Rhea

The whole argument, "Well you're not 'supposed' to take all of the bible literally" really makes me wonder, "so what good is it then as a tool of religion and understanding of god?"

If the bible is in part allegorical, it is useless in understanding YWH's will.

Would we EVER write a single useful governmental, procedural or instuctional document in allegory? As far as I can tell, all documents written to successfully help people choose and follow a pattern of behavior are explicit. The constitution, the Common Law, etc.

So what good is an allegorical document in leading to a belief in a god and a guide for good behavior?

seebs

There are things which do not encapsulate well in words. Indeed, most important stuff appears to be impossible to fully encapsulate in words. How, then, do we communicate? By analogy, by allegory, with poetry.

Laws are written in formal language, because all that matters is whether or not you obey them. This doesn't work for moral claims, or claims about how you should be, or what kinds of feelings you should pursue.

Heathen Dawn

I fully believe the written word in human language is not an adequate way of communicating divine mysteries. The tool is too limited for the task.

DrJim

There is a good book written by a guy named Graham called "Beyond the Written Word". It discusses the oral nature of "scriptural" religions. The gist of it is that scriptures are more springboards for further discussion etc etc while providing a common core or starting point for the community.

I think the allegorical interrpetations of scripture etc. should not be interpreted outside of hte whole process of communication within religious groups. This, of course, is influenced by other factors in the shaping of group identity, morality, politics and so forth.

Claims a religion being based solely on scripture are claims of authority for those who have set themselves up as the most authoritative interpreters of a select body of text.

Amos

The interesting part here is that 'Christians' are supposed to transcend human understanding and live far beyond the law because humans reason with a twisted mind and speak with a forked tongue (as if speach was given to man to hide his inner thoughts). Ever wondered why wars come about or just heard a politican defend his actions?

Devilnaut

"Would we EVER write a single useful governmental, procedural or instuctional document in allegory?"


We do it all the time because every word is a symbol that is allegorical. It's just that some symbols are used very often and we come to feel as if they communicate their ideas to us directly.

This can be a dangerous illusion because the more you impose your preconceptions of meaning upon your experience of reality, the less you stand to learn from that reality.

So words that are common to us seem to describe a "manifested" reality, meaning that they seem to correspond directly with what we can see and hear. To free us from this illusion words are required that correspond with the "source" of this manifested reality and this means heavy allegory.

Note that the further your understanding travels from what you perceive as a symbol conveying manifested reality to a symbol conveying the source of the manifested reality, the more of the previous manifested reality (but only a symbol and not really real) you are required to lose and this includes your sense of self. So we might say that to learn "ultimate truth" which would contain the source of all other truth we are required to abandon symbols entirely which would include our identity.

In more down to earth terms this is like someone with very specific musical tastes who can't seem to get much out of a genre outside his scope. Except that the source of manifested reality is beyond the scope of all conscious thought (because knowledge in consciousness, like any machine, requires binaries to operate).