08-06-2016, 03:46 AM
(08-06-2016, 01:15 AM)Billy Wrote: Seth had this to say about religion, in which he briefly talks about 'Mohammedanism'. I don't understand what Seth is getting at.
You posted a long quote, so I'm not entirely sure which parts you were having trouble with. However, my basic summary of it would be something like:
"Religions like Christianity and Buddhism begin with one person having a transcendent inner experience where they connect with the universe and glimpse its larger workings. They wish to communicate their revelations, but as enlightenment cannot be shared or communicated, they are forced to compromise greatly in their attempts to tell others what they learned. Their messages therefore take the form of symbolic dramas relying on Earthly metaphors to try to illustrate higher principles. The problem is, a great many of those who hear their teachings lack the wisdom and insight to understand the difference between metaphors and higher truth, leading them to take the teachings completely literally and thus totally missing the point. Ie, Jesus called himself the Son of God to illustrate the Creator's role in overseeing all of us, but most of his followers took it so literally that they invented a huge chunk of mythology attempting to justify Christ as the literal biologic son of the Creator."
And extrapolating a bit, this basic confusion between metaphor and reality then opens the door for negative influences -attracted to any attempt to communicate a positive spiritual message- to even further distort the teachings by encouraging those who lack sufficient love or wisdom to focus exclusively on the selfish and materialistic aspects of the teachings. So you end up with people who are absolutely zealous followers of a religion who none the less behave in ways almost entirely contrary to what its founder intended, and all the while convinced theirs is the one true faith.