Apologies for the delay in replying - still catching up.
John, Dave, Elinor, All,
I'd want to resist this dichotomisation of truth and fiction.
As Ricoeur argued in Time and Narrative, history is made sense of through
plots and metaphors drawn from fiction. If I were to push the whole
argument to it's limits (and in practice I wouldn't) I'd argue that there's
no such thing as objective history - rather all history is identified as
true by whether it 'rings true to an inner voice' it's just that some
people pretend that this isn't the case. Now, of course, I don't want to
fall into solipsistic relativism either. Somewhere in between is a
recognition that all history is as much constructed as factual, and that
religions are particularly good at reconstructing history.
I guess the question for me is not is the religion based on historical fact
or not - because all religions are based on some fact and some fiction.
Rather, the question is what mix of fact and fiction is there, and what are
the consequences of the particular claims to historical authenticity. I
guess you'd call it a more pragmatist approach.
Remember, you can never get out of the hermeneutic circle. LOL
Cheers
Doug.
>Dave Green wrote, "Really does it matter if spiritualities are based >upon
>sound historic fact?"
>
>Id have to question this (sorry Dave) - I think the whole pyschologisation
>of religion (which ive probably spelt wrong) is a worrying sign: that
>people can bring in the whole 'well, it rings true for my inner voice etc'.
>
>"Every religion would be in trouble if we relied on history to guide our
>practices".
>
>Exactly. But at least thats something to debate over - e,g was the earth
>created in 7 days. If we start getting into the territory of 'well, it
>might not be, but the idea that it did works for me' we are headed on a
>slippery slope.
>Having said that, I suppose we could do the same thing with the
>S************n debate: say 'well, it may or may not be happening but the
>idea that every church has become a hypermart rings true for me' lol
>
>John
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