Posted by Ant on September 02, 19102 at 14:16:31:
In Reply to: Re: symbolic/literal posted by Joshua on August 27, 19102 at 00:45:14:
:And I'm not aware of any compelling evidence that things in the Bible such as sin, punishment and corruption of nature were intended to be taken symbolically. In fact, I think it's very clear they were not.
Of course the Bible, or any religious text, isn't going to come right and tell you that this is all metaphorical; it speaks for itself. It isn't there to provide "compelling evidence" of anything. We know that the creation story is not what really happened, we know that a man couldn't live for very long inside of a whale. It's presumed that we can figure it out for ourselves. Also, it almost sounds as if you think that thinking of things in symbolic terms is bad; it isn't. This is how we understand such intangible things like sin, punishment, etc.
The important thing to realize, though, is that a sin-and-punishment based religion is still bad. (This isn't to say that remorse or humility is though.) Rewards and punishments keep people living for the future, and the future isn't reality, the present is. To insure this phantom future, people come up with a system of rewards and punishments that validates and justifies things they already believe. Those who adhere to these common beliefs have a reward waiting for them, those who stray from them deserve punishment, and this creates ever more divisions; us/them, good/bad, etc.
When you really look at it, and this is something Buddhists realize, there is no real good or evil. Those are human categories of thought. If there were no people to make those distinctions (and there was a time when this was true!), you couldn't say that floods and earthquakes are evil, or that animals who hunt other animals for food are deserving of punishment.
Of course, we shouldn't allow people to do horrible things to each other, and it is true that some people are warped and not fit for society. But technically speaking, there is no good or evil, there's just reality, which is made of wonders both beautiful and horrible, and there are things which cause us pain, and things that bring us happiness. The things that pain us and which we can't tolerate, we call evil. But then you must remember that nearly everything we do has some negative effects of someone or something somewhere. We must try to live as honestly and compassionately as we can.
To wait patiently and to forever prepare for a day of judgement and rewards and punishments is to miss the point of life entirely. Real life and its experiences are whizzing right by you faster than you can imagine it, while you are struggling to make sure your place in some later heaven is secure.