lpetrich

I wonder how followers of non-Abrahamic religions have adapted to the idea of descent with modification by natural selection. I can imagine some of the more literalist among them objecting, but I wonder if some of them might claim that they are glad to see us catching up.

Or that the question of origins is something that has not been a high priority for them, as the Buddha had done.

[ January 16, 2002: Message edited by: lpetrich ]</p>

brighid

I can’t really speak for al non-Abrahamic religions – but for Wicca and witchcraft I can at least say that evolution poses no opposition to either path. And as far as I know evolution is the accepted theory of how we all got here. There are many creation myths among native people but there isn’t this idea that it happened at such and such a date and that this is a fixed time that cannot be altered, as with the Big Three. Nor does evolution pose any threat to the Wiccan structure of belief and although there are those amongst the movement that are more superstitious than others I can’t remember any sort of opinion that contradicts evolution. I also feel that most Pagans (at least those I have encountered) don’t see science as the enemy like the Judeo-Christian faiths often do.

Brighid

brighid

Soemthing from Margot Adler:
A Cosmic Cathedral
The new Rose Center for Earth and Space puts human evolution into mind-boggling perspective.

By Margot Adler

The new Rose Center for Earth and Space opened with great fanfare in New York City in February. Like most science museums in America, the center's native tongue is the language of evolution. But forget for a moment whether apes and humans had a common ancestor; the Rose Center puts human history into a different context. You can't leave its exhibits and the space show without being confronted with the notion that human beings are but specks of dust in the 13 billion years that is cosmic history.


<a href="http://www.beliefnet.com/frameset.asp?pageLoc=/story/18/story_1829_1.html&boardID=2227" target="_blank">http://www.beliefnet.com/frameset.asp?pageLoc=/story/18/story_1829_1.html&boardID=2227</a>

Brighid

Amos

A creation account is part of every mythology and has nothing to do with history in time. It may record the creation of the mytholgy in history but not the planet earth as such. To argue against creation is failing to understand this. This same is true with science which extracts from omniscience and while doing so proliferates omniscience. We can now conclude that the success of a mythology is contingent upon its promotion of science which is just opposite to your view of Judeo-Christianity.

Amos

[ January 17, 2002: Message edited by: Amos ]</p>

brighid

I agree with you Amos. However, a great deal of people who call themselves Christian – including the Catholic Church disagree in respect to their creation myth – hence the coining of creation science – however much that term is an oxymoron if there was ever one. I think myth has elements of truth but cannot be taken as fact. Christianity and Catholicism need to base their faith on such myths as can be found in Genesis and in other parts of the Bible, or their theology falls to pieces. The difference between the Judeo-Christian point of view and those of indigenous or pagan religions is significant. Pagan religions do not see their creation myths, as events set in time and thereby historically accurate. They see them as stories as to how things might have been in to context of their knowledge and cultural frame of reference. Modern paganism does not seek to subject the world’s school children to its mythos and attempt to pass it off as fact, thereby pitting itself against the scientific community and making “evilution” its arch nemesis. Now – if the authoritative bodies of Christianity and Catholicism (Islam and Judaism) would get on the band wagon and agree that their myth’s are no different from those of the cultures and religions that preceded and proceeded their development – maybe then we could get somewhere! It is perfectly acceptable to me to view Christianity and Catholicism as nothing more than institutions that relay myth in an attempt to convey a deeper meaning behind the human psyche. Although – if this were a different place and I time no doubt I would be burned as a heretic or worse. And now if I belonged to a Christian Church and espoused such views I have little doubt I would be excommunicated as a heretic, perhaps even be accused as being under the influence of Satan and harassed by those people who call themselves good Christians.

Brighid

Amos

You are 100% correct and the problem begins with bible reading by curious minds. I also agree that the Catholic Church is not immune to this and actualy understand why pagan religions become attractive alternatives for soul searching individuals. I'd say go for it girl! I have no objections to your train of thought (you probably tower above me) and am actually happy to see you distinguish between Catholic and Christian (at least the old school showed this difference).

If I may take this one step further, I hold that all myth [proper] is true but the reality behind it is never how it first appears to be. Hence, faith needs to find understanding and knowledge frees us from the faith/doubt dichotomy. So faith is good but only as a means to the end. From this follows that as the complexity of faith increases so does the depth of our understanding when realization occurs. Oposite this is the diminishing likelyhood of realization wherefore the Greeks encouraged the courageous and the Catholic Church employed indulgences (clever but cunningly convenient).

