On June 03 2012 02:39 sc2superfan101 wrote: how so, if you don't mind me asking?
because in my viewing, and in the viewing of the vast majority of Christians, Christianity is most definitely not meant to be read metaphorically, and is not primarily metaphor in any sense. in the Christian view, Jesus was not a symbol of an ideal man, but a living breathing ideal man.
This is great, because you've precisely missed the point.
The idea is that it's completely real to you and anyone else who holds your religious beliefs. The factual accuracy of it is secondary at best. You believe it, and that's all that matters. Cambell wants to explain why you believe it. What feeling or desire does it fulfil? What role does it play in your social structure or culture?
Unfortunately for you, you almost have to be a member of the "out group" in order to answer these questions. You'll say you believe it because it's true, but that's really not the point. You're being analyzed here.
he does little in explaining why i believe it, and when he does he gets it all wildly wrong. that's the problem with deciding to analyze other people's reasons without bothering to ask them about it. and i strongly reject the idea that some outsider will have a better perspective of anyone elses personal motivations than the person themselves.
furthermore, the statement i was responding to had nothing to do with my own personal reasons for holding my beliefs or even possible cultural reasons for holding my beliefs. my original statement was pointing out some areas where he was misstating the accepted Christian doctrine of the majority of Christians. i fail to see how he can even begin understanding or analyzing my motivations and reasons if he doesn't even understand the basic tenents of my belief system. then the other poster said, basically, that i was wrong and he was right. i asked the person to elaborate on that statement and provided my own argument (wich btw is true) that the majority of christians would agree with me on the nature of scripture, as would the people who actually wrote the scripture. none of that has anything to do with my reasons for believing, or even my belief itself. it has everything to do with understanding how the myth, scripture or legend was meant to be read and understood by those who wrote it.
It's certainly an interesting thing to study, and I agree with certain others that myth is our first/primitive attempt to explain how the world works and why. Supposedly Campbell had some inspiration from Freud, who I find persuasive on this subject.
i like reading jung and greek mythology more than most philosophy. Unfortunately our society has become too socratic and have forgotten the power of myths.
I actually watched that whole video. That guy asks the right questions. Even in matters of myth and religion, it's always best to inform yourself as much as you possibly can from as many different sources as you can before forming opinions one way or another.
im about half way through the video, and he's already displayed a remarkable misunderstanding of the mainstream Christian doctrine:
1) Christianity is no about a rejection of life as a whole, but of this sinful life.
2) Christianity has never been about withdrawing onesself from the struggles of others, or detatching onesself.
3) Jesus' command to refrain from judging refers to people, not things. it is, in the Christian view foolish to believe that we cannot judge an action or an idea as evil or good, but it is equally foolish to think we can judge a man as evil or good.
its interesting so far though, will edit with more later
edit: he is very... inconsistent. in one breath he will say that there is no good or evil, but then in the next he warns against anger and rancor and maliciousness. which is it? if they are not evil, and if the alternative is not good, than those feelings shoud be as legitimate and desireable as any other feelings.
edit 2: the Ascension, as understood by the writers of the Gospels and by almost all Christians since then, was never meant to be read as a metaphor, i see far too much of this in this man's opinions so far: putting his own anaylsis on the myth or legend or religious scripture, and then presuming that the originators of the scripture, myth or legend felt the same way that he does.
edit 3: he says: "we cannot identify with Jesus, we have to imitate Jesus" (he means that normal Christian thought is that we cannot be God ourselves, but must act like God). this is a common misunderstanding. we cannot be God the Father, and as we are now (sinners), we cannot be children of God either. that is where the imitation comes in: we as sinners have not learned to be as God is, so we must learn how, then we can be called children of God, and be said to be "like" God. basically: it is not blasphemy to suggest finding the Christ within onesself, rather, that is the essence of Christianity. find the child of God that was made and still remains.
edit 4: i believe he overstates both the difference in values between time-periods and cultures, and the usefulness in adapting a moral code to "a new age"
edit 5: just finished it, and while i disagree with him on a lot, it is clear that he is an intelligent scholar. i would be interested in reading some of his books or seeing more of him. good find, OP.
