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Meh, the bible is the claim, not the proof. Nice collection of tall tales though. And, man that last book, Revelation! I think whoever wrote it had discovered acid, and took it during the whole time he was describing his hallucinations. Far out man!
I assume what MPD was getting at was that we have various shortcuts we use all the time -- snap judgments, assumptions, rules of thumb, aphorisms, approximations -- and I think an attempt was being made to include religious ideation in that class of things.
The problem, as I see it, is that it's one thing to give short shrift to accuracy for inconsequential things (although even then, our snap judgments, etc., should be subject to review, given that science has clearly demonstrated our tendency to hang on to them even in the face of contrary evidence -- e.g., first impressions). But it's another thing to play fast and loose with highly consequential matters such as one's claimed eternal destiny and worldly happiness, one's ethics and morals -- things that, if you get them wrong, people could be hurt, or even die. You can guess about what to wear to work or eat for dinner or what tomorrow's weather is likely to be, to a great extent -- but maybe one should be a little more careful about, say, whether to pray away your cancer or see a physician concerning it.
In fairness, sometimes religious guidance amounts to doing the right things for the wrong reasons, and is arguably harmless as such. And I'm happy to leave people to it if that's their desire, so long as they're happy to leave me to do my thing as well.
Still, I think that every human's job in life is to develop an increasingly accurate "theory of everything" and live their life in accordance with it, so that they are as consistent and rational as possible in dealing with situations that present themselves. If you are operating on approximations, then you're going to experience leaky abstractions, and you're going to make dumb mistakes. Or at least that was my experience.
Meh, the bible is the claim, not the proof. Nice collection of tall tales though. And, man that last book, Revelation! I think whoever wrote it had discovered acid, and took it during the whole time he was describing his hallucinations. Far out man!
LOL I said practically the same thing about Revelation. Except I think it was magic mushrooms.
The other word for it that is more familiar is HOPE. Yes, it is crucial for survival. Even birds hope. When my bird feeder is empty they still come out to check it out with hope. They build nests in precarious places and hope their eggs will survive, even when they dont.
You can come up with more examples by yourself.
True for you. Not for others for whom they are not fairy tales because they see meaning in it. People have different capacities. Some call it blessed.
Yes some of the bible stories have morals and teachings to them, just as most other fairy tales do. Those teachings do not make the stories real, just instructional.
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