In Reply to: Re: Bamboozled posted by Perry (reposted) on July 14, 2005 at 15:28:13:
I have thought a lot about whether or not the central beliefs of Christianity are actually a myth. When we use the term "myth," we generally mean to imply that a belief has no basis in fact, and therefore, that the belief is untrue. However, this is a very limited understanding of the term. "Myth" also refers to a specific type of story in which natural events are imbued with supernatural meanings. Death is a natural event, and a fact of every human life; the story of Jesus' resurrection gives his particular death a supernatural meaning.
I can accept the possibility that Jesus' body was stolen by his disciples and secretly buried as the non-believing Jewish authorities claimed. I can even entertain the possibility that Jesus "survived" death by passing on his genes to a female disciple who bore his child. If either of these claims is the factual truth, it does not change the intangible truths of the resurrection myth that I have chosen to accept.
This is because I do not limit the definition of truth a factual accuracy supported by tangible proof. There are certain intangible truths about human existence. Life after death is an intangible truth that cannot be proven. However, the power of this truth can be demonstrated. What does it mean when we say the spirit of a deceased person "lives on"--? Most people will acknowledge there is an intangible truth to this idea.
Some people think "her spirit lives on" means the deceased person's soul lives on in a supernatural realm, perhaps as a ghost. Some people think it means reincarnation. While we may not accept these beliefs as factual truths subject to tangible proof, isn't it factually accurate to say the person lives on in memory?
All of us have memories of dead people we never met. Every time I shared bread in the Catholic Church, I repeated the words, "Do this in memory of me." For me, the spirit of a dead 1st century Jew lives on.
It is my mind that cherishes the memory of a man, a memory based in large part on a myth about intangible truths. Whenever I contemplate this mystery for very long, I remember the words of John Milton, in Paradise Lost: "The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven."
If the mind is not supernatural, isn't it at least a mystery like death itself?