HelenM

Thanks jaliet and Amos

I'll just keep listening!

love
Helen

Vorkosigan

Therefore anyone who is thinking of becoming an artisan should not become an atheist because atheism cripples ones ability to be creative/ gifted.

Yes, like Mark Twain, Abraham Lincoln, Voltaire, Woody Allen, and hundreds of Buddhist and Confucian Chinese poets, to list only a few.

Michael
Poet from time to time

Amos

In many posts I have defended atheism as a way to avoid religious fundamentalism. Here I was just saying that to be a di-hard atheist is to be tied to the negative side of religion but tied just the same and this will stiffle our creative side (and is most certainly anti "naturalistic pantheism)."

Further, Buddhism is not part of Christendom but that really does not matter in the end.

Was it not Elliot who wrote something like this?
"The whole world is tormented by words and nobody can do without words but insofar as we are free from words do we really understand words."

Amos

Amos

It was not much of a stretch for me to write that Helen but do you perhaps agree that you are the "beautiful princess among heaving graves of buried knights" only because they are all dressed-up with no place to go and hence the strife?

You might call that "the peace that surpasses human understanding" and I would call it "just to remain and not to be."

Amos

Amos

Hi jaliet, I seldom get into biblical arguments because I use a different bible (they often tell me). Here's my definitions.

God is a mythical concept reserved for the spiritually mature man (the mythmaker and gnostic).

Lord God is the physical manifestation of this, such as Enoch, Methuselah, Moses, Jesus, Michelangelo, Plato, Augustine, Buddha, Gogol, Zamjatin, Dostoevski and others, more or less, and seldom do they admit this or boast about it.

Interesting here is that most people make the same mistake and refer to Jesus as the Lord God while Jesus taught us that we are "son of man" and Lord-God-in-becoming as "son of man" and must mature and become "fully man" in Christ, or Buddha, and subsequently "one with God." Hence Thomas' exclamation "my Lord and my God."

Walpola Rahula makes this same mistake with the title of his book "What the Buddha Taught." In here the Buddha teaches that not just him, but "this [everything]is Buddha." Hence my objection to the word "THE" in his book title. This is much like the consecration "This is the body of Christ."

Amos

[ January 30, 2002: Message edited by: Amos ]</p>

Ted Hoffman

So Amos, these are your Premises/ Propositions:

1. God is a mythical concept reserved for the spiritually mature man (the mythmaker and gnostic).

2. Lord God is the physical manifestation of this (God), such as Enoch, Methuselah, Moses, Jesus...

About Premise 1:
A myth is defined as "fictitious story, person, or thing".

Are you saying that myths are the preserve of spiritually mature men and therefore spiritually immature men should not "bother"?

How do you know that myths are the preserve of the spiritually mature?

Please define spiritual maturity.

How do you determine spiritual maturity? what factors are considered? Who decides/ judges people's spiritual maturity?

Are you a spiritually mature man?

What about women? are they also capable of spiritual maturity?

When you say "reserved for them", do you mean that this fictitious person/thing called God was concoted by spiritually mature men or do you mean one has to be spiritually mature to undestand the myth that is God?

The second premise fails (or contradicts the first one) because it implies that God is not a myth but an entity that can be manifested physically.

But where is the evidence that shows Jesus was a physical manifestation of the mythical figure called God?

How come all the physical manifestations are men? Is it because this mythical figure is of male sexuality?

Where is this mythical figure called God? Is he resident on planet earth? Is he visible?

If you believe he is mythical, why believe that something you know is a myth, is true?

[ January 31, 2002: Message edited by: jaliet ]

[ January 31, 2002: Message edited by: jaliet ]</p>

HelenM

I don't know how the dictionary defines 'myth' but I know it is often used to mean a story that are significant for a particular people/culture, which may or may not be true.

It could be an allegorical statement of values or it could be true.

But often 'myth' is used disparagingly to imply 'that story is not true'.

That these meanings are both in use can lead to misunderstanding.

But then, it happens all the time that two people misunderstand each other because the same word means a different thing to each of them.

love
Helen

Ted Hoffman

Helen,
I think you are referring to Legends? Folklore?

HelenM

Those are myths but I think of the category of myths as broader than that. Generally doesn't legend or folklore kind of imply that the story is partly untrue/elaborated, even if there is a core of truth in it?

I'm not sure that's true about myth the way it tends to be used by some people. Edited to say: I mean, I'm not sure that saying something is a myth necessarily means it's at most only partly true. I think it has more to do with it's role in the culture than it's truth content.

Of course maybe I made all this up!

Got to go,

love
Helen

[ January 31, 2002: Message edited by: HelenSL ]</p>

Ted Hoffman

Helen
Whether a myth is significant for some people or culture doesn't change the FACT that its a Myth by definition - a fictitious story/ being.
No amount of passion or romanticization can make a myth become real.

If they were real, no one would call them myths.

Legends are unverified stories handed down from earlier times, especially those popularly believed to be historical. So they have a chance of being true.

Myths are completely a figment of somebody's imagination.

Real beings are not called myths and real stories aren't called myths. Ideas that cannot sustain themselves in the minds of men (through lack of proof etc) are largely relegated to myths.


Let me cut Amos some slack and assume that what he meant to say was that God is an abstract being.
By definition, abstract objects have no causal properties. let me quote Dr. Washington :". Numbers are abstract objects. Other examples may be sets. These are contrasted with material objects: things like tables, chairs, and people. We can interact causally with tables and chairs. We can sit in them, bump into them. But I ask you, When's the last time you bumped into the number one? When's the last time you slipped on the concept of truth? Or saw a justice sitting by the side of the road? The fact is that, it's almost part of the definition of abstract objects that they cannot have causal properties."

We're told that God is both abstract and has causal properties. This is a contradiction. Nothing with a contradictory nature exists, so God doesn't exist.

When Amos says that Enoch, Methuselah, Moses etc are manifestations of God, he has to explain how this abstract being actually causally interferes with material objects.

And whether this abstract being/object or myth still remains a myth after "showing its hand".

[ January 31, 2002: Message edited by: jaliet ]</p>