Popular conceptions of religion seem to confuse the historical behavior of the institution, with the significance of the religious text; also, many confuse the intrinsic value of the text, with the interpretations of the text as stated by supposed followers or believers.
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The Text is NOT the behavior of the INSTITUTION
The individual’s (mis)understanding of the TEXT is NOT the TRUE SIGNIFICANCE of the work.
To confuse the two leads to error and quite unnecessary problems.
And EVERYBODY does it. A dislike for organized religions, has nothing to do with the actual nature of the Universe, and at what scale (and through what means) intelligence operates.
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The best example is the following:
Newton’s work – Principia Mathematica – was a revolution in scientific understanding. IMAGINE, throwing away Mathematics because a cult, founded in the name of NEWTON, perpetrated crimes on behalf of their prophet, Isaac in the name of their Deity MATHOS.
Imagine the consequences if we discarded this work, on account of a select few who abused or simply misunderstood the text. Take the example to the extreme and imagine a world without mathematics. Every invention or device you use every day would not exist – this is identical (in magnitude) to the absurdity and destructive consequence of discarding Intelligence as a Universal phenomenon, on account of not liking religion, religious texts, or religious people. However imperfect the institution, the text or those claiming to be followers – the reality of deity, or simply cosmic intelligences has nothing to do with these.
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There is a huge distinction between Interpretation, Book, and Object of Inquiry.
A perfectly penned book does not guarantee understanding within the reader. A perfectly real ideal (even those we call ‘natural laws’) does not guarantee their clear or true expression within a text.
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Yet, imperfect understanding does not render the book false, nor do falsehoods within a text render the ideal untrue.
What is religion
The “Messianic” religions of Judaism, Islam and Christianity account for over half (cia factbook) of the world’s religious population. The texts pertaining to them are the Torah, Koran and New Testament, respectively. There is no religious text (dealing with the major Messianic religions) that can be called a 'literal account’ of Universal and biological genesis. This much is clear by even the most superficial reading of the text.
Far from signifying a literal account, texts such as the Koran, the Torah and the Christian New Testament, are combinations of symbolic systems of meaning, parables, metaphysical or mathematical codes - and dramatized events. Symbols are useful to allude to that which cannot be contained or expressed in literal words.
In the Beginning
Whatever is meant by "In the Beginning, there was the word... And the world with God and the word was God" It is clearly not a literal statement. A literal expression is as follows:
The dog ran along the street.
It is literal because ‘Dog’ refers to an actual entity that exists and can be objectively recognized. ‘Ran’ describes a type of action or movement understood by all people. The ‘street’ is a tangible object within the bounds of time and space. In other words, literal expressions must point to something, or must at very least refer to a subjective state which is known between two or more individuals. I ‘feel’ good can be called more or less a literal statement, in that ‘good’ refers to an emotional state we are all familiar with.
I feel like I’m walking on air.
The preceding is not a literal statement, because walking on air is not something humans do.
Literal expressions cannot describe or refer to events beyond our understanding of time and space, and three-dimensional physical existence -- and as “In the beginning…” describes the time when nothing seems to have existed and the Universe came into being, this is incomprehensible from the literal standpoint. No person may ‘literally’ conceptualize a time before time, or a universe before creation; nor could this idea be expressed verbally. There are no words in our vocabulary to describe a void before the creation of all things.
It is not a matter of this being called "True" or "False" because there is nothing in Human experience or understanding that relates to this – i.e. no ‘sense’ to which this concept refers. The strictly speaking ‘non-sensical’ can never be literal.
“You are the Sunshine of my life” cannot be called literal, because no set of conditions can render it True or False. Unless of course the speaker is talking to the sunshine. Yet, once we recognize (and it is very important we do) that these works are not, nor were they ever intended to be construed as, literal works, the true purpose is revealed. Poetry, for example, is not literal – yet it carries deep meaning. There are many ways we can study and learn from, and interpret through metaphor and intuition, each statement.
For instance - Beginning may mean, 'before all things' or 'when things first were. ‘Things’ refers to arrangements of energy perceived as separate discrete entities (i.e. how we experience them).
When we speak a word, we have an image in mind, an idea we want to communicate – and an idea is a set of relative concepts; also, we must want to communicate this idea. That we choose to do so means we have a motive or emotion. Motivation is a progenitive force. Once we speak, the atmosphere around us vibrates. This vibration creates form, the agency is energy and the medium is matter. That any of this is possible is only because we are conscious agents, and we possess intentions, logic and intelligence.
The "word" - as we have just contemplated it is then a combination of:
Consciousness / Intention
Energy / Vibration
Form / Image
Mind / Matter
So, before all things, there was an Image or Idea in a Conscious Mind, with an Intention or Emotion which was also "with" and "one with" this energy, such to create the world of form. These are the primary modes of Universal reality. Coincidence? There are tens of thousands of words in our dictionary, any one of them could have followed ‘in the beginning’ but of all these, it was the ‘word’.
From this brief, yet powerful passage we discern that through the application of thought and imagination, we are brought on a journey of meaning -- to a deeper truth. One we can only understand intuitively through metaphor and allegory. Furthermore the significance of what we find through contemplation rests not in the 'right' or 'wrong' or 'true' or 'false but the MEANING that WE CREATE, through the EXPERIENCE and CONTEMPLATION.
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