I've noticed something recently. The stories humans enjoy the most have a layer of allegory that resonates with our biology. Something as popular as Guardians of the Galaxy has within it a deep and consistent allegory for battling cancer, with each of the characters representing one aspect of an individual. The Divergent series sits neatly over the processes that produce stem cells, in the marrow of the bones.
I think the christ story has stuck around because it is an allegory for our bodies, our flesh. Our bodies take the punishment for mistakes made with our minds. 33 years old, we have 33 vertebrae. Christ is the body and the blood. Skin protects us from all sorts of infection, and when that is breached, the immune system kicks in. But we look in the mirror and say "eww" to the part of us that is working day and night to keep us alive.
Faith in Christ is a misfiring of metaphor. Those feelings of gratitude might better serve us if directed toward our own bodies.
I get silly with this idea. I am an atheist, but I put on the christian rock station and listen to the lyrics as if my mind was singing them to my body. Surprisingly relevant and poetic.
Language is only 200,000 years old. Our biology is 1,000,000,000 years old. Which do you think would take the shape of the other? Language sits on top of our biology like a greasy sheen on a marble sculpture. It shouldn't surprise us that it takes that shape.
(don't worry. I'll come back and edit this.)
No comments:
Post a Comment