(January 15, 2022 at 4:09 am)Belacqua Wrote: Approaching the Bible, The Lord of the Rings, and Greek mythology all in the same way is, to me, bizarre and consumerist. All of these works were created and used in fundamentally different ways.
The different parts of the Bible were written for different purposes, but have been treated and interpreted as sacred by very serious people for a very long time. The Bible as we read it now is not just the text -- we read it through the lens of all the interpretations that have come since it was new. The Lord of the Rings is a pastiche of real epics, written for children. For an adult to take it seriously now would indicate a serious developmental issue. Greek mythology has never existed just on its own. It is presented in other works, including Homer, Plato, Dante, Botticelli, Rembrandt, Freud, Nietzsche, etc. These are concepts woven into the fabric of Western thought, with varied and often contradictory uses. To know what the myths mean in any given context requires background knowledge, not just personal opinion.
If we approach all of these things in the same way, we deracinate and devalue what it really is. To make it into some kind of Baskin Robbins "choose your favorite" is liberal consumer society at its worst.
To detach a text from all of its history, institutional use, and social nuance, is to take away nearly everything it means. Then once we've completely deracinated it, and approach it with our own personal interpretation, we can easily use it to mean whatever we want it to. It easily becomes a method to reinforce prejudice, rather than teach something new. In fact this is the trouble with Bible reading today -- both fundies and fundie atheists just imagine it means whatever they imagine, and don't take the trouble to work on it.
The people who wrote the various parts of the Bible would be priests, the master leader, the big cheese or whatever you want to call him.
It is highly likely that he took his text seriously and wanted the people reading it to take it seriously and to spread it to the regular joes and to have them take it seriously.
(I’m sure there are parts that are reporting about actual events, actual warfare. Let’s set those aside for a moment. I am talking about the magical components for now.)
The Lord of the Rings is written by an entertainer/novelist/author and NOT a priest who wanted his works to be believed. He holds no position of priestly power. He is not trying to start a cult.
Under such conditions, when everyone believes that it is a work of fiction, it is unlikely that it will switch modes. It is not going to go from being believed to be a fiction from being believed to be fact.
The Tanakh/Bible started as something believed to be factual, something that the priest class told the people and they told them that it was all true.
If a person asked, “Hey is that true”. As soon as a priest says “No, it is a story I made up to convey an idea”, the story loses value. All the human and god interactions turn fake.
You can’t start a religion that way.
You can find moral stories in all sorts of places. You can find them in children’s cartoons such as the Smurfs, Ghostbusters, The Transformers, Arthur, The 3 little pigs and plenty more.
You can find it in Greek mythology and the Lord of the rings.
I believe that was the message Vulcanlogician was bringing to us on page 7 of this thread.
He wanted the Bible to be placed in the same section as the Smurfs. It’s just entertainment with some parts teaching the children about being moral and immoral.
Who knows, one day, judaism/christianity/islam/mormonism might be viewed as one of those children’s cartoons.
Once everyone reaches the belief that a book is fiction, it is unlikely that it will switch modes and return to mode of “religion”. It is a one way street.
The author of the book would be regarded as entertainers and not a prophet/priest/messenger.
People who compose allegories are entertainers.
