Finding meaning that matters, in the details of what others have said.

 Responding to this image of text:

I appreciate his awareness.

The purpose of a storyteller determines the way it's told.  

And yet, I don't completely agree with him about the details of stories.

Sometimes, details are just to help the reader project themselves into a space, so they can connect with a happening, to help them connect with a meaning. 

Whenever that's the reason for the details, the meaning is NOT the purpose of the details. 

Rather, the details merely move us into a space where we can more fully (experientially) appreciate the meaning. 

This may seem like I'm splitting hairs, but I really don't think so. 

In any case, 
some of what is said in that block of text ... makes me wonder about the beliefs of whoever wrote it.

Christian writers didn't get the concept of the Logos from the heavens.
They got it from the Greeks.

Now, if you want to say the Greeks got it from "above", fine.
I  agree, if we mean this metaphorically. 

However, "above the Greeks" did not include a Yahweh or a Jesus.

In any case, I don't think the early Christian writers really understood the logos. 
It seems they set out to make it mean something else entirely. 

However, I admit, it doesn't really matter if the 1st and 2nd century CE Christians meant the same thing as the Greeks. 

Those people are dead and gone.

We are the "here".
We are the "now".

What matters is:
What we understand.
&
 What we do with it. 

I think the true wisdom of any Christian Bible is a cautionary tale.

99.9% of it is exactly how NOT to reason.
It is exactly how not to behave.

The other .1% is proof that even psychopaths sometimes chill out and pucker up.

"Me love you long time", says the Psalmist.
Just don't get on his bad side, or he'll start smashing your babies' heads against the rocks ...  for the pure enjoyment of it.  

Apparently, "God" forgot to write it on the Psalmist's heart that "It's wrong to do extreme violence to babies for fun".

As for Adam, in biblical literature, 
is he stable or unstable?

 
To me, he seems to be reasoning and behaving well;
except for blaming Eve for his own (otherwise reasonable) decision.   

And yet, "God" would seem to think Adam was unstable. 

I read the stories.

The most unstable person there is "God". 

Although "He" did get more interesting later,
when Christians decided he wasn't yet crazy enough; 
and so they retconned him two extra person-alities. 

In any case, the earth Adam walks upon (in the story) was very stable.

As for the sky being holier than the earth?
 I sure don't think so. 

  I think John Trudell answers this correctly in his monologue about Christianity.  

What I read in Bibles ... seems profoundly unholy to me. 

[Spell-check keeps insisting I should say "the Bible" every time I write "a bible" or "bibles". 

However, spell-check can kiss my ass. Because there's really no such thing as "The Bible"] 

Even the few "do good, be nice" moments are horrible in the context of using those as love-bombing marketing gimmicks to peddle God-awful, authoritarian PSY-OPs. 

 Better to have no pretense of love at all
than to use "love" as a weapon to help groom and enslave exploitable minds.

In contrast, 

what I hear from Native American spiritual narratives ... seems holy to me. 

  
The people who understand everything as a living, breathing, and sacred whole.
The people who even regard dirt itself to be sacred. 
They seem more spiritually enlightened and grounded (to me) 
than the people of
dominance, 
blood, and money.

I don't think we should rewrite history 
so that it flatters vulnerable and reactive egos.

Neither do I think anyone should be playing games or "taking liberties" with non-consenting people's lives. 

If someone's interpretation or 'meaning' of "Biblical" lore is to represent spiritual-but-not-religious enlightenment via ironically fundamentalist-religious language, ... fine.
 I'm on board. 
Let's go! 

 It's quite a wonderful superpower we've discovered, in our ability to convert crap into gold.

But when anyone takes those stories as divine license to denigrate:
* persons of 'divergent' (consentual) sexual interests and identities, 
* the differently (yet harmlessly) religious, 
* and/or the irreligious, 
 Karl Popper's "Paradox of Tolerance" 
entirely applies. 

The same holds true for people who
* indoctrinate defenseless children, 
* exploit vulnerable people's insecurities, 
or
* empower political tyranny.

The same holds true for those who:
* use threats of "eternal damnation" 
while
*gaslighting that counts merely as a "friendly warning" ... when really it's a blatant attempt at extreme coercion. It's also literally extortion. 

Meaning matters most ...whenever what is meant 
is an expression of personal values.

From these,
we derive goals. 

From these,
we get our "oughts" and "ought nots".

From these,
emerge behaviors which affect the lives of others. 

The problem is:
 "No Two People Have Ever Read The Same Book"
 
If we read something as literal, then:
it is just a claim about matters of fact. 

  So then the writer is saying "x person literally did x-thing".
But then the writer also has a reason for telling you about it.

They want the reader to feel some kind of way about some kind of situation. 

They want to change your view of the world,
or your place within it; 
at least a little bit.  

The less literal, the more abstract.

The more abstract, the more a reader is invited to use our imagination, to CREATE meaning. 

Whenever metaphors are being used to discuss matters of personal value(s), ...
 Stories must get at least some of their meaning from us.

Metaphors are imagery.

Images are paintings
generated by the mind. 

Whatever it means to you 
is 
Whatever it means to you. 

That only becomes someone else's business 
just as soon as:
Whatever it means to you
generates attitudes and behaviors 
which will affect the lives of others (either directly or indirectly).  

So if a reader finds inspiration to be kind to others, that's great. 
Really, it is;
just so long as that kindness is not being used to lure unsuspecting persons into any situation which poses a significant risk to anyone's good health and function. 

If a person of good intentions thinks it is actually kind to try convincing people of a *literal* torture, execution, and resurrection of a guy named "Jesus",
... 
and that we're all morally obligated to believe that it happened,
and to be GLAD that it happened (because we can cash in on someone else's suffering), 
 "or else" "God" will do violent shit to us,
...
and then to say "that's what you (and everyone you have ever loved in this world) deserves",
...
That evangelizer hasn't the faintest clue about what love actually is. 

In and of itself,
It doesn't matter what someone thinks a writer meant.

What matters is how they feel about 
whatever they think it meant.

 It doesn't tell us who they will be tomorrow.
But it does tell us who they are today.