As I was writing my defininition of symbols in the introduction I thought that a seperate discussion on the use of symbols might be fruitful. Using symbols can be a delicate juggling act. We use symbols so extensively as part of our everyday life that their value can easily be overlooked. I was tricked recently in Latvia. Symbols are not meaningless, they do have value but it is only relative.
Banknotes are just fancy bits of paper with markings.
We could just as well use shells or beads or axes to trade - except the natives aren't quite so gullible these days. And so we use symbols a great deal with a great deal of reverence. The trouble with religious symbols is we can't agree as to what is being symbolised. We can have a direct experience of the transcendent but how do we explain our experience. And so we develop symbols - to help us remember or recollect what we know, either directly or intutively.