantastic tool for our species, if it were used in nondestructive ways. If it weren’t used to create a type of pecking order, so to speak. I’m not referring to you, but I know of many religious people who are not interested in your spiritual well being, they’re interested in their spiritual superiority. That kind of stance, which is fairly common from my experiences, will never be able to accomplish the recognizing of common denominators across traditions.

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People do indeed need help in understanding allegory, parable and other figurative expressions. For one thing, figurative language is often specific to a local culture, that may be very distant from another in both time and space. An extreme example is the use of the word ‘bread’, which referred to a foodstuff unknown to Far Eastern people in the days when the Bible was first taken to them. For another, figurative expressions may have a historic context that prevents those unfamiliar with that history from understanding them. So the expression ‘the sign of Jonah’ can mean nothing to those who know nothing of Jonah. Then there is theological context, one which is widely ignored, or twisted beyond recognition, with what can only be deliberate vandalism, by supposed scholars today. Jesus came into a theological context prepared over two millennia, and recorded in scriptures, and this context is crucial even for making sense of some of his parables, let alone interpreting them in accordance with that scriptural record. So Jesus’ parable about the rich man and Lazarus, that refers to angels, Father Abraham, Abraham’s bosom and Hades, needs explanation to those unfamiliar with those concepts.

Now, one might well say that most if not all of those ideas are ones that need no theologian to explain them; but theology is practised to some extent by all Bible believers, though they may not realise it. Theology is found in the letters of Paul, John, Peter and James- and can be said to be the outworking and indeed consummation of the figurative speech of Jesus, as well as the abundant figurative value of the Pentateuch. Theology is not dry, in fact, because it relates to practical behaviour, and the preacher who preaches accurately has absorbed accurate theology, from the teachers that Paul described as essential, before he opens his mouth.

If people are unwilling to listen to preachers of accuracy- well, there are prophetic parables about that. And what was Jesus’ phrase to meet that condition? ‘Shake the dust off your feet, as warning.’

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Hi ochaye,

you seem to be a Scottish affirmation … :slight_smile:

I think we are both agreed that we need a basic knowledge in order to understand what we are reading – we need to be able to read, we have to have access to books, and especially, we need to know what allegory, parable and fable are. But in the basic situation, a listener and a storyteller, we are amazingly able to grasp these things. It is when we read, without the storyteller, that we tend to get mixed up. Academics unfortunately increase the confusion, unless they are inspired, by explaining every tittle and dot.

The “theological context” is imaginary. It may be the method of measuring orthodoxy today, but the important part is the inspirational aspect. I have known lay preachers bring a text to life in a way I couldn’t imagine, although their theological grounding was minimal. Of course there are people who manage to completely destroy anything that could have been seen as inspiration and it may need a theologian to point out where they have gone wrong. But don’t get me wrong, I believe that intuition generally requires a knowledge of a tradition to call upon.

I did speak about academics in connection with theology and I’m afraid you don’t know the great number of theologians I know. I would not say that they don’t do their best, and I am friends with numerous theologians, but the fact that they put correctness before inspiration, prevents them discovering facets of the biblical message that they hadn’t seen until then. Instead they stick to the old concepts they have always had, echoing an old catholic saying, “A Priest needs two things on a Sunday: A new shirt and an old sermon!”

Unfortunately, the Pastor who had this attitude should be run off the patch with a shotgun … :sunglasses:

Shalom

11

:wink:

Allegory is, in root, literally vague.
However, generally speaking, allegory is conceptually comprehended implicitly and seems to elicit a broad range of spiritually emotional responses that are relatively within the same vicinity of most in “concert” with it.

Essentially; though quite different, it seems to work somewhat like music.

12

Allegory does not necessarily have anything to do with spirituality- it can be used in any context that is not strictly mundane. It is quite true that people react favourably or unfavourably to Biblical allegory, but they do that to the prosaic parts of the Bible, too. That is, imv, because the Bible is by far the most challenging factor in human experience.

13

Where did I say allegory was only isolated to religion?
I simply said it is a primary language of religion.