As an ex-Catholic of 20 years, I very strongly believe you are extremely biased. It's absurd to think that your specific interpretation is the only correct one. Try to watch it again but with an open mind and empathy, and try to consider all angles, and understand the thought processes that lead to these conclusions.
Then again I'm biased as well, so maybe I'm wrong. I only say this because I would want someone to do the same for me.
On June 03 2012 04:09 zulu_nation8 wrote: Unfortunately our society has become too socratic and have forgotten the power of myths.
what does that mean?
"The modern world has inherited Socrates’ rationalistic stance at the expense of losing the artistic impulses related to the Apollonian and the Dionysian. We now see knowledge as worth pursuing for its own sake and believe that all truths can be discovered and explained with enough insight. In essence, the modern, Socratic, rational, scientific worldview treats the world as something under the command of reason rather than something greater than what our rational powers can comprehend. We inhabit a world dominated by words and logic, which can only see the surfaces of things, while shunning the tragic world of music and drama, which cuts to the heart of things. Nietzsche distinguishes three kinds of culture: the Alexandrian, or Socratic; the Hellenic, or artistic; and the Buddhist, or tragic. We belong to an Alexandrian culture that’s bound for self-destruction."
On June 03 2012 02:14 Uni1987 wrote: Religion always gives a me a good laugh.. Unbelievable mankind still believes in that crap anno 2012. Yeah, quite the evolved race we are :')
Religion will always be with us. Putting things in God's hands will tend to rid oneself of stress, finality and dispair. It's a pretty powerful phychological and spiritual modivator. I am not religious even though I was born to Muslim parents but I respect thier choice to be and would not call it crap. Pretty disrespectful to call things people billions of belive in with all thier heart and soul crap IMO.
On June 03 2012 02:14 Uni1987 wrote: Religion always gives a me a good laugh.. Unbelievable mankind still believes in that crap anno 2012. Yeah, quite the evolved race we are :')
Religion will always be with us. Putting things in God's hands will tend to rid oneself of stress, finality and dispair. It's a pretty powerful phychological and spiritual modivator. I am not religious even though I was born to Muslim parents but I respect thier choice to be and would not call it crap. Pretty disrespectful to call things people billions of belive in with all thier heart and soul crap IMO.
People need to stop being afraid. See the beauty of life and the goodness in people and you don't need to delude yourself to feel happy.
I'd wish I could believe in eternal life and a just god and letting the big man in the sky fix all my problems, but I would simply not be able to face myself if I'd take the easy way out, to pretend everything is going to be alright. Instead, I choose to embrace life as it is.
On June 03 2012 02:39 sc2superfan101 wrote: how so, if you don't mind me asking?
because in my viewing, and in the viewing of the vast majority of Christians, Christianity is most definitely not meant to be read metaphorically, and is not primarily metaphor in any sense. in the Christian view, Jesus was not a symbol of an ideal man, but a living breathing ideal man.
In response to your earlier post:
While Christianity never explicitly rejects earthly life (as life itself comes from the grace of the Lord) neither is earthly life celebrated in all its entirety. This is natural for any religion that holds a dualistic conception of morality, especially one in which the primary deities are the personification of good and evil. And since sin is some type of pseudo-inherited trait it makes earthly life impure and unworthy of the transcendent life (Heaven), and all earthly life becomes a path to attaining the latter. Christianity sets itself up as the method by which one uses earthly life to attain transcendental life.
Christianity detaches itself from the world by redefining almost every aspect of reality in its own doctrine. Death is an evil consequence of sin instead of an inevitable transition of the world. Sex is an instinct that must be moralized and constrained under the law. Hatred, killing, jealously, etc. all become objectively evil instead of contextually bad (bad and evil have greatly different meanings). Life is no longer inherently good unless it is lived in the service of God. Life isn't even inherently good because of sin and the possibility of something better.
