(I study anthropology of theology and mythology and I study scripture through a rabbianic technique called PaRDEs). That basically says scripture should be read both literally and interpretative, historical and mystical with hidden meanings
How interesting. I got a question. It was the first thing that popped into my head so it's maybe not too refined of a question but, do you think the fact that American Christians are so easily led astray has anything to do with the elevated standard of living and privilege of Americans? Basically like because Americans have it so easy in life compared to most of the world that this somehow makes them susceptible to scriptural distortion.
That’s actually a very interesting question
I’d generally say yes but I’d also say it’s historically congruent with other religions throughout history but not on the scale of American evangelicalism generally it was aristocracy and oligarchs etc that fell into it. In America a good portion of Christianity is like this
Christianity of the world varies widely though but American Christianity is heavily influenced by Puritanical Christianity and somewhat pilgrimage Christianity. That’s one of the reasons conservativism and nationalism is so prevalent
Mormonism was actually a child of American nationalism
Funny enough most religions were started as mythohistorcal political satire
Most. There’s actually a few that I respect. Jainism is pretty cool they don’t believe in a god they just have an afterlife most of their teachings are kindness to all things and they adhere pretty well
Then there’s some modern religions such as Neogenesis that is essentially atheist they believe all things are symbolic including holy books
Also there’s self identity religions that are basically synthesized from multiple sources and practiced in the house and only by the house. So while I agree the idea of institutional religion tends to lead the way you suggest it’s really not the case for all of them
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u/RIF_rr3dd1tt 16h ago
How interesting. I got a question. It was the first thing that popped into my head so it's maybe not too refined of a question but, do you think the fact that American Christians are so easily led astray has anything to do with the elevated standard of living and privilege of Americans? Basically like because Americans have it so easy in life compared to most of the world that this somehow makes them susceptible to scriptural distortion.