Immerse yourself in the following quote:
"Our accounts of God are likely stories, but
all the same legendary. Not one of them is full and final. We are like little
children on the seashore trying to fill our shells with water from the sea.
While we cannot exhaust the waters of the deep by means of our shells, every
drop that we attempt to gather into our tiny shells is a part of the authentic
waters" (page 27).
I think this quote, from Chapter II of The Hindu View of Life by
S. Radhakrishnan, is tastefully simply and beautiful. From this quote, I think that Radhakrishnan is saying that every person's vision and idea of God varies due to their beliefs. Even though there may be no "proof" as to if God is real or not, people rely on their beliefs. Like the imagery of children on the seashore, people gather what belief they do have into their seashells, which makes their religion all the more special and meaningful.
By comparing religion to the authenticity of water in seashells, Radhakrishnan is presenting the point that religions have their own interpretations of what life should be like. However, they are not "full and final." We do not know for sure if there is one or many Gods, but people make a choice to follow a religion and assume that this is the way.
Even though the accounts of God may be written down, that does not mean that they should be taken literally. For example, in class the other day we talked about how The Bhagavad Gita is a story; treat it seriously, but not literally. That may be the same case with other religions. In the Bible, the Catholic religion states that all the accounts provided were real, but maybe it is just in the figurative sense, not in the literary sense. Maybe people are "exhausting the waters" by being too literal in their religions. I had never thought about it this way before.....
Even though the accounts of God may be written down, that does not mean that they should be taken literally. For example, in class the other day we talked about how The Bhagavad Gita is a story; treat it seriously, but not literally. That may be the same case with other religions. In the Bible, the Catholic religion states that all the accounts provided were real, but maybe it is just in the figurative sense, not in the literary sense. Maybe people are "exhausting the waters" by being too literal in their religions. I had never thought about it this way before.....
Yes I agree very much that many religious stories from various faiths were meant to be taken figuratively and not literally and have been perverted in a sense. I believe they are meant to teach a lesson, a moral, something but not black in white concrete words meant to be taken literally.
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