Judgment of evil and good is a contradiction. Good and evil are objective qualities while judgment is a necessarily subjective action. And it is useless to pretend that judgment of actions is different from judgment of people. People and actions are not separate.
Christians can't comprehend Christianity as a metaphor; they would have to accept the possibility that Christianity is false to do so.
Anger and rancor and maliciousness are generally bad. They are not generally evil.
That is exactly the problem, isn't it? Christians believe that the Ascension is a literal event, Campbell believes that the Ascension is a metaphor that offers insight into life and that Christians got it wrong the minute they interpreted it as history instead of poetry.
You cannot identify with Christ as he is both God and man. How can you fault him for 'misreading' Scripture when you cannot even recall it correctly? *facepalm*
I'm not sure what you mean by that. Moyers is describing how Christianity and most world religions are gradually being disinherited due to the natural sciences, and he wonders how future generations will fair without those mythologies. And Campbell is perfectly correct in his assertion that present moral values are wildly different from the recent past. Acceptance of homosexuality, racial equality, social equality despite circumstance, moral equality despite circumstance, all of these were untenable positions even in the 1950s. Anti-intellectualism was a prevalent trend in the 1950s too.
On June 03 2012 03:54 Ashakyre wrote: I'm happy to see people on TL talking about myth. OP, have you read any of Karen Armstrong's books?
No i have not, but i will look her up now...
I've read "A History of God," "The Battle For God," and "A Case For God" and all three have been very informative and helpful when dealing with religious and mythological issues surrounding the Abrahamic faiths. Like Mr. Campbell, she is always mindful of the difference between a symbol and the reality it points towards, and her ideas are presented in a reasoned and compassionate way.
I wish there was something I could do to lesson the hostility many on TL have towards religion. Not because I'm trying to defend religion, but because this line of thinking can close people off to the kinds of beautiful experiences that religions - at their best - are pointing towards.
On June 03 2012 02:14 Uni1987 wrote: Religion always gives a me a good laugh.. Unbelievable mankind still believes in that crap anno 2012. Yeah, quite the evolved race we are :')
Religion will always be with us. Putting things in God's hands will tend to rid oneself of stress, finality and dispair. It's a pretty powerful phychological and spiritual modivator. I am not religious even though I was born to Muslim parents but I respect thier choice to be and would not call it crap. Pretty disrespectful to call things people billions of belive in with all thier heart and soul crap IMO.
People need to stop being afraid. See the beauty of life and the goodness in people and you don't need to delude yourself to feel happy.
I'd wish I could believe in eternal life and a just god and letting the big man in the sky fix all my problems, but I would simply not be able to face myself if I'd take the easy way out, to pretend everything is going to be alright. Instead, I choose to embrace life as it is.
There's also alot of pain and suffering in the world and some people experience ALOT of this in their lives. The christian faith responds to this by saying that God loves you and you will have a happy, beautiful afterlife. The eastern tradiion (which I see Campbell as being a part of) ACCEPTS the pain and suffering and just tries to get on with life
On June 03 2012 02:14 Uni1987 wrote: Religion always gives a me a good laugh.. Unbelievable mankind still believes in that crap anno 2012. Yeah, quite the evolved race we are :')
Religion will always be with us. Putting things in God's hands will tend to rid oneself of stress, finality and dispair. It's a pretty powerful phychological and spiritual modivator. I am not religious even though I was born to Muslim parents but I respect thier choice to be and would not call it crap. Pretty disrespectful to call things people billions of belive in with all thier heart and soul crap IMO.
People need to stop being afraid. See the beauty of life and the goodness in people and you don't need to delude yourself to feel happy.
I'd wish I could believe in eternal life and a just god and letting the big man in the sky fix all my problems, but I would simply not be able to face myself if I'd take the easy way out, to pretend everything is going to be alright. Instead, I choose to embrace life as it is.