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Allegory is not a language, either. It is necessarily a feature, an optional feature, of a language. There is no inherent allegorical quality about religion or its expression. Allegory was used as one of many types of speech figure (some that are not found in English) to express abstract spiritual truths (as alleged) in a concrete way that was easily understood by those for whom they were first written. One can fully express (and follow) any religion without use of any figurative language whatever.

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It is a form of communcation, more properly put.
I consider it a regional and cultural language of it’s own as each culture and sub-culture’s has their own linguistic and symbolic language with which they are capable of speaking.

I can give you the below and you can understand a great deal of what is being said because of a similar linguistic and symbolic language shared in many Western cultures.

16

Language is form: allegory is content, and rare content, at that. Moreover, it is content that is entirely dependent upon established, commonly perceived concepts.

It’s not allegory, though. It’s not even linguistic. Of itself it has no meaning. If it has any ‘higher’ meaning, it is as a consequence of existing verbal allegory to give it context. Only the url gives it any certain meaning to readers, and they need literary experience to understand it.

17

Using words to describe an allegory, as opposed to a picture, is quite fine as well.
That’s what most holy texts in the world do.

And that is an allegorical figure:
The representation of abstract ideas or principles by characters, figures, or events in narrative, dramatic, or pictorial form.

Death.

Secondary is the snow-white harmless and scared bunny.
Simply representing frailty.

But directly to the point is the all common pictorial, and narrative imagery of the Grim Reaper.
I don’t need the URL to tell me what that image is, and if I walked around with that picture in hand on the street and asked what it was a picture of (even erasing the bunny), people would overwhelmingly answer that it was “Death” or “The Grim Reaper”.
If I asked what it represented, the general description would be, “Dying”, “Death”, “Disease”.
And a few would probably link in concepts about the Devil, and some other few would link in the Angel of Death from the Bible.

That is a definite means of communication, and it is a language of communication.
Now, I don’t mean it’s a language like, “English” or “Japanese”.
I mean it’s a language like your facial expressions are a language; body-language.
They communicate the ideas and emotions.
So do allegories.

They aren’t just pretty descriptions.
Their point is to communicate the ideas and principles of interest that are difficult to describe in simple literal language.
I can show you how much someone hurts inside far more easily by asking them to personify their pain and draw it, or describe this figure, than if I just asked them to tell me how much they hurt.

Because if they choose a highly deformed, mutated, rotting, wounded, bleeding, crying in pain, type of figure; then I have a very good grasp on the level of emotional pain and strife they are feeling.
As these are physiological conditions of the extreme disgust to the human eye and empathy.

But like I said, it is quite localized; though a few reach beyond locality.
I can’t take many allegorical constructs and show them to a tribe in South America and expect to catch much in the way of communicating the idea or expecting that they should be able to understand them.

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Hi, Bob,
Great OP, sir. I agree with all of it. Poetry, art and religion provide gut takes on the human condition. What evolves over time is not the condition, but the social way of expressing it. Today, a best-seller poetry book would be about 500 copies, while a best- seller pop tune is in the multiple millions. A book on religion would be a best-seller if it placated the masses or stirred controversy. In our current society economics trumps morality. Christian economics? It’s never been tried.

19

Thanks for your encouragement, in England there were experiments with Christian Co-operatives, I’d have to research a little to see how they worked out …

Shalom

20

[b]Man has mixed medicine with poison,
when Man mixed hate with God.
Now if God is dead, who killed him?
The ugliest man?
How can we heal God?

First we have to heal eachother.
That’s the first step.

How can we do to change that?
Simple. We need to take the religions that we’ve got, and heal them.
Our religions are alive. Like an injured animal, our religions will attack
the doctor unless he’s very careful upon his approach. First we need to earn
the trust of religion, otherwise it will sting us. Though living in a cage,
religion is still a wild animal. Religion has 10 teeth.
If we try to kill religion, religion will try to kill us.
We must remember that we are responsible for our own creations.
Be careful what you create, take your time with everything you do.[/b]