Spiritual Journal, 2/23/02
Dec. 15th, 2002 10:09 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
novapsyche6:26 a.m.
Literalism is a perversion. One of the greatest aspects of the oral tradition is that, through the permutations of passing time, the stories would reflect the body of knowledge and level of understanding of the current community at large. Written words are inflexible, stationary, resistant to the natural mutations of language. The word has tried to achieve immortality through print, and some humans have sought to destroy immortalized word through destruction and burning.
Neither continual immortality nor utter destruction of the word is the correct choice. For all life is information, and all of creation bends to the whims and follies of time, which moves inexorably on and outward (an ever expanding bubble). Time implies movement, and movement of information is change. Mutation of information across the ages was the norm for centuries (veritable eras!); I would presume that the span of four generations could produce radically differing beliefs within the same belief structure. As Julian Jaynes said, writing, in a sense, froze time, froze a system of understanding whose meaning meant most to those who were living at that time and in that place.
Literal religion is a new creature, one that uses the convention of history to shield it from the ravages of time.
Literalism is a perversion. One of the greatest aspects of the oral tradition is that, through the permutations of passing time, the stories would reflect the body of knowledge and level of understanding of the current community at large. Written words are inflexible, stationary, resistant to the natural mutations of language. The word has tried to achieve immortality through print, and some humans have sought to destroy immortalized word through destruction and burning.
Neither continual immortality nor utter destruction of the word is the correct choice. For all life is information, and all of creation bends to the whims and follies of time, which moves inexorably on and outward (an ever expanding bubble). Time implies movement, and movement of information is change. Mutation of information across the ages was the norm for centuries (veritable eras!); I would presume that the span of four generations could produce radically differing beliefs within the same belief structure. As Julian Jaynes said, writing, in a sense, froze time, froze a system of understanding whose meaning meant most to those who were living at that time and in that place.
Literal religion is a new creature, one that uses the convention of history to shield it from the ravages of time.