There's also alot of pain and suffering in the world and some people experience ALOT of this in their lives. The christian faith responds to this by saying that God loves you and you will have a happy, beautiful afterlife. The eastern tradiion (which I see Campbell as being a part of) ACCEPTS the pain and suffering and just tries to get on with life
I would go further than that. In Campbell's own words: "The aim is, to participate with joy in the sorrows of life."
On June 03 2012 02:12 sc2superfan101 wrote: im about half way through the video, and he's already displayed a remarkable misunderstanding of the mainstream Christian doctrine:
1) Christianity is no about a rejection of life as a whole, but of this sinful life.
2) Christianity has never been about withdrawing onesself from the struggles of others, or detatching onesself.
3) Jesus' command to refrain from judging refers to people, not things. it is, in the Christian view foolish to believe that we cannot judge an action or an idea as evil or good, but it is equally foolish to think we can judge a man as evil or good.
its interesting so far though, will edit with more later
edit: he is very... inconsistent. in one breath he will say that there is no good or evil, but then in the next he warns against anger and rancor and maliciousness. which is it? if they are not evil, and if the alternative is not good, than those feelings shoud be as legitimate and desireable as any other feelings.
edit 2: the Ascension, as understood by the writers of the Gospels and by almost all Christians since then, was never meant to be read as a metaphor, i see far too much of this in this man's opinions so far: putting his own anaylsis on the myth or legend or religious scripture, and then presuming that the originators of the scripture, myth or legend felt the same way that he does.
edit 3: he says: "we cannot identify with Jesus, we have to imitate Jesus" (he means that normal Christian thought is that we cannot be God ourselves, but must act like God). this is a common misunderstanding. we cannot be God the Father, and as we are now (sinners), we cannot be children of God either. that is where the imitation comes in: we as sinners have not learned to be as God is, so we must learn how, then we can be called children of God, and be said to be "like" God. basically: it is not blasphemy to suggest finding the Christ within onesself, rather, that is the essence of Christianity. find the child of God that was made and still remains.
Your understanding of Christianity is about as shallow as Campbell's is deep.
Although I agree with what you are trying to point out, your statement technically means nothing. Campbell's interpretation might not be deep at all as he tries to argue, resulting in his not being shallow at all
While Christianity never explicitly rejects earthly life (as life itself comes from the grace of the Lord) neither is earthly life celebrated in all its entirety. This is natural for any religion that holds a dualistic conception of morality, especially one in which the primary deities are the personification of good and evil. And since sin is some type of pseudo-inherited trait it makes earthly life impure and unworthy of the transcendent life (Heaven), and all earthly life becomes a path to attaining the latter. Christianity sets itself up as the method by which one uses earthly life to attain transcendental life.
in the christian belief, earthly life as we know it is a consequence of sin, and therefore is to be rejected. sin is seen as both inherited and chosen, and life is not necessarily seen as any path to Heaven. in the majority of the Christian population, sin is believed to automatically "disqualify" one from salvation, and the only path to attain it is through Christ. Christianity at it's heart is not proposed as a guidebook to life (and it is somewhat rare in this), but a recognition of a truth. the moral guidelines that it gives are simply to lead one to the revelation of the divine.
Christianity detaches itself from the world by redefining almost every aspect of reality in its own doctrine. Death is an evil consequence of sin instead of an inevitable transition of the world. Sex is an instinct that must be moralized and constrained under the law. Hatred, killing, jealously, etc. all become objectively evil instead of contextually bad (bad and evil have greatly different meanings). Life is no longer inherently good unless it is lived in the service of God. Life isn't even inherently good because of sin and the possibility of something better.
sex isn't seen as an inherently flawed thing at all, nor an instinct that needs to be controlled. Christian belief poses that sex is natural and good, and that the perversion of the sexual instinct is bad and undesirable. sexual perversion is usually defined as a non-monogamous, non-heterosexual sexual, non-consentual relationship.
