[MD] Dawkins a Materialist (is watching?) - side question for Platt and Arlo

[pholden at davtv.com]

Quoting ARLO J BENSINGER JR <ajb102 at psu.edu>:

> [Platt]
> Christians also believe in a Supreme Being as do many other religions. The more
> fundamentalists among them make God the "center of their lives." It's puzzling
> to me how some here praise Indian fundamentalists but bash Christian
> fundamentalists. 
> 
> [Arlo]
> The whole point of what Pirsig is pointing out (in the quote SA provided) is
> that "Indian fundamentalism" is nothing at all like "Christian fundamentalism".
> The Amerindians and the Zen Buddhists make God the center of their lives, but
> God as interpretable as DQ, read "non-literally". The entire "fundamentalism"
> of Christianity and Islam is in the other direction, towards an unassailable,
> literalism of "my God". 
> 
> It is all in the direction you go, towards metaphor or towards "literalism".
> Pirsig had commented on this, regarding the Occidental religions (OR) compared
> to Eastern religions (ER), saying that the reason Occidental religions have
> much more conflict that Hinduism/Buddhism/Taoism is that the ORs see the "word"
> as literal, while the ERs see the "word" as metaphor.

I'm still confused about the difference between metaphorical and literal. I take
it both are "real" but that metaphors perhaps leave more room for interpretation
than literal words? Or, are all words metaphors with some being more abstract
or removed from pre-intellectual perception than others? My source for my
understanding of semantics is an old college textbook entitled, "Language in
Thought and Action" by S.I. Hayakawa. Any comments would be appreciated. Thanks.   




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