Is Allegorical Religion better than Fundamentalism?

[RBP3280]

As I stated elsewhere, my theist beliefs came about by the in-depth study of what is referred to as near death experiences.

Two problems with that.

1) How do your test your "study" of NDEs?  How do you know your interpretation is correct?  Is there science to back up the idea that NDEs are actual evidence of an afterlife?

The easiest person to fool is the one with "armchair" study.  These people know some things, but are too ignorant of the shortcomings of their knowledge to realize that they are still ignorant. 

I have a former colleague who truly believed in a new energy source - who "studied" it, had a degree in Engineering, believed the people associated with it.  It is all complete bullshit, but having enough knowledge to be sucked in, but not enough to critique the failures, made him susceptible.  With all my physics background, I could still not convince him (and he put money into it), because he was sure he "researched it".

2) Basing belief off questionable science is actually bad theology.  What happens to your belief if a scientist demonstrated the exact physiology behind NDEs?  You are essentially believing in a god because of ignorance about a particular physiological phenomenon.

Theology should never be based on the science of the day, the story of the day, or the cult of the day.  Good theology thoughtfully searches for meaning through life experiences and perhaps a bit of philosophy or inspiring writings.

You seem to answer your question in the last sentence. My research was based on almost four hundred NDE experiencers. I only considered those who had been pronounced dead. Many returned to life without medical intervention. How do you get a conviction without physical proof in a court of law, by overwhelming circumstantial evidence. 
Your assumption that my studies were "armchair" shows you make judgements without knowing the facts. My study of NDE has been ongoing for over forty five years. Research with an open mind, observe many people at the time of death and you just might come away with a different perspective. Why is it that the majority of atheist that have a NDE experience are no longer atheist? Theology and Science doesn't work well together, I'm sure you understand that.

[Fake Messiah]

You seem to answer your question in the last sentence. My research was based on almost four hundred NDE experiencers. I only considered those who had been pronounced dead. Many returned to life without medical intervention.

So as a researcher of NDEs, what do you make of that virtually all those who have the NDE experience see only prominent figures who are associated with their religion? Hindus do not report seeing Zeus, Christians do not report meeting Mohammed, and Muslims never seem to encounter Joseph Smith. And no one ever gets greeted by a long-forgotten god from an extinct prehistoric religion.

[Belacqua]

these aren't merely artifacts of literature, they are cognitive maps for representing the world.

I was thinking about how a series of true events might become allegory. It seems to me that it depends entirely on how and to whom we tell these events.

Like if a rock star gets rich and famous and then squanders all his money and dies, it's a series of real-life events. 

But if your dad relays this story to you when you're young and on the verge of success, then it's an allegory about Temperance and Prudence.

[Belacqua]

It's interesting that you associate harmonizing with fundamentalism. An allegorist can harmonize too. Leo Tolstoy was almost a pure allegorist but he sought out and extensively explored the harmony of the disparate messages of Christianity. Even if Christ is merely a symbol of forbearance and surrender you can try to find a harmony between that and the rest of the Christian corpus.

I'm the opposite personally. I perceive a great disharmony between the disparate parts of the Christian corpus. Loving your neighbor and hating your neighbor at the same time. It doesn't gel with me.

I still think it might help to tighten up the vocabulary. 

Are you using "fundamentalist" to refer to anyone who reads everything literally? Is anyone who believes in a talking snake a fundamentalist? I'm not quite sure if all fundamentalists are literalists. 

And even the talking-snake literalists accept some allegory. That is, when Jesus tells a parable about seeds falling on stony ground, they accept that he's not giving agricultural advice -- it's about the word of God. 

Likewise, "allegory" is a very specific kind of non-literal expression. There are lots of other kinds of non-literal ways to write. Generally allegory is thought of as a simple narration in which there is a one-to-one correspondence between one character and one concept. The paradigm case is of course Pilgrim's Progress, in which the main character is called Christian, so he stands for Christians. Along the way he meets Obstinate, Pliable, Mr. Worldly Wiseman, Hypocrisy, Discretion, etc. There is no ambiguity, no question at all what each of the characters stands for. 

