Freethought & Rationalism Archive

premjan · 12-31-2008, 12:47 PM

Not sane is a perfectly acceptable label to me. Not as sane as they could be at least.

Toto · 12-31-2008, 12:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ben C Smith

...

Give a pass to ancient cultures? They are no longer around to give a pass to. I think we should seek to understand ancient cultures on their own terms before jerking to inappropriate labels such as insane.

Ben.

But their dead hands reach out of the grave to imprison the minds and bodies of currently living people.

I guess it depends on what you hope to accomplish with the label as to whether it is inappropriate. Sometimes shock therapy is called for. Sometimes it doesn't work.

The Dagda · 12-31-2008, 01:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by premjan

Not sane is a perfectly acceptable label to me. Not as sane as they could be at least.

Sanity is overrated, not being sane in the conventional sense guards against insanity, after all it's only the really sane people that can be shaken by extremely unusual events. If you're half way there already then it's just another one of those weird occurrences. Up to a point though obviously, if you start seeing an invisible engineer (train driver) Who you call Chuffy and who you use to bounce ideas off then you are probably mental.

S.C.Carlson · 12-31-2008, 01:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steven Carr

Do any say Paul thought he was being tormented by a real angel from Satan?

What's a "real angel from Satan"?

Stephen

The Dagda · 12-31-2008, 01:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by S.C.Carlson

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steven Carr

Do any say Paul thought he was being tormented by a real angel from Satan?

What's a "real angel from Satan"?

Stephen

Asmodeus? Any of the fallen angels I suppose that railed against God with Satan.

Ben C Smith · 12-31-2008, 01:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

But their dead hands reach out of the grave to imprison the minds and bodies of currently living people.

I agree. And I think the sane response

is to relativize their influence, just as we relativize the influence of those in our own time with whom we disagree on fundamental points.

Personally, however, I think all of you on this board are insane, and that I, too, am insane for exchanging ideas with any of you.

And, on that happy note, I bid you adieu. I am out of here for the holiday. Have a very happy New Year, everybody.

Ben.

S.C.Carlson · 12-31-2008, 02:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Dagda

Asmodeus? Any of the fallen angels I suppose that railed against God with Satan.

OK, I haven't read scholarship on that interpretation for the thorn in the flesh.

Stephen

The Dagda · 12-31-2008, 02:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by S.C.Carlson

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Dagda

Asmodeus? Any of the fallen angels I suppose that railed against God with Satan.

OK, I haven't read scholarship on that interpretation for the thorn in the flesh.

Stephen

It comes mainly from The OT and Jewish mythology, but Satan dragged down a host of Angels that had fought against God in regards to his pride at his own creation above Gods.

These angels are now called "demons", but there is mention of them in much of Protestant and Catholic mythology.

Quote:

Demons

(Greek daimon and daimonion, Latin daemonium).

In Scripture and in Catholic theology this word has come to mean much the same as devil and denotes one of the evil spirits or fallen angels. And in fact in some places in the New Testament where the Vulgate, in agreement with the Greek, has daemonium, our vernacular versions read devil. The precise distinction between the two terms in ecclesiastical usage may be seen in the phrase used in the decree of the Fourth Lateran Council: "Diabolus enim et alii daemones" (The devil and the other demons), i.e. all are demons, and the chief of the demons is called the devil. This distinction is observed in the Vulgate New Testament, where diabolus represents the Greek diabolos and in almost every instance refers to Satan himself, while his subordinate angels are described, in accordance with the Greek, as daemones or daemonia. This must not be taken, however, to indicate a difference of nature; for Satan is clearly included among the daemones in James 2:19 and in Luke 11:15-18.

But though the word demon is now practically restricted to this sinister sense, it was otherwise with the earlier usage of the Greek writers. The word, which is apparently derived from daio "to divide" or "apportion", originally meant a divine being; it was occasionally applied to the higher gods and goddesses, but was more generally used to denote spiritual beings of a lower order coming between gods and men. For the most part these were beneficent beings, and their office was somewhat analogous to that of the angels in Christian theology. Thus the adjective eydaimon "happy", properly meant one who was guided and guarded by a good demon. Some of these Greek demons, however, were evil and malignant. Hence we have the counterpart to eudamonia "happiness", in kakodaimonia which denoted misfortune, or in its more original meaning, being under the possession of an evil demon. In the Greek of the New Testament and in the language of the early Fathers, the word was already restricted to the sinister sense, which was natural enough, now that even the higher gods of the Greeks had come to be regarded as devils.