Amos

Ps Did you actually understand my "science proliferates omniscience" line? It is based on the fact that the omniscient mind is our own subconscious mind with which we observe things wholistically (with noetic vision) when we do the science in search of the "eidetic image" of the experiment. From this "noetic image" emerge the "many questions" of which the answer is already known in our mind or the question could not emerge in our hyletic (obscured) vision for the next experiment. Notice that my "omniscience" is not the same as what most people think it should be.

[ January 18, 2002: Message edited by: Amos ]</p>

brighid

Amos,

I am not quite sure if I get where you are coming from with the noetic , eidectic and science notions here.

Let me make sure I understand the terms:

Noetic - Pertaining to the mind and consciousness

Eidectic – relating to photographic memories – visual memory retention.

I think I see where you are going with this but if you could provide your definitions so we can be on the same page that would be helpful.


Brighid

Vorkosigan

Cremo's crowd, which has churned out Van Daniken-type books, is spurred by Hindu fundamentalism.

Michael

Amos

Brigid if you are interested I will try to explain further.

Noetic = all knowing is omniscient. Noetic vision is required to be gnostic as opposed to agnostic. By definition the gnostic knows and the agnostic does not know. The agnostic has hyletic vision. Hyletic vision is what you and I have when we look at things as they appear to us. For example we see cooks cooking and carpenters building houses.

An eidetic image is needed when we are the cook or the carpenter. In this we must know what we need and how to combine the ingredients and prepare the meal before we start. This means that we must know the finished product (the eidos), its name (onoma), the articulation of ingredients (logos), and its image (eidolon), the knowledge to prepare the meal (episteme), so as to match the true eidos of the image we had in mind (a tasty wholesome and attractive meal).

Note that in psychology classes and dictionaries they might tell you something different but that is only because they do not know any better.

Notice also that the ingredients themselves are called eidolons. This is because they too, in themselves, are the eidetic image of the ingredient maker. As ingredients they must also be right to serve the purpose he had in mind on your behalf as meal-maker.

Plato called these eidetic images "forms" and we should make these forms daily and so continue our learning process lest we get older and not wiser. In Catholicism they are called masses and we should make these daily (this it has nothing to do with going to church but "daily masses" are symbolic of this). In Buddhism they are called daily rounds of samsara.

I should add here that the preparation of one meal does not make you a cook and so the ability to make different meals is really the eiditic image of the trade and the meal itself becomes the eidolon as did the ingredients as part of our eidetic image for one meal). Do you see the process of learning in this?

In the bible (my interpretation) the eidetic image is the shepherd and the meals are the sheep that they were herding on the night that Christ was born. The many shepherds (12) were the eiditic images of Joseph the wealthy but upright carpenter, who was a carpenter because carpenters are known to make many different things (eidolons) and was an upright carpenter because he was honest with himself and engaged upon the grand inquiry to find the idenitity of the co-creator that was behind the eidolons he had made. In other words, he wanted to know who he really was. For Plato this was the Final Form, in Buddhism it is the final round of samsara and for Aristotle it was the "final ousia" called Parousia. In Catholicism it is the final mass or Christ-mass.

If cooking is one eidetic image, each trade, or craft, or art will have its own story to tell that we can make our own to become our different eidetic images. Hence the "many shepherds" were out herding sheep at night when Christ was born.

As we make more of these we become wiser and will soon learn that there is a superior mind behind our success as artisan and eidolon maker. To find out who this superior intelligence is (when we earnestly want to know "who we really are" as did Joseph the upright carpenter and Siddharta when he left his kingdom) we toss all the eidetic images that we once had created with so much dilligence and utmost care aside (we now have telic vision) that now themselves become the ingredients (eidolons) for the final eidos (Form or Mass or Ousia or round of Samsara) of which we do not know the end (because in the grand inquisition we want to know "who we really are"). The outcome of this will be noetic vision or the mind of God--which is not always true because for Camus it was "the horror." For Joseph it meant a Beatific Vision in which the child was born that was to become his liberator from sin (sheep). Plato holds that such trauma (telic vision) holds man bound at the bottom (Freye's Parody and Joseph's stable), and leads to a miracle when released outside the Cave where he is blinded by the radiance of omniscience--and must therefore go through purgatory, the Catholic Church would add.

In the end what really happens is that the conscious mind is exposed to the full radiance of the subconscius mind wherein we have always observed things in their own suchness (purpose of things) when we were examining then for their logos (purpose for things) we had in mind during the science. This in turn is how science proliferates omniscience and it does not really matter if we are consciously aware of this or not. It just happens if we are energetic participants in the rout of discovery (science).

Hope it helps

Amos

hinduwoman

Well, for hindus, evolution is not a problem. It doesnot actually contradict that God did not set the ball rolling.

The problem with many is convincing them that no, the story of incarnations are not the theory of evolution.