There are approximately one zillion allegorical paintings produced by the various official academies over the years, like this one about France welcoming back Napoleon:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:...Egitto.jpg

No ambiguity there. 

So it seems to me that there will be a number of Bible stories, and other religious texts, which are non-literal but not necessarily allegory. Any story in which the characters or actions are not clearly identifiable with a specific concept, in which the meaning is eternally open to debate, may not count as allegory. 

So there are allegories in the Bible, but there are also many other non-literal tropes, and I suspect we're using the word allegory as synecdoche to refer to all of those tropes. That could lead to confusion. 

On forums like this, it's more common for people to refer to all non-literal tropes as "metaphor," but again, metaphor is only one specific kind.

Blake, who was an incredible master of the non-literal, wrote harshly against allegory. He felt that any text in which the meaning was so simply spelled out would inevitably be misleading -- at least as wrong as it is right. As an adherent to apophatic theology, and a founder of Romantic Irony, he felt that valuable expressions about religion must be infinitely interpretable. For him, a Bible without contradictions would be untrustworthy, and a simple declarative statement in human language about an infinite God (who is beyond our understanding) would necessarily be false. Non-literal symbols designed to provoke puzzlement and induce contemplation are far more desirable. Poems with internal contradictions, or contradicting poems published side by side, serve to show us our own limitations, and God's infinity. 

contradictory poems:

---

The Lamb

Little Lamb who made thee 
         Dost thou know who made thee 
Gave thee life & bid thee feed. 
By the stream & o'er the mead; 
Gave thee clothing of delight, 
Softest clothing wooly bright; 
Gave thee such a tender voice, 
Making all the vales rejoice! 
         Little Lamb who made thee 
         Dost thou know who made thee 

         Little Lamb I'll tell thee, 
         Little Lamb I'll tell thee!
He is called by thy name, 
For he calls himself a Lamb: 
He is meek & he is mild, 
He became a little child: 
I a child & thou a lamb, 
We are called by his name. 
         Little Lamb God bless thee. 
         Little Lamb God bless thee.
-----
The Tyger
Tyger Tyger, burning bright,
In the forests of the night;
What immortal hand or eye,
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies,
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand, dare sieze the fire?

And what shoulder, & what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain,
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp,
Dare its deadly terrors clasp!

When the stars threw down their spears
And water'd heaven with their tears:
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger Tyger burning bright,
In the forests of the night:
What immortal hand or eye,
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

---

self-contradictory poem:

---

The Clod and the Pebble

"Love seeketh not itself to please, 
Nor for itself hath any care, 
But for another gives its ease, 
And builds a Heaven in Hell's despair." 

So sung a little Clod of Clay 
Trodden with the cattle's feet, 
But a Pebble of the brook 
Warbled out these metres meet: 

"Love seeketh only self to please, 
To bind another to its delight, 
Joys in another's loss of ease, 
And builds a Hell in Heaven's despite." 

---

(I just recently learned how to use the "hide" feature.)

The assumption that every sentence should act like a statement of scientific fact has damaged our ability to think.

[The Grand Nudger]

It's not atheists demanding that the wild utterances of magic book be thought of as facts. Atheists tend to think that the bible is chock full of metaphor, allegory, just so stories, the ramblings of madmen, social commentary, and sometimes...the odd bit of porn.

It's the afflicted and the afflicted alone who insist that any word of it must be a fact, and even a scientific fact. That's why they're mining the story about mud man, rib woman, and the fruit dragon... and deciding it's short hand for "theistic evolution".

[Jehanne]

Two problems with that.

1) How do your test your "study" of NDEs?  How do you know your interpretation is correct?  Is there science to back up the idea that NDEs are actual evidence of an afterlife?

