The atheist bus

[rdhopeca]

Be Careful...The Old Testament is written in Parable form, as is much of the New Testament. The parable,, is a Eastern form of thinking and perceiving,,not Western. So.. applying western Logic and reason to a Eastern Parable form is not correct.

yet,, even in its parable form,,is the implied, that the understanding of the parable is never ending,,understanding is infinite,,and in the infinite is Your Label for choice of Deity or Deities. Where, in the ever expanding sphere of understanding , you decide to stop understanding,,is where your " God " is. So, even from a Eastern perspective,,being absolute on a " God" is only making a statement on the amount of understanding. If one acknowledges the omni, infinite,,then alot of the discussion becomes nothing more than repitition for validation. If one acknowledges the omni, the infinite,,ones can see the paradox of the absolute and get wrapped around the axle about that for the rest of ones life.

That may be. But parable still has to have some basis in truth, or it won't work as a parable. Using slavery as a parable would only have meaning to those that understood what slavery was.

And using the same argument, I can make the case that Jesus rising on the 3rd day is just that...a parable...and not true representation of an actual occurrence.

[Dromond]

Actually not a parable, but an allegory,representing the winter solstice.
And the original version of Christianity, at least four thousand years old.

[Dromond]

Here's a link to my previous post that is a 'nutshell' version of what I'm talking about.

members.cox.net/deleyd/religion/solarmyth/christ2002.htm

[rusmeister]

And using the same argument, I can make the case that Jesus rising on the 3rd day is just that...a parable...and not true representation of an actual occurrence.

You may do that - but you are just reading a book and forming your own religion from it with you as the prime interpreting authority: The Gospel according to Rob. It wouldn't be Christianity.

if you even conditionally accept the authority of the Bible, then you must (at least conditionally) accept the authority of the entity that compiled and established the Bible, and what is, or is not, part of the Bible. You can't refer to the Bible in a vacuum without referring to the Church that created it.

[rdhopeca]

And using the same argument, I can make the case that Jesus rising on the 3rd day is just that...a parable...and not true representation of an actual occurrence.

You may do that - but you are just reading a book and forming your own religion from it with you as the prime interpreting authority: The Gospel according to Rob. It wouldn't be Christianity.

Actually I would be reading a book as an entertaining novel. I am quite happy to leave the interpreting and religion forming to others.

if you even conditionally accept the authority of the Bible, then you must (at least conditionally) accept the authority of the entity that compiled and established the Bible, and what is, or is not, part of the Bible. You can't refer to the Bible in a vacuum without referring to the Church that created it.

Which I have consistently done. Every reference to the Bible has been framed within a reading at a Catholic Mass.

[aliantha]

Here's a link to my previous post that is a 'nutshell' version of what I'm talking about.

members.cox.net/deleyd/religion/solarmyth/christ2002.htm

Fascinating reading, Dromond, thanks!

[rusmeister]

And using the same argument, I can make the case that Jesus rising on the 3rd day is just that...a parable...and not true representation of an actual occurrence.

You may do that - but you are just reading a book and forming your own religion from it with you as the prime interpreting authority: The Gospel according to Rob. It wouldn't be Christianity.

Actually I would be reading a book as an entertaining novel. I am quite happy to leave the interpreting and religion forming to others.

if you even conditionally accept the authority of the Bible, then you must (at least conditionally) accept the authority of the entity that compiled and established the Bible, and what is, or is not, part of the Bible. You can't refer to the Bible in a vacuum without referring to the Church that created it.

Which I have consistently done. Every reference to the Bible has been framed within a reading at a Catholic Mass.

At any of those readings has the priest spoken of how the early Christians encouraged the enslavement of people?

Again, my point is that you could easily read or hear something and draw wrong conclusions based on your limited understandings (the limitations all of us individually operate under). You wouldn't even correctly understand what the Catholic Church is trying to teach. You need to find out the Tradition of the Catholic Church. Just listening to Mass isn't enough.

[aliantha]

Again, my point is that you could easily read or hear something and draw wrong conclusions based on your limited understandings (the limitations all of us individually operate under). You wouldn't even correctly understand what the Catholic Church is trying to teach. You need to find out the Tradition of the Catholic Church. Just listening to Mass isn't enough.

Rus, it sounds more and more like the only thing that would satisfy you is if we all attended seminary. Preferably Orthodox seminary. But Catholic seminary might be okay too. Maybe.

Failing that, though, I always believed that priests were the prime interpreters of the faith for laymen. It sounds as if you think Rod's priest wasn't doing his job.

