There are two different points of views of the spiritual philosophy - Gnostic and Literal.
The first is liberal the second is conservative. The Gnostic Christians did not believe that the Jesus story was actually a true story, but a myth to explain spiritual awakening. The Gnostic Christians, I guess you could say, are or were heretics and went against what the literal Roman Catholic church taught.
But even though these long-lost sect of philosophers and religious scholars were what most people in today's society would call heretics, they are the ones who came up with the idea of the Jesus story to begin. And they were the first ones to believe it in a metaphorical sense and that (not the literal sense) is the way it should be taken.
