misinterpreted metaphors Options

[boots]

Here's an interesting essay...
http://www.realitysandwich.com/the_resurrection_before_jesus

When you present analogies as living, breathing humans, you actually take away their humanness. Instead of personified ideas, you are left with the ideas of particular persons. This defeats the purpose of the prophecies, which is to educate and empower every individual with the lessons of religion. We spend more time wondering about what particular historical figures might have done when alive than doing what we need to do ourselves. There is a good reason "primitive" societies employed animals and imaginary figments as their gods: those figures couldn't be mistaken as human, so humans would not make the mistake of separating themselves from the rest of the world.

Having faith in a particular value system, and organizing your life around those values, is a noble discipline. But believing those values to be the only way a person should experience reality is the result of spending too much time not actually experiencing the world around you – not traveling, not engaging in conversations with people of other faiths, not being critical of your own faith. This leads to the false righteousness that the prophets of religions spoke against, not in favor of.

Whether or not a historical figure called Christ ever existed is irrelevant. The term "Christ," like the word "Buddha," is significant because it represents the individual who has given up his or her ego in search of something universal.