I have read Life of Pi; I really liked it, but you're right that I disagreed with the central point about religion. Or at least, I think there's more to the religions of the world than "Let's paint as happy picture as we can of the universe, even if it's delusional." :-)
What I've been trying to work out is where a religious tradition like Unitarian Universalism fits in here. It seems like syncretist faiths try to synthesize all the other pictures (or at least the ones they agree with) and use them to reconstruct the model using, I don't know, stereoscopy or photo-stitching or something; I'm sure there's a good metaphor in here. What I don't know is how well that works -- can you gain a larger perspective by having a syncretist view of multiple religions, or whether you just lose the depth of each individual tradition?
The Luke quote is a good one for where I was going to go with the central claim of Christianity thing. I don't think the central claim of Christianity is necessarily the same as the central teachings of Jesus, and I haven't decided whether I think that's OK or not. :-)
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2005-06-04 07:41 am (UTC)I have read Life of Pi; I really liked it, but you're right that I disagreed with the central point about religion. Or at least, I think there's more to the religions of the world than "Let's paint as happy picture as we can of the universe, even if it's delusional." :-)
What I've been trying to work out is where a religious tradition like Unitarian Universalism fits in here. It seems like syncretist faiths try to synthesize all the other pictures (or at least the ones they agree with) and use them to reconstruct the model using, I don't know, stereoscopy or photo-stitching or something; I'm sure there's a good metaphor in here. What I don't know is how well that works -- can you gain a larger perspective by having a syncretist view of multiple religions, or whether you just lose the depth of each individual tradition?
The Luke quote is a good one for where I was going to go with the central claim of Christianity thing. I don't think the central claim of Christianity is necessarily the same as the central teachings of Jesus, and I haven't decided whether I think that's OK or not. :-)