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Does this explain religion?
- Thread starter blü 2
- Start date
I find it is 'Christendom' ( so-called Christian ) who speaks of mysteries.
Whereas, Scripture has the overall theme about God's kingdom government of Daniel 2:44.
God's kingdom in the hands of Christ Jesus for a thousand years was also the theme of Jesus preaching and teaching and instruction for us - Matthew 24:14; Acts 1:8.
I find nothing boring but exciting about Earth to become a beautiful paradisical Earth as described the Isaiah 35th chapter.
I dunno...I find many religious 'mysteries' (and their associated religious explanations) to be quite banal, and many of the best (I suppose this quote is meaning naturalistic) explanations to be very profound...not sure 'pleasurable' is a relevant term in either case...
is there more to this quote that might be relevant or of interest? I'm not sure it's even a complete sentence.
PruePhillip
Well-Known Member
I was charmed to read reports of excavations at the cultic center of Shiloh in Israel.
There was found one of the horns of the old altar, the priestly pomegranate carving
and a site where young animals had been butchered. Some of these showed signs
of being butchered as Moses instructed in the book of Leviticus - carved only on the
right side of the beast. This is where the ark of the covenant resided.
All this between 1300 and 1100 years before Jesus.
Interesting, according to our enlightened skeptics, this whole story of Moses, the
Levites, King David and the ark of the covenant were all made up a thousand years
later. But here they are, under the trowel of the archaeologists and geneticists.
Who holds to myths? I put it to you it's self-important, ever so profound, anti-scholars
and naysayers of the bible.
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Its insufficient. First there are two sexes, and we don't see things the same way. We find common ground, but we aren't the same. Secondly there are multiple generations with the same issue -- don't see things the same way and must find common ground. Thirdly information is continually lost because of death. Fourth pain and suffering inspire us to hate the cycle of life and death. There are many such regrets, and people are willing to put up with suffering if they can imagine a better future for others. If they can't imagine even that then they are not willing to put up with a miserable life. These four things create a niche for new modes of communication. There is a fifth item, which is that we learn things as we age and wish we had learned them sooner.
People look for new modes of communication, and we have discovered many: writing, astrology, pictures, music, folktales. We constantly improve on these and diversify. Now we have Mathematics, Philosophies, traditions, rites of passage...and so on. All are attempting to bridge divides, to communicate and to mediate suffering.
Augustus
…
Historically, religions were often very practical in that they create bonds of fictive kinship between people and serve as a vehicle for the intergenerational transfer of culture, experiential knowledge, folk wisdom and heuristics.
No single aspect of human society or cognition explains religion though.
Not religion, but supernaturalism, certainly owes much to that very fact.
Nope. In the universe I experience, the mysteries are there and the explanations are still insufficient.
Aupmanyav
Be your own guru
One should not take mysteries too seriously.
PureX
Veteran Member
Mystery inspires a myriad of possibilities, while explanations eliminate them. Religions offer us both.
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The mystery of God does give an air of pleasurable profundity! I will agree to that! But explanations are not banal. Science is the explanation of the universe. Does that make what it explains banal? Not at all! It still continues to inspire awe, even enhancing it!
dybmh
ויהי מבדיל בין מים למים
I think religions developed due to an evolutionary advantage common to all human beings. ( See: Wikipedia article: Agent Detection ) The reason for the banal explanations is that we are all human and we have a lot in common biologically and historically.
But, for me, that doesn't rule out a higher power.
But isn't that the point? Religion is story, engaging, involving, but analysis is the part where we examine the elements, give them precise descriptions, and regardless of the story seek to find what's true in reality?
The synthesizing (religious) as against the analyzing (scientific, objective) personality?
Another petty religion-bashing post.
No, the quote is a throw-away line in a surrealist tale about Theseus and the Minotaur. But it struck a chord with me because of the synthesis / analysis dichotomy I mentioned above.
syo
Well-Known Member
mysteries are for cults, not for religions.
Aupmanyav
Be your own guru
That is a nice link, dybmh. Thanks.
Again a nice idea. However, I would not agree to the last sentence. Synthesizing also is objective. We do it for some purpose.
If we did not have the ancient writings, would the archeological evidence tell us anything of the story(s) related in those writings? Hardly anything, in fact.
Selectively highlighting a few finds that seem to support the texts (there are many other findings that do little to support...and in fact, much of the texts would not be preserved in the material remains of the time) is the creation of myth to support myth.
That the record seems to validate the texts is undoubted. But remember, geologists once interpreted all the findings around the world in the reconstructed frame of the worldwide Great Flood of Genesis...but as more evidence was gathered, it became apparent that such a global catastrophe was literary pretension...myth.
Who holds to myths? EVERYONE. Everyone holds to myths, some of one construction, some of others, but nonetheless, ALL hold to myths that tell us stories of long ago and far away. Some myths are grounded in scripture, some in scientifically described fact, some in speculation rooted in nothing, or in some combination.
Scientific myths are rooted in interpretation of the physical facts. Religious myths are rooted in the interpretation of physical facts through a filter of religious texts and beliefs...and where the physical facts do not agree with the religious myth, they are ignored or played down or explained away.
Okay, I understand. However, I don't see a dichotomy there. Those who synthesize must analyze, those that analyze must synthesize. It's all an attempt to understand what is experienced, and some find comfort in religious tales and some in the scientific. But neither religious nor scientific is inherently comforting or banal. Pursuit of religious or scientific may be pleasurable, however, but is not necessarily so.
So, I guess that what struck a chord for you did not do so for me. Such is the nature of life...