From: Elizaphanian (elizaphanian@tiscali.co.uk)
Date: Mon Apr 07 2003 - 11:17:26 BST
Hi David (this will be about number 2 of 8 or so.....)
> DMB says:
> Here's the problem. I keep saying that the problem with religion today is
> that most people mistake myths for facts, which is not to say they aren't
> true. The take a myth for a fact is to misunderstand the myth. Sure, the
> intellect can read the symbolism of a myth and detect its meaning, but
that
> is not taking it literally. More importantly, such philosophical analysis
> can not replace the function of the myth. As in the quote about the
> resonance of an "affect image", its not supposed to be understood as an
> intellectual concept, but experienced directly so that a more ancient
level
> is stirred. It can be described and analyzed later, but it that is the
ONLY
> way a myth can be related or understood, then it is dead and its power is
> gone.
I largely agree with this. I would want to add (which I think you would
agree with) that the misinterpretation derives from SOM/Modernist thinking -
and as such, I would say that the misinterpretation was not current in
'classical' Christianity.
> So its not just a matter of rampant fundamentalism, scientific
> materialism and widespread misunderstanding, althought that's true too,
but
> that the mythological images of our culture are very far removed from the
> kind of world that we live in that they can no longer function, they can
no
> longer evoke in us what they used to. We can try to do some literary
> archeology and try to reconstruct the context in which these symbols
> actually had a living meaning, but the very fact that we need to do that
> only shows how dead they are. I think the underlying message and meaning
of
> the world's great religions is still perfectly valid, but that we need an
> appropriate mythology to express it, one that doesn't have all the
apparent
> contradictions with our world view.
I would (obviously) disagree about the extent to which particular
mythologies are dead - they're dead for you, but that doesn't mean that they
are necessarily dead for other people - but otherwise, I agree. I think that
a mythology *can* die.
Sam
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