Post by Taliesin on May 6, 2014 7:20:01 GMT -6
At this point, there is little more I can add to the discussion, except to say that I've bookmarked that link and am going to watch it in the morning when my head is clear. I have to agree with you in that yes, facts are important, but so is myth. There is place for both within our thinking, and it's a shame that the modern mindset can't seem to grasp this.
I wish I had the source now (I forget where I read it), but there's a school of thought that even the early Christians didn't take stuff like the Genesis story literally. For them, its purpose was to explain the why of creation, not the how, so in that sense they didn't treat it like a purely factual text. So, yeah, I'm with you on the ancients realising the stories they had for what they were - stories that conveyed some personal, fundamental truths, not hardcore data.
Of course, this is not a popular view among modern Christians, who in their fundamentalism take every word of the Bible literally. So Genesis is reduced to being a literal six day thing with God resting on the seventh, and "don't say it didn't happen this way or you'll burn in hell for being a heretic!" This kind of thinking was one of the major factors that drove me away from that culture in the end.
I do have to admit, however, that I was surprised to find that kind of literalist mindset to be just as prevalent outside of Christian circles. It just presents itself in a different way. It's a real shame.
I wish I had the source now (I forget where I read it), but there's a school of thought that even the early Christians didn't take stuff like the Genesis story literally. For them, its purpose was to explain the why of creation, not the how, so in that sense they didn't treat it like a purely factual text. So, yeah, I'm with you on the ancients realising the stories they had for what they were - stories that conveyed some personal, fundamental truths, not hardcore data.
Of course, this is not a popular view among modern Christians, who in their fundamentalism take every word of the Bible literally. So Genesis is reduced to being a literal six day thing with God resting on the seventh, and "don't say it didn't happen this way or you'll burn in hell for being a heretic!" This kind of thinking was one of the major factors that drove me away from that culture in the end.
I do have to admit, however, that I was surprised to find that kind of literalist mindset to be just as prevalent outside of Christian circles. It just presents itself in a different way. It's a real shame.