Anyhow, the other thing I wanted to say was to compliment you on your analogy between the law and the Bible. I know you get exasperated over our refusal to read Chesterton -- but honestly, you do pretty well on your own.

[rusmeister]

Again, my point is that you could easily read or hear something and draw wrong conclusions based on your limited understandings (the limitations all of us individually operate under). You wouldn't even correctly understand what the Catholic Church is trying to teach. You need to find out the Tradition of the Catholic Church. Just listening to Mass isn't enough.

Rus, it sounds more and more like the only thing that would satisfy you is if we all attended seminary. Preferably Orthodox seminary. But Catholic seminary might be okay too. Maybe.

Failing that, though, I always believed that priests were the prime interpreters of the faith for laymen. It sounds as if you think Rod's priest wasn't doing his job.

Anyhow, the other thing I wanted to say was to compliment you on your analogy between the law and the Bible. I know you get exasperated over our refusal to read Chesterton -- but honestly, you do pretty well on your own.

Thanks, Ali!

Attempted clarifications: Attending seminary doesn't give you all of the answers. Even priests have to always turn back to the source. As I myself have discovered, there is more in the Orthodox Church than I could ever learn in my lifetime (unlike the Baptist church I grew up in). In any event, the beauty of the faith is that you don't need wisdom or intelligence to be saved. An idiot can be saved. (Otherwise it'd be gnosticism.) But it's so deep that the most intelligent, brilliant folk in the world could spend their lifetimes (and some have) and not drain the well dry. All I have been saying here is that no one, none of us can be sure we have correct theological understandings without referring to an authority that is bigger, older and wiser than any of us. But many here do think that they can pick up the Bible, see words like "brother", or "until" and think they have everything they need to understand texts on their own (on those understandings hang protestant conceptions of Mary, for example). Some read Paul's text "For by grace are ye saved through faith; that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God" and take it to mean all we need is an intellectual acceptance, and others read James' text: "Faith without works is dead;...show me your faith by your works" and speak as if we can save ourselves by our good deeds. How is one to understand these apparent contradictions and authoritatively state what it means? Obviously they indicate deep waters. Unless you accept gnosticism (which is what I think protestantism most often points to - who has the best understanding? which leaves slower and less learned and wise people up the creek without a paddle, thus giving birth to "fundamentalist madness" - they ARE people up a creek without a paddle), then you would have to acknowledge an authority above all to hold and pass on, from generation to generation, what that faith is to be able to claim a valid faith that really does represent the fullness of eternal truth to us.

Also, a priest can't "do his job" if the parishioner or visitor does not approach him, any more than a doctor whose patient either doesn't come to appointments or hides/fails to reveal the nature of his ailment. Priests are not mind readers, and genuine faith is entirely dependent on voluntary acceptance. People have to approach the priest, not the other way around.

On refusing to read Chesterton - I see that as being like scientists who refuse to examine Einstein's works because they challenge cherished views that a lot of their own work is based on. Refusing to encounter genius is...
You would be very impressed by his "Ballad of the White Horse" by the way - I finished it recently and can fairly compare it to "Evgeny Onegin"
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evgeny_Onegin
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ballad_of_the_White_Horse
Especially note the "influence on other works" section.
www.cse.dmu.ac.uk/~mward/gkc/books/white-horse2.html (text free online)

[Dromond]

Here's a link to my previous post that is a 'nutshell' version of what I'm talking about.

members.cox.net/deleyd/religion/solarmyth/christ2002.htm

Fascinating reading, Dromond, thanks!

Thank you for reading it, aliantha!
It's a beautiful story, and doesn't lessen the beauty one bit,learning the true origins, and only enhances it in my eyes and mind... a wonderful and most useful tale mankind had learned and passed on.

Actually, much like Sunder learning the truth about, well, aliantha.

[Fist and Faith]

All I have been saying here is that no one, none of us can be sure we have correct theological understandings without referring to an authority that is bigger, older and wiser than any of us. But many here do think that they can pick up the Bible, see words like "brother", or "until" and think they have everything they need to understand texts on their own (on those understandings hang protestant conceptions of Mary, for example). Some read Paul's text "For by grace are ye saved through faith; that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God" and take it to mean all we need is an intellectual acceptance, and others read James' text: "Faith without works is dead;...show me your faith by your works" and speak as if we can save ourselves by our good deeds. How is one to understand these apparent contradictions and authoritatively state what it means? Obviously they indicate deep waters.

