Steven Peterson > Sent: Wednesday, February 10, 2010 9:16 PM > What is criticized as Fundamentalism by more liberal interpreters of > scripture is an extreme version of a common error to which believers as > well > as nonbelievers are susceptible. Joseph Campbell explained that theists > and > atheists tend to have positions which are two sides of the same coin. > He > notes that both athiests and theists tend to mistakenly read myths as > if > they were historical records. The only difference being that one says > that > these myths are historically true while the other says that they are > historically false. Given these choices, the atheist certainly has the > intellectual high ground in denying the scientific truth of two and > three > thousand year-old cosmologies and the historical truth of legends > growing > around the various religion's prophets, but Campbell argues that both > sides > are guilty of missing the point of myths. In Campbell's view, > historical and > scientific truth are completely separate issues from that of the truth > of > myth. Myths should be read with an ear for symbol and metaphor rather > than > with the criteria for discernment of historical or scientific fact. [Mary Replies]
Hello Steve, I would argue that Campbell was being disingenuous in his argument. I saw the Moyer's series when first run, in 1988 did you say? and remember thinking this at the time. He was pandering to fundamentalists with his assertions about atheists. He set up a straw man atheist to knock down so that he would be viewed as fair-minded. He was right in his objections to fundamentalists casting mythology as historical fact and thus ruining it for everybody, but wrong in his objections to atheists doing the same. Atheists do no such thing. We are fully aware that biblical mythology is to be understood as metaphor. We also see the beauty in it, and appreciate it for what it is, but fundamentalism makes every effort to rob us and everyone else of that pleasure, and we object. The bible has many good and wise and useful things to say. What atheist's object to is the twisting of that into unyielding 'historical' fact. If fundamentalists were not around to do so, atheists would certainly not be proclaiming that it was. If fundamentalist's were not so aggressively in our faces with their 'facts', we would all be able to relax and appreciate the many beautiful stories, lessons, and metaphors in the bible. Personally, I resent that fundamentalists have stolen the beauty from my bible and made it difficult to appreciate what is found there. They would do well to remember that it is not "their" bible, it is everyone's. Mary Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
