Religious Texts Are Generally Confusing

Post Reply New Topic

This means that the provenance of the Pentateuch (and everything in the Christian Old Testament) goes back only as far as ~400 BCE. Thus, every story from the Creation to the Second Temple (~520 BCE) may not reflect actual facts in any great detail.

I agree about some of the Hindu texts being confusing; I read many of the Upanishads, Vedas and other texts thirty years ago when I was a monk. The "Bhagavad Gita" is quite good and readable too with its story running alongside the teachings. I have a copy of the "Diamond Sutra" and even that can be obtuse for the uninitiated. The most profound book I read was the very short Hindu book "Drg Drsya Viveka" which translates into "An inquiry into the nature of the 'Seer' and the 'Seen'". That was a life changing book for me. I've since seen the teachings of that ancient text expressed in modern Western terminology by various contemporary teachers so it is more accessible now. As you mention, Alan Watts is quite well respected.

I also read the bible in my youth and found it very shallow in philosophical terms compared to Eastern religious texts. The bottom line of the bible seemed to be "Believe in this god or else... and advice on what constitutes 'good moral behaviour'". Eastern religions are typically much more mature and aside from the obligatory lessons on morality delve into the depths of what it means to exist. Zen in particular puts the emphasis firmly on discovery and awakening rather than belief in dogma. Zen texts can seem very obtuse, but the message they convey is really quite "simple", it is easy to get lost in the words and attempt to logically analyse them, which will inevitable fail to yield any understanding. Zen is more about a shift in perception itself.

I hesitate to use the word "fact" and the word "bible" in the same sentence.

ruveyn

Thanks for the recommendation, and I certainly agree with your descriptions of christianity and zen. I myself thought Zen to be somewhat of a joke or nonsense at first, but the insights I've gained through it and Taoism I would not trade for anything.

This is my first post on PPR. Religion is my special subject of interest and attraction since I was a young child, so for over sixty years. Yes, these religious texts often but not always make little or no sense when taken completely literally (definitely) because a lot of of the material is allegorical and meant to be interpreted by various people according to their individual capacities. Often people who have a literalist mentality tend to take interpretative material definitely, and this can lead to fundamentalism. They may be overly literal because they do not have the mental development to grasp subtle nuances and inter-fold them to come to a new understanding that is more comprehensive and/or perhaps simply because they were not given (a variety) of allegorical material when they were children or even were punished for making interpretations and/or rewarded for making only certain kinds of interpretations.

In any case, much of the material of all the organically evolved religions of humanity is intended to be taken allegorically, and there are many reasons for this. It is extremely unlikely that the function of parables is simply to inspire faith, but rather it is the intention of the authors for people to try to understand them. Most if not all such allegorical material is covertly alluding to human brain/body function and how to transform that in such a way that a person gets back to the state of inner purity of a little child, but as an adult, not a child, so it does involve the development of reason, and this is done by making correlations between one thing and another but in a new way which separates the wheat of the natural inner person from the chaff of the conditioned and reactive person in such a way which corresponds with the approach of whatever religion, and there are a few different philosophic approaches but not so many..

In my opinion the difference between a somewhat poorly designed and a very well designed religion is that the latter is less likely to encourage fundamentalism because it makes a more clear distinction between definitive and interpretative material in such a way that interpretative material will not be taken literally, so in this regard there is perhaps a greater emphasis placed on definitive material, which emphasis might fall under the category of ethics, and this approach is given in conjunction with allegorical material in such a way that there is more balance. A good example of this might be the way material is presented in certain schools of Buddhism.

Firstly Darialan, it is written in the New Testament, that the Mosiac Law was a Tutor leading to Christ, but pretty much the whole of the Old Testament was a Tutor leading to Christ.
The Old Testament teaches Man that God is to be much feared, and that even when he tells us what we must do to please him, ie the Mosiac Law, it was beyond man to do so, we cannot earn our own salvation by our works, we are lost, and God is a God of Vengence.
So we learn in the Old Testament.

Hense, when the Christ arrived, we learnt of Gods Love and Mercy, namely that because we couldn't obey God, coulnt pay off all our many sins, that God himself was paying the price of our sin by offering up his sons life, that Love is better than law, if you have to do something out of fear of death, you are going to find it very difficult to Love God, but if we lean you no longer have to do something, that you are saved regardless, you might then do that same thing, but this time it will be for Love.

So, the whole of the Old Testament was to show how much we needed the Christ.

Hell means hole in the ground, the Grave, Hades, Sheol, "dust you are, and to dust you will return", God never promised Adam he would torture him for sinning, he said he would die, thats all, God would no more torture somebody than you would, or do you imagine God isnt as kind and mercyfull as you?


Now, as for the Bible being hard to understand, did you know for instance, that even Daniel didnt understand it, and he wrote it!,

Daniel 12 :- 8 Although I heard, I did not understand. Then I said, “My lord, what shall be the end of these things?”

9 And he said, “Go your way, Daniel, for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end. 10 Many shall be purified, made white, and refined, but the wicked shall do wickedly; and none of the wicked shall understand, but the wise shall understand.

Did you notice "the words are sealed up until the time of the end?
And that the wicked will not understand it?

Its written the way it is to be like a code, so only Gods people would understand it.
If it was written plainly, Babylon the Great would have ensured its demise, seeing how it identifies them and their plans.

We all sin, Jesus said the man who tore his clothes and said, "Be mercyfull to me, a sinner", was more righteous than the Pharisee who was boasting about how good he was.

If you are perfect, you dont need Jesus, so you probably wont Love him, if you are bad but cannot help it, you will Love Jesus because he has saved you when you couldn't save yourself.

thanks for writing that. That cleared a lot of things up.