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May. 21st, 2003 08:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sophiaserpentiaJust wrote some thoughts for ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
challenging_god that I wanted to post here for posterity.
An ongoing discussion about Biblical rules on marriage with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
aarondarling spurred some thoughts that I want to expand upon and record here in my journal for posterity.
The perennial question facing anyone of any religious tradition is, how do I live out these teachings in practice? Some of the teachings make no sense in modern contexts. Some of the teachings even give differing, vague, or contradictory guidelines.
Where the scriptural teachings are very old, there is the additional question of how to live by these teachings in the modern world. How many of the moral proscriptions were really meant to be eternal? This question is compelling especially when we consider that most scriptures reveal an evolution of moral codes over time. Buddhist moral codes were meant as a reformation of Hindu moral codes. Christian moral codes were meant as a reformation of Jewish and Roman moral codes.
IMO scripture should be viewed as a record of the solutions and conclusions that ancient cultures arrived at. It contains the records of experiences and conversations that concern questions we still have today, but formulated in the contexts of societies and realities that may or may not still apply.
There is always a contingent that wants to go back to scripture and postulate that the problems of modern society could be ameliorated if we were to suddenly and immediately reverse course and live according to a very strict interpretation of scriptural guidelines.
But it seems to me that the real core of religious teaching is on that which can be described as timeless and universal -- such as the obvious importance of compassion and mindfulness, and the universal human mystical experience. To my mind these should be given more weight than the "quick fix" of re-ordering society according to ancient solutions.
A while back I began to explore the idea that the moral codes of a society at any given time can be traced to economic, social, and political realities. If this is true, then there is very good reason why we should resist the impulse to apply by rote ancient codes of conduct.
challenging_god that I wanted to post here for posterity.An ongoing discussion about Biblical rules on marriage with
aarondarling spurred some thoughts that I want to expand upon and record here in my journal for posterity.The perennial question facing anyone of any religious tradition is, how do I live out these teachings in practice? Some of the teachings make no sense in modern contexts. Some of the teachings even give differing, vague, or contradictory guidelines.
Where the scriptural teachings are very old, there is the additional question of how to live by these teachings in the modern world. How many of the moral proscriptions were really meant to be eternal? This question is compelling especially when we consider that most scriptures reveal an evolution of moral codes over time. Buddhist moral codes were meant as a reformation of Hindu moral codes. Christian moral codes were meant as a reformation of Jewish and Roman moral codes.
IMO scripture should be viewed as a record of the solutions and conclusions that ancient cultures arrived at. It contains the records of experiences and conversations that concern questions we still have today, but formulated in the contexts of societies and realities that may or may not still apply.
There is always a contingent that wants to go back to scripture and postulate that the problems of modern society could be ameliorated if we were to suddenly and immediately reverse course and live according to a very strict interpretation of scriptural guidelines.
But it seems to me that the real core of religious teaching is on that which can be described as timeless and universal -- such as the obvious importance of compassion and mindfulness, and the universal human mystical experience. To my mind these should be given more weight than the "quick fix" of re-ordering society according to ancient solutions.
A while back I began to explore the idea that the moral codes of a society at any given time can be traced to economic, social, and political realities. If this is true, then there is very good reason why we should resist the impulse to apply by rote ancient codes of conduct.
