spin

How does energy fit into this scheme?


spin

Elijah

Depends on what you mean by energy. They had fire in their elements so that can be seen as a form of matter as energy.

spin

Manifestation of a force is through the use of good old energy. But then, I guess your use of "forces" in "All forces are spiritual" carries a meaning that isn't plain and that I'm retrojecting the notion of energy.

The term "supernatural" is medieval Latin, I believe, so really talking about the supernatural in the ancient world is a discussion liable to anachronism.

The ancient texts talk about resurrection which is some form of life continuing after death, they talk about gods, angels and demons, abilities that don't reflect nature, stopping the sun, flying, surviving in the belly of fish, turning from flesh into salt, making a path through water, walking on water, raising the dead, etc. Is there any reason from those ancient texts to think that they considered these things natural, especially considering the reactions of the onlookers the texts mention?


spin

Elijah

Looks like word games to me (missing the point). Try to understand the words in the context of the speaker.

This discussion is if the NT should be read from a philosophical disposition or a supernatural one. From a philosophical position the gods and angels/spirits/daemon can represent natural unseen aspects/forces of the universe. Supernatural events (not thinking) isn't being discussed because I don't think anyone here thinks they are possible. Should we understand god/s and angels as how they actually exist in the universe or how a painter depicts them on a vase or a poet tells stories of them? That is the question.

Amaleq13

Review the thread. Or read it for the first time.

More incoherent babble.

More burden shifting.

Agreed. :wave:

spin

If you hadn't noticed, that's what I said to you. Deal with the texts.

What textual evidence would make you think, when a character says "he commands even unclean spirits" (Mk 1:27), or when Jesus deals with Legion Mk 5:1-20, that the writer sees them as "natural unseen aspects/forces of the universe"? I would think that a natural reading regards something more than natural unseen aspects/forces of the universe.

What do you think the writer envisaged that left the Gerasene demoniac and went into the herd of swine that impelled them into the water (still Mk 5:1-20)?

What we think today isn't relevant to what ancient people thought.

It depends on the task you've taken on. Here we deal with texts and their implications. You seem to want to talk about what ancient people thought and our means of understanding that is through the artefacts -- texts, inscriptions, votive offerings, statues, etc. --, they left behind.

You seem to be proposing something that is against the status quo understanding, but I can't see the evidence you base it on.


spin

Elijah

I'm sorry, still lost. Are you proposing an idealist's understanding of energy instead of a materialist?
Memes. He is dealing with psychological problems the same way he would with health problems… faith/placebo.

Same thing, just treating a crazy person with ritual like a therapist having a patient punch a pillow. What makes you think that he is speaking of supernatural entities instead of someone with mental health problems, because a bunch of pigs run off?

???

The task I’ve taken on is finding out if the basis of the status quo is evidence or talk.
What do you think I am really proposing? What's your complaint with what I'm saying? I'm not sure.

spin

I'm trying to separate what you may believe from what the writer of the text may believe. You have -- so far to my knowledge -- shown no evidence from the text that supports the position you are stating.

I can't see that you derive your assertion from the ancient evidence.

What we think on the subject does not reflect the thought of an ancient person. We have to read what the writer says and work from that.

You have to deal with the ancient texts to support your analysis. I read something about unclean spirits jumping from people to swine from an ancient text and that doesn't seem to be something of the natural world. What does the text do to make you think otherwise?

These are your words:
Your position seems to be the first part of the second paragraph cited, as against the other part of the paragraph. I don't think you have put forward any ancient text evidence to support your position.


spin

No Robots

Hi Elijah:

I support a lot of what you are getting at. However, I don't see why you have to establish the anti-supernaturalism of the Bible on the basis Greek philosophy, rather than on the basis of Judaism itself. For example, neo-Platonism does envisage some kind of physical heaven, but this is alien to the concept of heaven in the Judaism of the time, as Emil Hirsch makes clear:

Did Jesus teach new ideas; did he raise new ideals? He teaches, it is said, the Kingdom of Heaven – world to come. These phrases cannot be understood unless they be translated into the Hebrew of those times. Kingdom of Heaven, world to come: What did these two terms connote in the minds of the Jews of that day? Was Kingdom of Heaven a kingdom beyond the clouds? Was it a Heaven to welcome the weary wanderer after life had bidden him farewell? The Jew never did believe in life to come in this sense. Even rabbinical Judaism expresses life to come, if taken in that sense, by the term the garden of Eden, and its contrast by the valley of Hinnom. The phrase “Kingdom of Heaven” is not in the mind and in the mouth of the Jew a synonym for “life to come;” ’Olam Habba, the world to come, or as it is in the Aramaic of those days – for the Jews then spoke Aramaic and no longer Hebrew – Olma de-Athe, the world which is to come, does not signify life to come. Both of these terms have naught in common with the doctrine, either affirmative or negative, of the immortality of the soul. The word 'Olam, in Hebrew, means a cycle of world years. According to their peculiar construction of the sweep of universal time, the Jews believed this vast ocean of life and of events passing before us gradually with the years circling in the circling sun, to be divided into sections, as it were, of a certain length, and such section was an ’Olam, a world, a cycle of years. And at this time the Jews were convinced that again they were approaching the end of such a cycle. The new “age” about to dawn was the ’Olam Habba. At the end of the present they were confident would open a new period, the Messianic time. The “Kingdom of Heaven” was a clear paraphase for the Kingdom of God. Under God’s scepter the new age was to be a contrast to the one now hastening to its appointed termination. If this was under riot, the new will be under righteousness. If now violence prevailed, in the new order of things justice will predominate. Heaven is a well-known equivalent in the Hebrew of those days for God. In preaching the approach of the Kingdom of Heaven, Jesus had in mind no other concept. He foretold the Messianic time here on earth, here under the moon, not in another sphere nor in another life. If Jesus taught, as he did, the doctrine of the world to come, he taught it in no other sense than did the rabbis; it was his firm belief that this present world or order of things, this world of riotous evil and vice, would come to an end, and with its end the new cycle would unroll itself, the world to come of righteousness. The “Kingdom of Heaven” meant the reign of righteousness instead of as now the scepter of violence; the triumph of justice instead of the ascendancy of injustice. This the prophets had prophesied before. Every prophet of old had rhapsodized about the coming day when justice would flow like water, when Zion would be redeemed by righteousness, when violence would pass away from earth, when peace would reign everywhere.

--Emil Hirsch, "The Doctrines of Jesus". In Defending the Faith: Nineteenth-Century American Jewish Writings on Christianity and Jesus, p.133-134.

It is through philosophy that we can come to a rational understanding of Christ, but that does not make him a product of philosophy. He is a product of his own mystical/prophetic Judaism.

Elijah

How do you know what the writer believes?
What ancient evidence? I thought we were looking at just the text. What in the text says supernatural entities when the story is about a screwy memes?
How do we know what the writer thinks on the subject? How do you know the supernatural assumption is right? What am I missing?

Memes don’t move? If you’ve gone crazy, your craziness doesn’t affect the animals around you? Sure it does, if you act weird the animals are going to be freaked out as well.
I don’t think I really have to put forward much evidence. You can interpret it as natural spirits just as easy as supernatural, it’s just a discussion on which is the correct interpretation. I’m really looking for your guys’ evidence that makes you certain of the supernatural assumption.