Religion as Literature

[E. Nato Difficile]

As a fan of the Iliad and world mythology, I can't approach religion as anything more than literary constructs. I'm currently reading Finnegans Wake, in which Joyce rewrites ancient and Christian mythology as philosophical slapstick, the comedy of eras. It's a wild ride.

Would anyone else appreciate it if Christianity and Islam just looked at their beliefs as literature? Isn't it about time that modern religions realized that their myths have no more relevance in public policy than Zeus or Finn MacCool?

-Nato

 

[Skwim]

As a fan of the Iliad and world mythology, I can't approach religion as anything more than literary constructs. I'm currently reading Finnegans Wake, in which Joyce rewrites ancient and Christian mythology as philosophical slapstick, the comedy of eras. It's a wild ride.

Would anyone else appreciate it if Christianity and Islam just looked at their beliefs as literature? Isn't it about time that modern religions realized that their myths have no more relevance in public policy than Zeus or Finn MacCool?

-Nato

Regardless of the belief, be it Christian, Buddhist, or Mago-Mago, religion will always be around. So if people were to no longer regard the writings of their faith as true, but merely literature, they would doubtlessly turn to some other source for faith, be it written or oral. People need to believe in religious concepts, so removing one set of "truths" will only take place when another set is well in place.

 

[Rhizomatic]

Without getting into the truth or falsehood of the various metaphysical claims that various religions make, it seems like a massive (and Protestant-biased) reduction to simply look at religion in terms of literature, not embodied practice and ritual. Even if you don't accept the idea that life is dissatisfaction and that this dissatisfaction can be overcome by following the eight-fold path and reaching nirvana, reducing Buddhism to literature without communal and individual ritual activities abandons the majority of the religion. Islam produces a great deal of literature on religion and law, but even if we don't believe that Allah is the only god and Muhammad is His messenger, we can't look past the fact that mainstream Islam contains, at a minimum, 5 prescribed rituals per day, every day.

I can understand calling religions constructs of various orders when you don't agree with their teachings, but to reduce them to literary constructs seems to miss the majority of most religions.

 

[E. Nato Difficile]

I can understand calling religions constructs of various orders when you don't agree with their teachings, but to reduce them to literary constructs seems to miss the majority of most religions.

Actually, considerring how many of them exist today merely as historical documents, I'd say the opposite is true.

-Nato

 

[Rhizomatic]

Actually, considerring how many of them exist today merely as historical documents, I'd say the opposite is true.

-Nato

I think that somewhat sidesteps the point I was making to pick at a small detail; if we want to go that route than my response would be that the vast majority of the historical records we have of religions are not literature, but rather consist of architecture and artifacts that endure as testaments to embodied practices that once occurred.

I think that the better route, however, would be to consider those religions that are alive today rather than those that exist only in vestigial cultural artifacts.

 

[E. Nato Difficile]

I think that the better route, however, would be to consider those religions that are alive today rather than those that exist only in vestigial cultural artifacts.

It would be worthwhile to consider that the extinct religions were once alive and practiced just as modern religions are today. I don't recommend that we destroy the artifacts of past religions. Quite the contrary, I think we should appreciate them as the way our ancestors made sense of the world. Some religious literature is gorgeous poetry and exciting sagas.

It's just that we shouldn't be insisting they're something they're not, or allowing people to use them to influence public policy.

-Nato

 

[HerDotness]

Why can't we still express the human propensity for awe and wonder without demanding that others accept our beliefs? That characteristic we know to be part of being human, this need to have something grand and glorious.

I'd like to see us stop creating divisions among ourselves by insisting that one explanation of the mysteries of existence is absolute truth and all others just make-believe. Seems to me more helpful and conducive to peace if we realize that some religious beliefs satisfy that innate propensity for certain people whereas different sets altogether work for others.

In short, recognize that religions are humanity's way of making sense of all the things we don't as yet know or understand as well as our way of expressing the ineffable.

 

[sandandfoam]

Life is poetry. Everything is literature.

 

[Rhizomatic]

It would be worthwhile to consider that the extinct religions were once alive and practiced just as modern religions are today. I don't recommend that we destroy the artifacts of past religions. Quite the contrary, I think we should appreciate them as the way our ancestors made sense of the world. Some religious literature is gorgeous poetry and exciting sagas.

It's just that we shouldn't be insisting they're something they're not, or allowing people to use them to influence public policy.

-Nato

Maybe I'm misunderstanding you, but doesn't this amount to just not allowing people to be religious? Insisting that certain religious claims are something that you do not think that they are and acting along religious values (including in the political arena) is essential to how millions understand their religion.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

Isn't it about time that modern religions realized that their myths have no more relevance in public policy than Zeus or Finn MacCool?

No, because such a realization would be stupidly naive and at odds with much of what we understand about religion, psychology, and anthropology.

 

[E. Nato Difficile]

No, because such a realization would be stupidly naive and at odds with much of what we understand about religion, psychology, and anthropology.

Doesn't it seem like all we understand about religion is that a lot of people profess belief in its claims? Why should scripture or religious belief be relevant in secular society, except as history or literature?

Do people still consider themselves entitled to land because of what it says in the Iliad? Do people still insist that we teach ancient Babylonian cosmology in astronomy courses?

-Nato

 

[LoTrobador]

Doesn't it seem like all we understand about religion is that a lot of people profess belief in its claims? Why should scripture or religious belief be relevant in secular society, except as history or literature?