Judgment of evil and good is a contradiction. Good and evil are objective qualities while judgment is a necessarily subjective action. And it is useless to pretend that judgment of actions is different from judgment of people. People and actions are not separate.
judgement is only an ineherently subjective thing if the measure one is using is subjective. if one were to say that chocolate ice cream is better than vanilla because one prefers it over the other, than one's measurement is subjective: taste. but if one were to say that this specific chocolate ice cream is better because it is not rotten, and the vanilla ice-cream is, than we have an objective measurement with which we can objectively judge the two things: one is rotten, one is not.
on the difference between people and actions, i think its like this: Christianity says that we cannot judge people because we are as "criminal" in Gods eyes as they are; also the doctrine is clear that judgement is God's alone and that He has not cast his judgement yet. one the other hand, the Christian doctrine teaches that God has already judged some actions as sinful, therefore people have to be able to judge the action so that they can avoid it. they are technically not judging the action, but relaying God's judgement on it.
Christians can't comprehend Christianity as a metaphor; they would have to accept the possibility that Christianity is false to do so.
That is exactly the problem, isn't it? Christians believe that the Ascension is a literal event, Campbell believes that the Ascension is a metaphor that offers insight into life and that Christians got it wrong the minute they interpreted it as history instead of poetry.
for the first point, absolutely. to comprehend Christianity as primarily metaphorical would be to deny the reality of it and that is forbidden according to the Christian doctrine. but where Campbell is wrong is that the Christian doctrine was never meant to be seen as metaphorical, at any point (Gnostics don't count because they were never a majoirty). the faith practiced today comes directly from the writings of the specific sects of Christianity that were well aware of the "metaphor" side, but had rejected it. it was (to them) always meant as both history and poetry, reality and metaphor. if we accept the historicity of Jesus (was a man, did live) than the evidence suggests that at least some of the teachings of the gospels in the bible were passed down by specific disciples. leaving out the question of wether they were making shit up or not, the belief was still never presented as a symbolical thing.
You cannot identify with Christ as he is both God and man. How can you fault him for 'misreading' Scripture when you cannot even recall it correctly? *facepalm*
in the writings of Paul, and in the Gospel of John, we see that they believe that we as sinners cannot identify with Christ, as in we cannot call ourselves like Christ in action, thought, or being. however, it is also made clear that the act of the crucifixion and resurection, followed by the ascension, has given man "a way out" of his doom. whereas Christ is seen as the natural born child of God, we will be like adopted children. still children though. that is what i mean when i say that we are taught to identify with Christ.
I'm not sure what you mean by that. Moyers is describing how Christianity and most world religions are gradually being disinherited due to the natural sciences, and he wonders how future generations will fair without those mythologies. And Campbell is perfectly correct in his assertion that present moral values are wildly different from the recent past. Acceptance of homosexuality, racial equality, social equality despite circumstance, moral equality despite circumstance, all of these were untenable positions even in the 1950s. Anti-intellectualism was a prevalent trend in the 1950s too.
i mean that values have remained largely the same throughout all of human history, and science hasn't changed that. the world religions do not really show any signs of dissapearing, and are in fact growing in some areas. i think it is wrong to suggest that science has anything to do with the stagnating religiosity of western society.
he is not correct in his assertion that present moral values are wildly different than from the recent past. homosexuality is still not accepted as moral by a large portion of the population. racial equality was never an untenable position, and furthermore was actually a relatively popular positon for the entire history of the United States. "social equality" and the pursuit of it is older than the nation is, and has gone through many periods of rising and falling popularity. anti-intellectualism supposedly is still around (i don't believe it was ever prevalant). my assertion was that he is overstating the changes in society's moral codes and beliefs. also, i do not believe mythology is fading away, but has evolved into fiction.
On June 03 2012 02:14 Uni1987 wrote: Religion always gives a me a good laugh.. Unbelievable mankind still believes in that crap anno 2012. Yeah, quite the evolved race we are :')
I have no problem with people analyzing or attributing non scientific belief as part of culture. But I dont think anyone has the right to ridicule someone who has a different religious, moral,. etc orientation.
EPT
