Religion
In reply to the discussion: Atheists Skeptical of Atwill’s Claim of a ‘Fabricated Jesus’ [View all]struggle4progress
(118,379 posts)should not be to promote pseudo-historic nonsense of your own
But my view, of many religious texts from a variety of cultures, is that they may contain important views of the world and our place in the world
Among the Kamakura koans, for example, is a story that when Tokimune was digging the foundations for a new temple, amid the ruins of an abandoned pagoda, he found a stone coffer which contained a circular mirror engraved with the words "Perfect Realization," from which was taken the name of the new temple. When Bukko later told one of his students this story about the temple's name, he added: Forget that buried mirror! What about that perfect mirror you hold in your hands right now? Bring it from its stone coffer! Otherwise the pagoda cannot be built!
I rather doubt it would matter whether this were historical or whether it taught something scientific. Its object and potential value lie elsewhere. It was provided as part of a tradition, purporting to teach something. Many cultures around the world have their own varieties of such tales, and perhaps we can sometimes learn something from them -- from the tales of the hasidim, or of the sufis, or of the daoists, or ...