Theos-Talk Archives (August 1997 Message tl00250)

K. Paul Johnson wrote:
> 
> It seems to me that the responses to Julia show the same kind
> of variation among ARE members/students of the readings as is
> found in Christians as a whole.  With the Bible, there is a
> large minority that believes it is literally true and
> contains no errors.  The majority finds it to contain truths
> and falsehoods taken literally, but that there are symbolic
> meanings in it that are "deeper truths."  In the churches, this
> makes for a split between "mainstream" and "fundamentalist"
> denominations.
> 
> By the same token, some of us see the Cayce readings as being
> literally true and free from error in every detail, or lean
> strongly in that direction.  (You can't be a true blue
> inerrantist literalist with the readings since Cayce himself
> admitted errors and gave a wide range of reasons that some
> readings were less reliable than others.)  Others of us, myself
> included, believe that not everything in the readings is
> literally true but that there is symbolic meaning to be found
> even where the literal content is not reliable.
> 
> As we face 1998, I am quite skeptical of the expectations about
> a literal return of Jesus, or catastrophic earth changes, or
> Atlantean records being found.  But for me the value of the
> readings is not in their being literally correct about
> everything, but in their usefulness as guidance on how to
> live-- and by that measure no other body of teaching has been
> as satisfying to my soul.
> 
> One good thing about ARE is that it has managed to be a "big
> tent" in which the more literalist and more skeptical coexist
> without coming to blows (AFAIK).  On this list we have
> succeeded in presenting different points of view without
> getting into heated arguments.  After all, it won't be long
> before one group will be in a position to say "I told you so,"
> and none of us really knows for sure which group that will be.
> So it behooves us all to respect one another while disagreeing.

Good Points 

by the way also ' found in Buddist etc. '

God Bless - Chris