That's why I try and distinguish between metaphorical, emotional, or symbolic truth, and empirical truth.
A tradition can have a lot of metaphorical truth in it. In fact, any story that's worth a damn at all will have a lot of truth in it (which might explain why I've been so happy in a tradition that calls itself Storyteller Wicca).
However! This truth is not the same sort of truth that I'm talking about when I talk about dropped objects falling toward the Earth or treating cancer. Fiction can be "true" in a lot of ways, but that doesn't make the events it describes a historical account. Stephen King's Carrie is a story that rang true for me as a kid in a lot of ways, and it's a story that actually did me good to read. Doesn't mean it happened, and as a result I can say that it's a powerful and useful and even necessary piece of my life without getting all pissy and shitty because somebody pointed out that it was stocked in the fiction section.
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A tradition can have a lot of metaphorical truth in it. In fact, any story that's worth a damn at all will have a lot of truth in it (which might explain why I've been so happy in a tradition that calls itself Storyteller Wicca).
However! This truth is not the same sort of truth that I'm talking about when I talk about dropped objects falling toward the Earth or treating cancer. Fiction can be "true" in a lot of ways, but that doesn't make the events it describes a historical account. Stephen King's Carrie is a story that rang true for me as a kid in a lot of ways, and it's a story that actually did me good to read. Doesn't mean it happened, and as a result I can say that it's a powerful and useful and even necessary piece of my life without getting all pissy and shitty because somebody pointed out that it was stocked in the fiction section.