The easiest person to fool is the one with "armchair" study.  These people know some things, but are too ignorant of the shortcomings of their knowledge to realize that they are still ignorant. 

I have a former colleague who truly believed in a new energy source - who "studied" it, had a degree in Engineering, believed the people associated with it.  It is all complete bullshit, but having enough knowledge to be sucked in, but not enough to critique the failures, made him susceptible.  With all my physics background, I could still not convince him (and he put money into it), because he was sure he "researched it".

2) Basing belief off questionable science is actually bad theology.  What happens to your belief if a scientist demonstrated the exact physiology behind NDEs?  You are essentially believing in a god because of ignorance about a particular physiological phenomenon.

Theology should never be based on the science of the day, the story of the day, or the cult of the day.  Good theology thoughtfully searches for meaning through life experiences and perhaps a bit of philosophy or inspiring writings.

You seem to answer your question in the last sentence. My research was based on almost four hundred NDE experiencers. I only considered those who had been pronounced dead. Many returned to life without medical intervention. How do you get a conviction without physical proof in a court of law, by overwhelming circumstantial evidence. 
Your assumption that my studies were "armchair" shows you make judgements without knowing the facts. My study of NDE has been ongoing for over forty five years. Research with an open mind, observe many people at the time of death and you just might come away with a different perspective. Why is it that the majority of atheist that have a NDE experience are no longer atheist? Theology and Science doesn't work well together, I'm sure you understand that.

Which research journals have published your findings? Please provide links, if possible.

[Angrboda]

@vulcanlogic, if God orchestrates historical events,then He can also orchestrate them towards a narative that has allegorical meaning. That is the traditional view, Bel seems to favor. I favor a Swedenborgian alternative. Instead, of only select events being imparted with spiritual meaning, such as the cruxifiction, while others are considered mundane, I see meaning as something deeply embedded in reality.

[RBP3280]

You seem to answer your question in the last sentence. My research was based on almost four hundred NDE experiencers. I only considered those who had been pronounced dead. Many returned to life without medical intervention.

So as a researcher of NDEs, what do you make of that virtually all those who have the NDE experience see only prominent figures who are associated with their religion? Hindus do not report seeing Zeus, Christians do not report meeting Mohammed, and Muslims never seem to encounter Joseph Smith. And no one ever gets greeted by a long-forgotten god from an extinct prehistoric religion.

Not all experiencers meet prominent figures, many meet people they new in life that have passed. As for meeting historic religious leaders to me it only makes sense that they would meet the religious leader of their beliefs. To me the most interesting NDE are those of atheist. 

I came to these forms stating I have questions and I have failed to ask the questions I came with. As atheist do believe it makes no difference how you live your life? Another words a person we may consider evil verses some one the works for the good of man kind. 
To me, to think there is nothing more than this life, then Solomon was right when he said "Meaningless! Meaningless!" says the Teacher. "Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless."

[HappySkeptic]

I came to these forms stating I have questions and I have failed to ask the questions I came with. As atheist do believe it makes no difference how you live your life? Another words a person we may consider evil verses some one the works for the good of man kind. 
To me, to think there is nothing more than this life, then Solomon was right when he said "Meaningless! Meaningless!" says the Teacher. "Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless."

I disagree 100%.  There is, in fact, nothing more than this life, and it is quite meaningful.

An infinite afterlife does not provide meaning.  In fact, it removes any meaning from life, because time is not precious, neither is joy.  Suffering matters not either.

We are hard-wired to fear our own demise.  Imagining an afterlife may help some overcome this fear, but my experience is that the faithful then become afraid of losing their faith.

[John 6IX Breezy]

An infinite afterlife does not provide meaning.  In fact, it removes any meaning from life, because time is not precious, neither is joy.

This should be it's own thread. Why does time need to be precious? And how are joy and meaning dependent on time?