But secular society is not axiologically neutral; secular axiological systems are not in a different category than religious axiological systems. They may differ in terms of the sources from and the ways in which they are constructed, or a readiness towards revision and inclusivity (itself an axiological proposition), and they may have different postulates - but at the same time religious axiologies might be perfectly (or to a great extent) congruent with secular axiologies.

E.g. even the axiom that political decisions should be not made directly or exclusively on the basis of religious, philosophical or scientific texts (insofar as one is even able to remove themselves from texts which express one's values) would appear to me perfectly tenable on the basis of a liberal Christian perspective. (And it would also appear to me very a very tenable view that contemporary Western secular axiologies are an extension of particular propositions from Christian axiologies.)

And to go back to the question of religion and literature - religious axiological systems can be formed on non-literary basis as well. So the appreciation of religious literature as not more than literature would not necessarily remove the phenomena you would seem to consider problematic.

 

[E. Nato Difficile]

Axiological.

-Nato

 

[1137]

As a fan of the Iliad and world mythology, I can't approach religion as anything more than literary constructs. I'm currently reading Finnegans Wake, in which Joyce rewrites ancient and Christian mythology as philosophical slapstick, the comedy of eras. It's a wild ride.

Would anyone else appreciate it if Christianity and Islam just looked at their beliefs as literature? Isn't it about time that modern religions realized that their myths have no more relevance in public policy than Zeus or Finn MacCool?

-Nato

Well Spirituality and scripture are different. I've always looked at holy works as fiction, but fictional stories too have meaning. I don't think most is supposed to be taken literally, people are just to blind, lazy, and stupid for symbolism these days. But, things like Intelligent design still may be true, only creationism can be thrown out.

 

[Student of X]

As a fan of the Iliad and world mythology, I can't approach religion as anything more than literary constructs. I'm currently reading Finnegans Wake, in which Joyce rewrites ancient and Christian mythology as philosophical slapstick, the comedy of eras. It's a wild ride.

Would anyone else appreciate it if Christianity and Islam just looked at their beliefs as literature? Isn't it about time that modern religions realized that their myths have no more relevance in public policy than Zeus or Finn MacCool?

-Nato

One of the things you are missing are the connections between mystical experience, artistic inspiration, religious / mystical metaphor, and the non-locality of consciousness in space and time.

Joyce was a mystic.

Joyce's Epiphany

"Epiphany may be defined as 'a sudden spiritual manifestation, whether from some object, scene, event, or memorable phrase of the mind-the manifestation being out of proportion to the significant or strictly logical relevance of whatever produces it.'"​

--Morris Beja (Richard Peterson, p.1)

"Readers of Campbell would not be surprised to learn that Joyce’s dream work captured the imagination of the budding mythologist, for the novel carries both a mythos and a mystical linguistic landscape that I believe lies at the heart of Campbell’s inclinations as a writer and as a person. To that sensibility, or way of being conscious to and in the world, I wish to devote the remainder of this essay. I hope to reveal some of the lineaments of this propensity for the mystical in and through his involvement with the mythical. Indeed, like Thomas Merton or the Anglican priest, Bede Griffiths, or C. G. Jung, Campbell is both a synthesizer and a unifier of large sweeps of history and culture. His delight lies largely in seeking and discovering patterns inherent in the human soul that find expression in world mythologies and religious traditions, literary patterns and rituals world-wide."

Source

 

[E. Nato Difficile]

Joyce was a mystic.

Says the person who's never read Finnegans Wake, and wouldn't understand the irreverent humorist in Joyce if it jumped up and bit him.

-Nato

 

[Student of X]

Says the person who's never read Finnegans Wake, and wouldn't understand the irreverent humorist in Joyce if it jumped up and bit him.

-Nato

You roll your eyes because you have a flawed man-on-the-street idea of what a mystic is. You think of a mystic in stereotypical terms of beliefs instead of in terms of experiences. A mystic is not a mystic because of what he believes or because of reverence or because of identifying as a mystic. It's because of the experiences he or she has.

You don't know squat about mysticism or mystics and as a result you don't know squat about religion. You think you do but you don't.

 

[E. Nato Difficile]

You don't know squat about mysticism or mystics and as a result you don't know squat about religion. You think you do but you don't.

One of us made the claim about Joyce being a "mystic".

And one of us has actually read Finnegans Wake.

Hmm.

-Nato

 

[Student of X]

Occult Joyce: The Hidden in Ulysses

[...]

Later in this study we will focus on the ways in which Joyce derived directly from Swedenborg the idea of writing Ulysses according to a body/book correspondence. The Swedish mystic, whose influence is recognisable in the works of writers, poets, and thinkers as diverse as Sheridan Le Fanu, Blake, Yeats, and Emerson is really a crucial author for Joyce. His interpretation of the Bible according to a general correspondence between the body of man and the body of Heaven deeply influenced Ulysses. Just as happens in Joyce’s great book...

[...]

 

[E. Nato Difficile]

The Jung and the Restless

"[SIZE=-1]When he was thirteen, Jung was pushed by a schoolmate onto the cobblestones in front of Basel Cathedral, and was stunned. He was kept out of school for several months, during which he roamed the countryside, deeply engrossing himself in nature. He finally forced himself back to his studies and to school. Not long after, he experienced a fantasy in which he saw God enthroned high above Basel Cathedral. In the fantasy, a turd fell from the divine throne and shattered the roof of the cathedral. This image haunted him for many days after, and led to a religious conversion experience.[/SIZE] "

Lucky thirteen.

-Nato