Right, Blaise! Genuine symbols arise from the mysterium tremendum et fascinans and as such have a life of their own; however, they can be subverted to serve demonic purposes as your fine article suggests and history bears out. Also, I am forever correcting my students' essays that assert this or that statement in the Hebrew Bible is "symbolic," wherein their desire is to blunt the force of hearing its (Hebrew) words. I constantly try redirecting them to the letter of the text, but as I get older I just want to buy a rubber stamp with a single word, like BULLSH*T. Great article.
Right, Blaise! Genuine symbols arise from the mysterium tremendum et fascinans and as such have a life of their own; however, they can be subverted to serve demonic purposes as your fine article suggests and history bears out. Also, I am forever correcting my students' essays that assert this or that statement in the Hebrew Bible is "symbolic," wherein their desire is to blunt the force of hearing its (Hebrew) words. I constantly try redirecting them to the letter of the text, but as I get older I just want to buy a rubber stamp with a single word, like BULLSH*T. Great article.
Thank you so much Dr Roddy, I appreciate your words.
דבר מצלב