REFERENCES
THE QUOTE READ IN THE BEGINNING OF THE EPISODE
Rune Hjarnø Rasmussen:
”Defining mythology as symbolism is reductionist in two senses:
1) it shortcuts that slightly too long discussion about how mythology relates to reality in order to uphold and perpetuate a distinctly modern epistemology that interiorizes religious meaning.
2) it is therefore wildly Eurocentric and sees any religious reality from the symbolic perspective because of the compatibility with modern perception and therefore occludes that in most animist, or even religious, perceptions symbolism is only one out of a whole range of devices used to relate to non-human subjects and produce reality.”
John Dominic Crossan:
”My point is not that those ancient people told literal stories and we are now smart enough to take them symbolically, but that they told them symbolically and we are now dumb enough to take them literally.”
Rune Hjarnø Rasmussen:
”My point would be that those ancient peoples did not tell symbolic stories that people are now unfortunately so dumb that they take literally. But rather that they told them literally and that we are now dumb enough to need symbolicism to understand them rather than try to grasp the infinitely complex and exquisitely attuned realities that they express."
Candomblé