What Happens When Religious Symbols No Longer Work?

Thanks so much for watching today’s video, I hope you enjoy it. And if you’re new, consider subscribing. What happens when religious symbols no longer work? Raimon Panikkar’s answer used the word “myth” in a new and fascinating way, talks about the relationship between religion and symbol as relativity, and describes reconstruction of the new myth as a new innocence. Paul Ricoeur differentiated between the first and second naiveté stating that we need to go beyond the desert of criticism and understand how we should interpret religious symbols through dialogue.
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0:00 Intro
1:48 Raimon Panikkar and myth
3:23 Symbols and relativity
4:46 The new innocence
5:54 Paul Ricoeur and symbols
7:43 The first naiveté
8:34 The second naiveté
10:00 Dialogue
10:54 Wrap-up
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Transcript at tenonreligion.com
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[@StevenPetermann]

I'm sure there are subtleties to Ricoeur's position but I disagree with his anti-author intentionalism. Now, it may be difficult to understand the intentionality of an ancient author but through historical studies sometimes we might get a sense of it. If we can, I think that can help with both deconstruction and reconstruction. As finite creatures, humans do have some common existential questions and issues that are universal to the species. Things like: who and what am I, what is the purpose of existence and my existence, what is the ultimate reality and the relationship of creatures to that reality, and so on. If we can get of sense of the existential issues an ancient author is grappling with and emphasizing, then we can examine the answers they come up with, and better evaluate those answers as they might pertain to our own questions. All that requires understanding the personal and cultural context within which they were formed. Upon examination of their "solutions," we can then decide if we agree with them or not for our current situations. I view these ancient texts with their symbols and myths as testaments regarding people's struggle to make sense of things that are important to them. If we look broadly at the millennia of wisdom literature surely great insights can be gleaned from many of those struggles and that can inform our own choices.

[@sohu86x]

Panikkar's myth sounds like a lot of woo woo. Shouldn't our goal be to eliminate as many untrue (defined as not rooted in real history) myths as possible? Sure, it may be valuable and even inevitable to hold onto certain core myths, but that doesn't make them true or always beneficial. I also believe that the "losing of innocence" should negatively affect one's ability to regain innocence.