We have a curious instance of the confusion caused by the ambiguity and variations in the meaning of the word, in the case of the celebrated "Daemon" of Socrates. This has been understood in a bad sense by some Christian writers who have made it a matter of reproach that the great Greek philosopher was accompanied and prompted by a demon. But, as Cardinal Manning clearly shows in his paper on the subject, the word here has a very different meaning. He points to the fact that both Plato and Xenophon use the form daimonion, which Cicero rightly renders as divinum aliguid, "something divine". And after a close examination of the account of the matter given by Socrates himself in the reports transmitted by his disciples, he concludes that the promptings of the "Daemon" were the dictates of conscience, which is the voice of God.

It may be observed that a similar change and deterioration of meaning has taken place in the Iranian languages in the case of the word daeva. Etymologically this is identical with the Sanskrit deva, by which it is rendered in Neriosengh's version of the Avesta. But whereas the devas of Indian theology are good and beneficent gods, the daevas of the Avesta are hateful spirits of evil. (See also DEMONOLOGY.)

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04710a.htm

Roger Pearse · 12-31-2008, 02:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

How productive is this thread? Stephen Carr is trying to get intelligent Christians to explain the basis of their religious beliefs, if the people who wrote their sacred texts would be classed as insane in modern times.

Is this an unfair question? If so, why?

Isn't it merely a version of the old ploy "I conform to the values of the age in which I live, but I'm not going to discuss them; merely appeal to them. So explain to me just why you don't (you heretic), while I jeer at you for not conforming"? It requires little intelligence to play that one. Any fool can demand people "explain" things to them.

I find that people holding such conformist views can rarely justify them, and try not to discuss them. I don't see how it can be anything more than a pretext for jeering at people for holding different view.

In view of the Soviet and Chinese abuse of psychiatry to torture Christians by pretending that as Christians they were insane, it's a rather nasty and sinister one, IMHO.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Steven Carr · 12-31-2008, 03:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Roger Pearse

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

How productive is this thread? Stephen Carr is trying to get intelligent Christians to explain the basis of their religious beliefs, if the people who wrote their sacred texts would be classed as insane in modern times.

Is this an unfair question? If so, why?

Isn't it merely a version of the old ploy "I conform to the values of the age in which I live, but I'm not going to discuss them; merely appeal to them. So explain to me just why you don't (you heretic), while I jeer at you for not conforming"? It requires little intelligence to play that one. Any fool can demand people "explain" things to them.

I find that people holding such conformist views can rarely justify them, and try not to discuss them. I don't see how it can be anything more than a pretext for jeering at people for holding different view.

In view of the Soviet and Chinese abuse of psychiatry to torture Christians by pretending that as Christians they were insane, it's a rather nasty and sinister one, IMHO.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

You mean I should not jeer at people for thinking Jesus rose into the sky and disappeared into a cloud on his way to Heaven?

Why not?

I know they were only writing what they knew.

They had no idea that there was only space above us, not Heaven.

So they 'knew' that if Jesus was going to get to Heaven, he had to go into the sky.

Does that make them insane?

No.

Just people who knew what must have happened, and so wrote stories where it did.

Paul would have known by the standards of his day that his revelations from the Lord were just as good, in fact better, than second hand stories from 'apostles'.

So why should we apply 21st century standards to these people, and claim that stories of Jesus (in eg 1 Corinthians 11) must have come from a historical Jesus?

To demand that Paul would only have written that if a flesh and blood Jesus had said that before he died, rather than Paul getting it from revelation as he gets revelation in 2 Corinthians 12 - well, that would be claiming Paul held the standards of *this* age, rather than taking seriously who he was and when he lived.

Incidentally, what *did* they do with insane people 2000 years ago? I can't see any Christian community taking them in, although today you can see religious nutcases on any street corner bellowing at passers by.

They even had to be locked up in Bradford a few years ago for doing that.

Happily, every single Christian in the first century was entirely sane :-)

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12-31-2008, 12:47 PM	#41
premjan Obsessed Contributor Join Date: Aug 2003 Location: NJ Posts: 61,538	Not sane is a perfectly acceptable label to me. Not as sane as they could be at least.

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