roseweird posted:.custom221502{color:#4D0200 !important; background-color:#EDEDED !important; }deadken posted:.custom221470{color:#CFEEF7 !important; background-color:#E80C64 !important; }roseweird posted:neither is obsessive and alienatingly exclusive monotheistic navelgazing good theologylol
im trying to say that theology that lacks polytheistic elements is just as troubled as one that lacks monotheistic elements and an obsession with either one reflects a lack of faith in the transcendent nature of god. god is the spirit into which all spirit resolves, and all is spirit. within this scheme there are gods and there is god, and every god is God and god is God and the gods. it's not too strange really. it's neoneoplatonism
lol. this is what i'm talking about.
tpaine posted:still hilarious to me that a bunch of communists are such knee-jerk religion defenders
god exists
tpaine posted:religion is this great central thing which has been one of the principle defining of aspects of human culture and history, no other force or idea has been can be more attributed to the great and exalted success that has been the story of the human race's treatment of itself since we started making up traditions to suit our prejudices
You view our species with total condemnation and a complete lack of charity, the logical conclusion of your beliefs is that the only moral action is willful human self-destruction and this is the reason your values will not be successful.
deadken posted:isaac prolly not a real dude
sure so my question is what are the (potential) motivations for putting in pseudo-polytheistic elements?
Agnus_Dei posted:Religions are more than just superstitions, they are core belief systems that define the moral values of their society, and the conflict between religions represents a conflict between moral values. Judaism practices ethno-nationalism whereas Christianity encourages universalism. Islam also promotes ethno-nationalism via its elevation of Arabic to a divine language. Atheism ultimately ends up focused on material utility and disregards the value of life itself as "superstition."
it's literally possible to have morals and value life without supernatural beliefs. "atheism" isnt a positive set of beliefs and pretending that "atheism" will "always" result in any sort of particular value system is even dumber than the idea that being christian will somehow prevent someone from doing awful shit.
roseweird posted:.custom221737{}NoFreeWill posted:lol. this is what i'm talking about.
it was part of a conversation you weren't participating in and lack the background to understand, but if you want to call it up out of context and try to feel smarter than i am go ahead
yeah there is no way i can participate in this discussion, or critique your views, without a PHD in religious studies. i actually know less about the subject then you, but that doesn't make my criticism incorrect or the quote less silly.
c_man posted:deadken posted:isaac prolly not a real dude
sure so my question is what are the (potential) motivations for putting in pseudo-polytheistic elements?
likely b/c a lot of the stuff in genesis wasn't written by the priestly caste like other books but a transcription of oral traditions w/ a latent polytheistic substrate; the books of the prophets are full of people trying to root out this stuff
roseweird posted:c_man posted:sure so my question is what are the (potential) motivations for putting in pseudo-polytheistic elements?
no on e"put in" "pseudo"-polytheistic elements. there is no jewish monotheistic tradition prior to the 1st millennium bc. there is no evidence of a god yhwh prior to around 1200 bc as far as i know and at that time yhwh is merely a sort of baal freuently paired with a female consort god. judaism (meaning here simply "religion in the land of judah") was a polytheistic faith first.
is this the same thing as what kenneth was talknig about wrt the patriarchs being invented, or a later thing?
roseweird posted:... it is a description of religious tendencies, not a personality trait
i think that if you're going to be religious then limiting yourself to a single tradition seems like a bad idea.
deadken posted:likely b/c a lot of the stuff in genesis wasn't written by the priestly caste like other books but a transcription of oral traditions w/ a latent polytheistic substrate; the books of the prophets are full of people trying to root out this stuff
oic
c_man posted:it's literally possible to have morals and value life without supernatural beliefs. "atheism" isnt a positive set of beliefs and pretending that "atheism" will "always" result in any sort of particular value system is even dumber than the idea that being christian will somehow prevent someone from doing awful shit.
Atheism is absolutely a positive set of beliefs in which you disregard all human spirituality as superstition and emphasize the importance of material reality, and this ends up having moral implications about the value (or lack thereof) of things which are only held as valuable for spiritual reasons. While it is true it manifests itself as a great variety of individual belief systems, they all have this underlying current within them.
