Lyrebird says ..... "The question to ask with regards to sacred text in my opinion, is not 'did this really happen' but rather 'what is the purpose of the story.'

I feel we are at the core of the issue with this statement. The truth value with stories lies very much with both the purpose AND the fiction OR non fiction of the story. It isn't one unique to Lyrebird because even with grand narratives there exists a need to be criticised on this very issue. Stories do exist to mask the contradictions, subvert the degree of provisionality, cloak the instabilities, blind us to the fragmentary, and numb us to the incoherent, which exist in any social organization that asserts the superiority of “order.”

Why not celebrate fragmentation, provisionality, chaos, ambiguity, skepticism, conflict, vastness, disorientation, questions, confusion and incoherence? By all means challenge young minds with reason, free inquiry, dignity, participation and imagination.

e.g.
The story of Jacob and Esau comes to mind, unsurprisingly. First tell the captive audience if it is a true story or not, Then tell the story in your best story-telling manner. Then evaluate with some questions. e.g. Do you believe in teddy (god)? Do you think teddies should play favourites with peoples? Do you think parents should play favourites with their children? Do you believe in birthrights? Was this a dysfunctional family? Why? Did Jacob show brotherly love? Was Jacob clever to manipulate his hungry brother with a bowl of lentils to gain the birthright? Why did Jacob deceive his father, Isaac? Oh so many questions to challenge young minds.

Keiran,
Your attitudes to God are so offensive and belittling of spiritual things you do not deserve a reading. The human condition you pose is fully explored in Christian teachings.

Obviously you know nothing of how Biblical stories are used or told. If you have ever listened to good story telling your cynicism would be totally unfounded. I do hope your children do not listen to your cynicisn as it will stunt their minds to aspire to higher and immaginative possibilities. Good story telling is done by leading psychologists who fully understand human behaviour. eg. Bill Cosby or Dr Paul White.


Quote, "The story of Jacob and Esau comes to mind, unsurprisingly. First tell the captive audience if it is a true story or not, Then tell the story in your best story-telling manner. Then evaluate with some questions. e.g. Do you believe in teddy (god)? Do you think teddies should play favourites with peoples? Do you think parents should play favourites with their children? Do you believe in birthrights? Was this a dysfunctional family? Why? Did Jacob show brotherly love? Was Jacob clever to manipulate his hungry brother with a bowl of lentils to gain the birthright? Why did Jacob deceive his father, Isaac? Oh so many questions to challenge young minds.

A major part of scientific reasoning in a modern sense includes not only the medical sciences, but also the social sciences, including political sciences et al and more et al, making the mind boggle at the endlessness of pure reasoning.

So on we go again as we do in Online Opinion, not really finding much new, only in a chemical or a mechanical sense as with the power of a nuclear blast and the means to trigger or propel it.

So it could be said that though reasoning has produced formulas which can easily destroy the world, our brain power to manufacture laws to prevent the destruction of the world has been miserably failing - those who study it called loony by many outsiders as well as by some of our group.

Actually Charles Darwin talked about such things before he died in 1882, very much complaining how his "survival of the fittest" formulation was being used by big business to justify colonial expansion and the genocidal acts that can go with it.

Part of Darwin's actual comment about man's moral qualities compared to animals.

"In my first chapter I wrote of a moral being as one who is capable of reflecting on their past actions ...................
and the fact that man is the one being who deserves this designation, is the greatest distinction between him and the lower animals. "

In short, Darwin goes on to intimate that human beings should now have reached the stage that they should not use his "survival of the fittest" concept for colonial expansion or even the further expansion of big business. But of course it was done, as well as the further expansion of British colonialism, and as now with the Brits siding with America in what so many are calling an immoral imperialist occupation of Iraq.

So we have the social scientists mostly very much concerned about the above, while those who back them are called loony. So has man changed much since the Roman days?

baraka,
Thanks so much for those blog sites, they demonstrate your beliefs, quite soundly. Senator Joyce would title you a "lunatic right" and he would be quite correct.

Perhaps if Donna had told stories based on aboriginal beliefs she would have received more praise; the Dreamtime appears to have strong support from secularists.

SHONGA,

do some research... who do you think was in Australian courts for raping young Australisn girls and stating, 'you deserve to be rpaed because you are Australian'... who do you think killed two Muslims in a double murder drive-by shooting - well the Mufti at Lakemba Mosque stated , "Muslim brothers should not be killing Muslims brotheres" (so its cool if they are infidels) but is the Islamic Mufti racist for stating that it was Muslims who killed the boxer and the other Muslim... no, I have never heard of an Islamophobic racist Mufti - if you are suggesting this, then I put it to you that you are the "lunatic [Leftist]"!! hahahahahahaha and I [posted a link to the Telegraph which openly prints corrections where it mis-sttes facts... I have yet to see it correct this or any other arti le about MIDDLE EASTER CRIMEW -m why do you think there is a STATE CRIM COMMAND SQUAD SET UP TO TARGET NOTHING BUT MIDDLE EASTER CRIME - TASK FORCE AGIN... it must be bnecasue of the racists who made all the Middle Eastern crime up and "tricked" the NSW police... YOU are the "lunatic leftist" SHONGA!! hahahahahahaha