the timboucher experience

Found another article entitled “Religion as narrative“. I like the working definition of religion which this guy uses:

‘value-laden narratives and behaviours that bind people to their objectives, to each other, and to non-empirical claims and beings’

Overall, this article is rather “heady” which is a polite way for me to say that I find it somewhat boring. The topic itself is good though. And there are some decent passages. Here is one, about the difference between actions/events and narratives:

Every narrative is a reconfiguration of temporal experience and is also a representation of it. Time becomes human when it is articulated through narrative that allows for the forming of temporality of past and future in the imagination. This construction of time in the imagination is the formation of a coherent sense of identity; the life that we lead cannot be separated from the stories we tell about ourselves. Following Aristotle for whom narrative is the imitation of action, Ricoeur claims that narrative is not an identical replica of action, but the organisation of events through plot (mythos). A plot transforms events or the temporal structures inherent in action, into a coherent narrative.

Yeah, I don’t know. I’m quitting this article, mainly because it’s too intellectualized and post-modern. Not that intellectualism or post-modernism are bad in and of themselves. It’s just that, what I’m interested in here is not some obscure analysis of the topic, and I’m not interested in following somebody’s clever word games. What I want is a concrete practical approach to the idea of how narratives become religions, and how people use story to guide and enhance their lives. I guess, basically, what I’m after is a sort of pop-culturized version of this stream of thought.

• Your Ideal Religion
• The Importance of Narrative in Religion
• Religion Vs. Spirituality
• Defining Religion
• Books: Give Me That Online Religion