Anthropology of religion

[All-In Flynn]

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For post-Enlightenment thinkers, the monotheistic belief systems were not related to ancient myths and rituals as science to superstition, or logic to magic. Rather

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If anyone needs to know what 'sleight of hand' is in the context of discourse, this is a textbook example. Logic doesn't really have a 'predecessor', and even if definitions of predecession are contorted to produce one, magic ain't it. And 'superstition' (still going strong to this day as a quick survey of the average poker table will confirm) as the 'predecessor' of science is ultimately no less of a stretch. And this BS 'point' is established to divorce modern monotheism from its (historically documented) polytheistic roots - all observable data to the contrary.

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The Genesis story... reveals itself as a study of the human condition..."

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So what 'truths about man and woman' are conveyed by the account of Eve's creation from Adam's rib? That this was clearly designed to 'explain' why women (appeared to) have an extra rib (they don't) flies in the face of 'allegorical apologists' to coin a phrase. That kind of thinking is easy, and may perhaps make the thinker feel as though they are closer to 'understanding' religion, but it's not of any inherent value. Suppose we take the neocortex, my personal candidate for 'what really separates us from the animals'. Its presence might account for the larger head-to-body size ratio in humans as opposed to apes, and so may ultimately be responsible for the discomfort women experience in childbirth... and look at Genesis! They ate the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge (they grew a neocortex), they covered their nakedness (they became 'civilised') they were cast out of Eden (they left the no doubt blissful ignorance animals enjoy) and God even says 'Henceforth shall you feel pain in labour' (not an exact quote). So in fact, Genesis might be a kind of encoded account of human evolution!!!!!! Or, you know, not.

Where this kind of thinking (the Bible is allegory, pure allegory and nothing BUT allegory, written as such to be read as such) falls down is that there's not really any point in encoding that type of information. If the authors of the Bible wanted to say something they said it, and sometimes they used allegory to get their ideas across. But they were attempoting to make real truth-claims about the real world (as they saw it)... trying to give religious feeling some kind of Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free card as 'allegory' brings more problems for religious apologists than it solves... how 'allegorical' are the lengthy chains of ancestry recounted in the Bible? Trying to exempt the core texts of any given religion from their their truth as seen by their authors is a Sisyphean endeavour.

/rant... I apologise if I've drifted OT...