A Banking Vocabulary
One way to get a snapshot picture of religions is by looking at the vocabulary used:
Christianity: debt and payment. A banking vocabulary.
Eastern religions: ignorance and illumination. A vocabulary of enlightenment. In Buddhism for example, the goal is to attain an enlightened state (beyond fear and desire) and live out of that.
Transformations of Myth Through Time, Joseph Campbell:
"Christ comes to atone for our sins, evil atonement. The first people to listen to St. Paul were the merchants of Corinth, and so we have the vocabulary of debt and payment in our interpretation of the mythic themes. Whereas in the Orient, the interpretation is in terms of ignorance and illumination, not debt and payment. The debt and payment explanation goes haywire when you realize there was no Garden of Eden, there was no fall of man, and so there was no offense to God. So what is all this about paying a debt?"
0 Comments
Recommended Comments
There are no comments to display.