RE: Is Allegorical Religion better than Fundamentalism?
March 26, 2022 at 2:08 am
(This post was last modified: March 26, 2022 at 2:09 am by Belacqua.)
(March 26, 2022 at 12:21 am)vulcanlogician Wrote: which one creates more problems, allegory or fundamentalism
Pretty hard to say.
Fundamentalism is a late-19th century movement among American Protestants developed in reaction to modern science. From Britannica:
Quote:Christian fundamentalism, movement in American Protestantism that arose in the late 19th century in reaction to theological modernism, which aimed to revise traditional Christian beliefs to accommodate new developments in the natural and social sciences, especially the theory of biological evolution.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Christi...amentalism
Is this what you mean when you use the term "fundamentalism," or something more general?
The Bible was read allegorically for centuries, almost exclusively. A literal reading does not rule out an allegorical reading. For example, it might say that God smote the Edomites. This was probably taken by many people as literally, historically true. However the meaning of the story, the reason it's in the Bible is because we are to read it allegorically as license to smite other groups who are challenging us.
So that's a case where an allegorical reading would lead to violence.
Maybe advocating violence in self-defense of one's group is good, though. There are many people on the forum who are all for violence in cases where one political division is threatened by another political division, even if ethnically they are nearly the same.
We also have to think clearly about what "creates more problems" means. I suspect that both allegorical and fundamentalist readings prompt many people to disagree with my personal views, which are very much in line with 21st century Western bourgeois liberalism. So if "creates problems" means to oppose actively the beliefs of my tribe, then both styles of reading will create problems.
Allegorical readings may be more likely to allow readings that are in keeping with my 21st century Western bourgeois liberalism. Whether that is a good thing, or just a conformist thing, I can't say.
