Elijah

Were you going to answer my question about how the scholars determine if they are speaking of a natural understanding of spirits/daemons verses the supernatural version?

Jeffrey Gibson

And you like to make claims about what ancient Philosophers believed without out ever backing up your claims with quotes.

But, as others besides myself have been pointing out, the issue is not whether you have complete knowledge on any thing. It's whether you have any knowledge on the things you make claims about.

And FWIW, you haven't been engaged in conversation. You've refused to respond to the questions that have been asked of you and you've denied the requests that you back up your claims.

Where for instance is your contribution to actually showing, after you'd been asked to do so with quotations from his works, that Plato's belief about demons is what you asserted it was and that he indeed, in his use of the words for demons that he employs in the passages I pointed out to you, uses them only to refer to a "constant"?

Jeffrey

Elijah

I'll look for some quotes if you tell me what I should be looking for specifically. What exactly are you arguing against?

Naa I don't have any knowledge, you busted me. So please take the time to inform me on how you came to this supernatural understanding of religion and philosophy.

I've tried to respond to everything except Amaleq because i don't see him as trying to have a real conversation (yes you tried recently) but just baiting me into insulting him so I get kicked off here.

The whole spiritual side in Platonism is constant right. Is that what I need to go find a quote of? Anything else?

Jeffrey Gibson

Are you going not only to clarify and explain your terms, but show through citation of primary evidence that ancient philosophers understood those terms/categories in the same way that you do and that there really was such a distinction in the minds of ancient philosophers between a "natural" and a "supernatural" understanding of (thanks for equivocating) "spirits/demons"?

Jeffrey

Elijah

Clarify my terms? All I'm asking is how did you come up with a supernatural understanding of Plato's daemons?

Jeffrey Gibson

You pretty much busted yourself.

What supernatural understanding of religion and philosophy are you talking about, let alone attributing to me as something I have? What on earth do you mean by this expression?

What is this "whole spiritual side in Platonism that you keep taking about? Where specifically within Plato's works can we find him talking about it, let alone using words like "spiritual"?

And right now I want you to show me that he speaks and thinks of demons as part of any constant" let alone not "superstitiously" or in ways substantially different from the ways they were thought about by non rationalists.

Are you sure you've read Plato?

Jeffrey

Jeffrey Gibson

What do you mean by "supernatural" understanding? Please specify.

And have you actually read the passages in Plato when he speaks of daemons?

And note too that you've ignored my request that you show through citation of primary evidence that ancient philosophers used and understood terms like "supernatural" and "natural" in the same way that you do and that there really was such a distinction in the minds of ancient philosophers between a "natural" and a "supernatural" understanding of (thanks for equivocating) "spirits/demons"?

Jeffrey

Elijah

You probably should of checked on my understanding of supernatural if you were unaware of it. A literal understanding of an artistic representation of the spiritual forces in the universe is what I've been going with recently.

While I'm looking for these quotes you want. Would you be so kind as to give me a few paragraphs summarizing your understanding of the platonic world view or plato's cave so I can see what I'm missing. Or you can go back to my summery and tell me where I went wrong.

Jeffrey Gibson

So .. there are spiritual as well as nonspiritual forces in the universe?

And your definition of the supernatural is what you think Platonists and neo Platonists, Epucureans and Stoics, and Paul and Philo, understood "supernatural to be, providing they actually did divide the world up into the natural and the supernatural?

And what is a non literal artistic (or non artistic) representation of the spiritual forces in the universe? Did you know for a fact that no philosopher or school of philosophy held to a non literal view? Or is this something you assume was the case?

What went wrong is that you haven't checked your summary of it against what is said about the allegory of the cave by experts in Platonic Philosophy and in the standard commentaries on the Republic. Are you even aweare that there are such besties?

And why go looking for the quotes I asked you to give me re Plato and Demons when they appear in the portion of the TDNT entry I posted. Did you not read it?

Jeffrey

Elijah

All forces are spiritual. The world is divided into spirit and matter.

They called it myth and superstition usually. They don’t divide the world up into natural and supernatural, but material/changing and spiritual/constant. The supernatural concept is what is being imposed on the writers of then based on today’s religious followers' beliefs, who believe in the supernatural nonsense.

I think they were philosophers who tried to understand the world in the context of reality. I think they understood spiritual forces as just part of nature. I think they tried to use reason to come to the beliefs they got to not the superstitious nonsense that is assumed today.


Could you be more specific about where I went wrong please. And I would really love to see your understanding of the cave. Go ahead and steal someone else’s and call it your own, I don’t care.

I got find quotes on Demons as natural forces in the universe. Plato picking on superstition or people who take the poets literally and quotes on the spiritual side being constant. Anything else you want me to look for?

Again summarize platonic thought/the cave if you would. Please.