“Half the people in the world think that the metaphors of their religious traditions, for example, are facts. And the other half contends that they are not facts at all. As a result we have people who consider themselves believers because they accept metaphors as facts, and we have others who classify themselves as atheists because they think religious metaphors are lies.” ― Joseph Campbell, Thou Art That: Transforming Religious Metaphor
Half plus Half = 100.0%, the entire world is incorrect
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Atheists are reactionary, all they care about is repulsing The Bible, Quran, Upanishads, Torah. That’s like repulsing fiction Hamlet because it contains ghost characters, or repulsing Star Wars because it contains “the force” magic themes, or repulsing Lord of the Rings because there are “magic rings”. Science Fiction stories like The Bible can be understood, don’t be afraid of fiction.
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Believers confuse fiction with non-fiction. Bible verse “John 1;1” from 2,000 years ago spells out this problem along with Bible verse “1 John 4:20”. You can not love God or love Jesus, because love of a fiction character or dead person you never met isn’t really love. Again, Bible verse “1 John 4:20” spelled this human brain confusion / educational misunderstanding thousands of years ago.
This reply is reactionary, because it entirely avoids the topic of the entire conversation: “not understanding metaphors” in literacy.
There is zero supernatural. Nothing in the world is supernatural. No book is supernatural. The Bible isn’t supernatural. The Quran isn’t supernatural. The Upanishads aren’t supernatural. the Navajo Pollen Path aren’t supernatural. It’s a misunderstanding, or worse, people are tricked / gamed into believing things are magic.
I really wonder if these kind of replies are from Mosque or Church people who come along and do everything they can to avoid the topic of metaphors as literary devices. To discuss poetry. And to discuss how people hallucinate based on reading poetry.
Reading James Joyce’s book is like LSD drug trips, based on University of Toronto students who had in fact used LSD drugs. People hallucinate, hear voices, and get high off reading poetry, listening to music, etc. A lot of atheists seem to be very very confused and instead of educating readers of “The Bible” how other science fiction books do the same things to consumers of fiction storytelling (poetry / films / etc) - they play into the game of power and control by the Clergy by acting as if only poetry storybooks from thousands of years ago can alter the mental state of the audience. McDonald’s hamburger commercials (commercial advertisements) and Disney’s media empire and media theme parks are doing practically the same thing as the Bible or Quran stories / Mosque / Church. This battle of “some books are supernatural” is exhausting to describe, Joseph Campbell’s lifetime of published work does a far better job than I can. Which is what this Lemmy posting is about, a quote from a professional author and teacher!
YOU ARE PROUD, and UP-FRONT of your anti-literacy. Explains a lot.