David Tacey

Religion as Metaphor (eBook, ePUB)

Beyond Literal Belief

• Format: ePub

Produktbeschreibung

Biblical stories are metaphorical. They may have been accepted as factual hundreds of years ago, but today they cannot be taken literally. Some students in religious schools even recoil from the "fairy tales" of religion, believing them to be mockeries of their intelligence. David Tacey argues that biblical language should not be read as history, and it was never intended as literal description. At best it is metaphorical, but he does not deny these stories have spiritual meaning.

Religion as Metaphor argues that despite what tradition tells us, if we "believe" religious language, we miss religion's spiritual meaning. Tacey argues that religious language was not designed to be historical reporting, but rather to resonate in the soul and direct us toward transcendent realities. Its impact was intended to be closer to poetry than theology. The book uses specific examples to make its case: Jesus, the Virgin Birth, the Kingdom of God, the Apocalypse, Satan, and the Resurrection.

Tacey shows that, with the aid of contemporary thought and depth psychology, we can re-read religious stories as metaphors of the spirit and the interior life. Moving beyond literal thinking will save religion from itself.

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Produktdetails

• Verlag: Taylor & Francis eBooks
• Seitenzahl: 286
• Erscheinungstermin: 8. September 2017
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9781351493802
• Artikelnr.: 49263586

Autorenporträt

Tacey, David

Inhaltsangabe

Preface Acknowledgments Personal Introduction 1. Miracles as Imagination Mythos and History
The Miracles of Jesus
Metaphor and Its Hazards
Preserving the Spiritual Meaning 2. Religion as Metaphor The Literary Mode of Scripture
Myth, Metaphor and Jesus
Literal Thinking as Idolatry
Religion as Unconscious Poetry
Pious Fraud
The Greatest Story Ever Sold? 3. The Soul's Symbolic Code Why Myth Matters
Myth as Ancient Psychology
When Mythos became Logos
The Ancestral Mind
Mythos, Soul, Eternity
Mythos in Art and Entertainment
Mythos as a Structure of Thought
Mythos Downgraded
Myths, Dreams, Religions
Something Continues to Speak 4. Jesus the Metaphor Imagination and Reality
Fear of Myth
The Secret Life of Us
Personifying
Spirit Personified in Jesus
Ongoing Incarnation
The Messenger as the Message
An Eastern Moment in the West
Gnosticism and other Heresies
Absolutism, Violence, and Conflict
When Jesus became God
Onward Christian Soldiers
Jesus the Mirror of Our Projections 5. The Myth of the Virgin Birth The Dead Hand of Patriarchy
Can We Be "Moved" By Myths?
Sexual Politics and the Uses of Myth
The Myth and its Background
Divine Insemination
Spiritual Rebirth
Institutional Literalism
The Less We Believe the Better 6. Waking Up The Kingdom
Putting on the New Self
Waking Up to a Higher Authority
Reversal of the Ego's Values
Losing and Finding Life
The Mustard Seed
Many are Called, Few Choose
Completion, Not Perfection
Transformation, Not Repentance
Jesus, Socrates, and Waking Up 7. Apocalypse Apocalypse as Psychology
Coming of the New Self
Destruction and Renewal
Spiritual Event and Pathological Obsession
Violation of the Ego's Boundaries
New Self as Original Self
Judgment
Destruction and Punishment
God as Interruption
Rapture
Founding a New Order 8. Satan and Literalism Nicodemus and the Rebirth Story
Incest Fantasies and Sexual Abuse
Satan as the Personification of Literalism
The Sublimation of Base Instincts 9. Resurrection: Ascending to Where? The Resurrection Conundrum
Joseph Campbell's Straight Talking
Jung: Cutting through Spiritual Materialism
Paul's Mysticism
The Parable of Emmaus
Emmaus Never Happened, Emmaus Always Happens
The Unacknowledged God in Our Midst 10. Psyche and Symbol Dreaming the Myth Onward
Reworking the Past
The Therapeutic Function of Myth
Myth as Psychic Truth
Mystery Without Literalism
Respect to a God Unknown
The Assumption of Mary
Elevation of the Symbolic 11. After Belief After Literalism
Faith Without Belief
Vision and Uncommon Sense
Bultmann's Progressive Thinking
Saving the Myths
Throwing Out the Baby
Progressives in the Rationalistic Mode
The Sea of Faith at Ebb Tide
From Passive Belief to Active Faith
Stages of Faith
Recreating the Fables Conclusion: Unveiling the Soul Rebirth of the Sacred
From the God-Shaped Hole
Depth Psychology as Midwife
Psyche as an Opening to Infinity Index