Perhaps my expression "
living by the ethics", should have been better defined in retrospect. I did not mean by it quite what you have understood it to mean.
If I had said "adhere", I'd have meant subscription to the entire moral framework (including the elements dependant on "divine revelation", which a religious fictionalist rejects).
By "live by the ethics", I'm talking about the overall 'mindset' and attitude that the Christian myth is intended to inculcate and which many people who have renounced the superstition / supernatural, still find meaningful (as per Tom Holland and the like), even as they divorce themselves from the clearly 'superstitiously' derived norms.
This attitude is described by St. Paul as having "
the same mind [or 'heart,' or 'action'] in you that was [that you have] in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 2:5). To illustrate this, Paul relies on the 'myth' (the literal truth of which a religious fictionalist rejects) of the incarnation of the almighty God in the figure of a tortured peasant condemned by an empire as a criminal:
who, though he was in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God
as something to be exploited,
7 but emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
8 he humbled himself...to the point of death—
even death on a cross.
This 'myth' is a subversive one: in the ancient context, 'divinity' had come largely in the form of conquering, hellenistic heroes (and indeed the Emperor Caesar Augustus). But the Christian myth upends this 'order' by having its 'god' come in the form of someone at the very bottom of the hierarchy, and dwells among social outcasts and the poor and disadvantaged, as one of them.
One can be moved by the power of this myth and its social implications, without believing in its literal truth.
And arising from this myth, a set of 'values' enunciated by Christ such as: "
For it is the one who is least among you all who is the greatest." (Luke 9.48), just as the 'Christ-god' came in the form of the 'least' and not the mighty or temporally powerful.
Consider the atheist historical Jesus scholar Bart Ehrman, in this regard:
Ehrman's Statement: The New Testament Gospels Are Historically Unreliable Accounts of Jesus
Let me say here at the outset that I consider the Gospels of the New Testament to be four of the most beautiful, powerful, moving, and inspiring books ever written. I love the Gospels. Their stories of Jesus’s words and deeds have always been and always will be near and dear to me. Among other things, I have always strived to make the values they promote and the ethics they teach the center of my moral life, and I encourage others to do likewise. For me they are the most important books in our civilization and for my own life.
I think the Gospels are among the most brilliant, inspirational, and significant writings that have come down to us from the ancient world — arguably the most important books ever to have been written. I love these books, as do, literally, billions of other people in the world.
But they are fantastic stories...They are documents of faith, but they are not reliable historical sources.
It is important to know what Strauss meant by the term “myth,” since what he meant by it is not what most people today mean by it. Today, people often think of myth as a story that is not true. But not for Strauss. Strauss maintained that a myth was true. For him, a myth was a true story that didn’t happen.
What??? If a story didn’t happen, how can it be true? In fact, I would argue that all of us hold to true stories that didn’t happen. We tell it because we appreciate the “truth” that it conveys.
Ehrman writes at greater length (based on his historical Jesus research) in his book "
Misquoting Jesus?":
"Jesus' disciples were not to engage in acts of violence now . In the Kingdom there would be no more poverty. Jesus' disciples were to give away all they had and give to the poor now.
In the Kingdom there would be no more oppression or injustice - Jesus' disciples were to treat all people equally and fairly now- even the lowest classes, the outcasts, the destitute; even women and children. In the Kingdom there would be no more hatred. Jesus' disciples were to be living examples of God's love now, giving of themselves completely in the service of others.
The ways Jesus' disciples were to live in the present in preparation for the coming Son of Man reflected life as it would be when the Kingdom fully arrived. They had not, obviously, yet begun to experience the Kingdom in its fullness. But they had experienced a foretaste of the glories that lay ahead... In a small way -a very small way- they had begun to see what it would be like when God once and for all established his Kingdom on earth
In the Kingdom there would be no more oppression or injustice - Jesus' disciples were to treat all people equally and fairly now- even the lowest classes, the outcasts, the destitute; even women and children. In the Kingdom there would be no more hatred. Jesus' disciples were to be living examples of God's love now, giving of themselves completely in the service of others.
The ways Jesus' disciples were to live in the present in preparation for the coming Son of Man reflected life as it would be when the Kingdom fully arrived. They had not, obviously, yet begun to experience the Kingdom in its fullness. But they had experienced a foretaste of the glories that lay ahead... In a small way -a very small way- they had begun to see what it would be like when God once and for all established his Kingdom on earth
[...] What mattered was the new thing that was coming, the future kingdom. It was impossible to promote this teaching while trying to retain the present social structure." (p. 181)
What's wrong with believing in such a 'vision' while rejecting belief in the actual substance of the "Christ-myth"? (i.e. that a God literally incarnated in the peasant son of a Jewish girl through a virgin birth).
Myths can have meaning and truth, including the ancient Greek and Roman ones as well.
As an example, JRR Tolkien wrote his modern myth -
The Lord of the Rings - with its protagonist Frodo the Hobbit being the unlikely hero rather than the great warrior Aragorn, as an illustration of a similar theme:
"Here we meet, among other things, the first example of the motive (to become dominant in Hobbits) that the great policies of world history, 'the wheels of the world', are often turned not by the Lords and Governors, even gods, but by the seemingly unknown and weak ."
- JRR Tolkien (Letter 131, To Milton Waldman), 1951
In Tolkien's myth, the great lords and ladies bow down to the Hobbits after the Dark Lord is defeated by the destruction of the Ring, in recognition that they are the real heroes (although seemingly insignificant little people):
Even though it is obviously fantastical and mythical (as Tolkien intended as the father of modern 'fantasy', imitating the style of the ancient mythical epics like the Eddas), the story of LotR has meant a great deal to many people.
For a religious fictionalist, the symbolic system of religions is an even greater and more immersive version of this (i.e. the historical Jesus who lost his life as an executed peasant under the Romans, became 'mythologised' as part of a greater metaphysical divine drama, in the minds of the early Christian community, a myth that 'subverted' the ancient, inegalitarian social hierarchy).