[littlegal]

Originally Posted by Padre

A couple of observations; I'm surprised no one has entered the word 'mythology' into the discussion. And when I use the word I do not mean fiction or unreal. I'm using the word in the Joseph Campbell sense. Joseph Campbell - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Mythology is a collection of stories by which we order our lives. I believe this has been pointed out in previous discussion about families. We grow up in an enviornment and that environment which helps shape our beliefs. As children we observe and participate in various experiences which range from joy to trauma. Out of those events we take with us truths and perhaps untruths from those events into our future. Likewise the Bible, Koran, Torah, yada yada are all collections of stories about how people responded to different situations. We read a story, ponder its relevance to our life and perhaps a little bit of what we glean goes with us. Most of the stories in sacred text find someone needing 'salvation' , eternal or immediate. And of course each text supplies an ultimate and an intermediate figure to take care of that. Sometimes the figure is divine and sometimes it is our neighbor. Even movies reflect this theme, Gotham is under seige by the Joker and Batman becomes the salvation or deliverance. Now to get to a point lol; all of us play various roles in the mystery of life. Sometimes we are the failure, the traumatized, the victim, the sinner. And other times we are the saint, the one who brings hope, and some degree of deliverance or salvation. To use a Christian term, we are God Incarnate - we become God's love, hands, hugs, resources ect. So in a sense we are all human and divine living our lives based on a series of stories which constitute our life's story. I choose to be a Christian, not because I can, or even want to prove divine creation or anything else as a concrete point. I have made my choice based on the fact that those particular stories resonate with my life and in the reading and studying of them, I can navigate the way or path I feel is best for my life. While I am a Christian, I am also somewhat of a universalist believing the mythology I follow isn't necessarily that which will resonante with others. Therefore every person can choose from any number of paths and find truth for their life. Now I'm going to eat black-eyed peas

Smartest, most astute post "evah"!!!!! Padre, you are my type of guy.