How do apparent contradictions indicate deep waters? Maybe they indicate actual contradictions. Before devoting my life to such a ginormous undertaking - attempting to learn all I can learn about something, knowing it's impossible to read everything that's been written on the topic - I'd like a reason to believe these things aren't the contradictions they appear to be. I'm not inclined to attempt to learn all I possibly can about anything. Not music, although I got a BA and did a lot of graduate work in the field; not comic books, although I've got a couple thousand of them and would still collect them like crazy if I could afford to; not any of the various scientific fields that I think are fascinating. Certainly not something that looks to me to be as flawed as what we're talking about. How many things have you embraced to such a degree, and why did you pick those things?

My point is that you are answering the question: "Why should I read everything I can about this, and look for people to discuss it with?" with, "Read everything about it and look for people to discuss it with, and you'll see." That would be a bad answer even if I hadn't already read what I've read, discussed it with various people, and found it to be unappealing.

[rusmeister]

All I have been saying here is that no one, none of us can be sure we have correct theological understandings without referring to an authority that is bigger, older and wiser than any of us. But many here do think that they can pick up the Bible, see words like "brother", or "until" and think they have everything they need to understand texts on their own (on those understandings hang protestant conceptions of Mary, for example). Some read Paul's text "For by grace are ye saved through faith; that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God" and take it to mean all we need is an intellectual acceptance, and others read James' text: "Faith without works is dead;...show me your faith by your works" and speak as if we can save ourselves by our good deeds. How is one to understand these apparent contradictions and authoritatively state what it means? Obviously they indicate deep waters.

How do apparent contradictions indicate deep waters? Maybe they indicate actual contradictions. Before devoting my life to such a ginormous undertaking - attempting to learn all I can learn about something, knowing it's impossible to read everything that's been written on the topic - I'd like a reason to believe these things aren't the contradictions they appear to be. I'm not inclined to attempt to learn all I possibly can about anything. Not music, although I got a BA and did a lot of graduate work in the field; not comic books, although I've got a couple thousand of them and would still collect them like crazy if I could afford to; not any of the various scientific fields that I think are fascinating. Certainly not something that looks to me to be as flawed as what we're talking about. How many things have you embraced to such a degree, and why did you pick those things?

My point is that you are answering the question: "Why should I read everything I can about this, and look for people to discuss it with?" with, "Read everything about it and look for people to discuss it with, and you'll see." That would be a bad answer even if I hadn't already read what I've read, discussed it with various people, and found it to be unappealing.

Fist, I mostly agree with you here - most especially on the desire to learn about these things. It is characteristic of our (fallen) nature that we do not need God as long as things are going well enough - even as long as they are only going somehow. If a person feels no interest, I have nothing to say to them. On the other hand, why do people post in the Close unless they ARE interested in these questions; unless on some level, conscious or not, they do feel that these are important questions?

Now as to contradictions, again, you have a point - but if I have discovered apparent contradictions that turn out not to be contradictions at all, or even resolvable as paradoxes, then they are not actual contradictions (which IS the case). Funny that people that love reading about Covenant's finding "the eye of the paradox" should be unwilling to consider that they may be facing one (rather than a contradiction) when they look at a religion in real life. I could just as well say that there IS no paradox in TCOC - just self-contradictory BS.

[rusmeister]

Here's a link to my previous post that is a 'nutshell' version of what I'm talking about.

members.cox.net/deleyd/religion/solarmyth/christ2002.htm

Fascinating reading, Dromond, thanks!

Thank you for reading it, aliantha!
It's a beautiful story, and doesn't lessen the beauty one bit,learning the true origins, and only enhances it in my eyes and mind... a wonderful and most useful tale mankind had learned and passed on.

Actually, much like Sunder learning the truth about, well, aliantha.

The true origin of all the myths has been discovered much too often. There are too many keys to mythology, as there are too many cryptograms in Shakespeare. Everything is phallic; everything is totemistic; everything is seed-time and harvest; everything is ghosts and grave-offerings; everything is the golden bough of sacrifice; everything is the sun and moon; everything is everything. Every folk-lore student who knew a little more than his own monomania, every man of wider reading and critical culture like Andrew Lang, has practically confessed that the bewilderment of these things left his brain spinning. Yet the whole trouble comes from a man trying to look at these stories from the outside, as if they were scientific objects. He has only to look at them from the inside, and ask himself how he would begin a story. A story may start with anything and go anywhere. It may start with a bird without the bird being a totem; it may start with the sun without being a solar myth. It is said there are only ten plots in the world; and there will certainly be common and recurrent elements. Set ten thousand children talking at once, and telling tarradiddles about what they did in the wood, and it will not be hard to find parallels suggesting sun-worship or animal worship. Some of the stories may be pretty and some silly and some perhaps dirty; but they can only be judged as stories. In the modern dialect, they can only be judged aesthetically. It is strange that aesthetics, or mere feeling, which is now allowed to usurp where it has no rights at all, to wreck reason with pragmatism and morals with anarchy, is apparently not allowed to give a purely aesthetic judgement on what is obviously a purely aesthetic question. We may be fanciful about everything except fairy-tales.

Now the first fact is that the most simple people have the most subtle ideas. Everybody ought to know that, for everybody has been a child. Ignorant as a child is, he knows more than he can say and feels not only atmospheres but fine shades. And in this matter there are several fine shades. Nobody understands it who has not had what can only be called the ache of the artist to find some sense and some story in the beautiful things he sees; his hunger for secrets and his anger at any tower or tree escaping with its tale untold. He feels that nothing is perfect unless it is personal. Without that the blind unconscious beauty of the world stands in its garden like a headless statue. One need only be a very minor poet to have wrestled with the tower or the tree until it spoke like a titan or a dryad. It is often said that pagan mythology was a personification of the powers of nature. The phrase is true in a sense, but it is very unsatisfactory; because it implies that the forces are abstractions and the personification is artificial. Myths are not allegories. Natural powers are not in this case abstractions. It is not as if there were a God of Gravitation. There may be a genius of the waterfall; but not of mere falling, even less than of mere water. The impersonation is not of something impersonal. The point is that the personality perfects the water with significance. Father Christmas is not an allegory of snow and holly; he is not merely the stuff called snow afterwards artificially given a human form, like a snow man. He is something that gives a new meaning to the white world and the evergreens, so that snow itself seems to be warm rather than cold. The test therefore is purely imaginative. But imaginative does not mean imaginary. It does not follow that it is all what the moderns call subjective, when they mean false. Every true artist does feel, consciously or unconsciously, that he is touching transcendental truths; that his images are shadows of things seen through the veil. In other words, the natural mystic does know that there is something there; something behind the clouds or within the trees; but he believes that the pursuit of beauty is the way to find it; that imagination is a sort of incantation that can call it up.

www.cse.dmu.ac.uk/~mward/gkc/books/ever ... l#chap-I-v

Queen takes Bishop pawn, check.
It's a little early to start speaking of the truth of your idea (taken as a whole), Dromond. That said, I think there IS truth in it.

[rdhopeca]

All I have been saying here is that no one, none of us can be sure we have correct theological understandings without referring to an authority that is bigger, older and wiser than any of us. But many here do think that they can pick up the Bible, see words like "brother", or "until" and think they have everything they need to understand texts on their own (on those understandings hang protestant conceptions of Mary, for example). Some read Paul's text "For by grace are ye saved through faith; that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God" and take it to mean all we need is an intellectual acceptance, and others read James' text: "Faith without works is dead;...show me your faith by your works" and speak as if we can save ourselves by our good deeds. How is one to understand these apparent contradictions and authoritatively state what it means? Obviously they indicate deep waters.

How do apparent contradictions indicate deep waters? Maybe they indicate actual contradictions. Before devoting my life to such a ginormous undertaking - attempting to learn all I can learn about something, knowing it's impossible to read everything that's been written on the topic - I'd like a reason to believe these things aren't the contradictions they appear to be. I'm not inclined to attempt to learn all I possibly can about anything. Not music, although I got a BA and did a lot of graduate work in the field; not comic books, although I've got a couple thousand of them and would still collect them like crazy if I could afford to; not any of the various scientific fields that I think are fascinating. Certainly not something that looks to me to be as flawed as what we're talking about. How many things have you embraced to such a degree, and why did you pick those things?

My point is that you are answering the question: "Why should I read everything I can about this, and look for people to discuss it with?" with, "Read everything about it and look for people to discuss it with, and you'll see." That would be a bad answer even if I hadn't already read what I've read, discussed it with various people, and found it to be unappealing.

Fist, I mostly agree with you here - most especially on the desire to learn about these things. It is characteristic of our (fallen) nature that we do not need God as long as things are going well enough - even as long as they are only going somehow. If a person feels no interest, I have nothing to say to them. On the other hand, why do people post in the Close unless they ARE interested in these questions; unless on some level, conscious or not, they do feel that these are important questions?

Now as to contradictions, again, you have a point - but if I have discovered apparent contradictions that turn out not to be contradictions at all, or even resolvable as paradoxes, then they are not actual contradictions (which IS the case). Funny that people that love reading about Covenant's finding "the eye of the paradox" should be unwilling to consider that they may be facing one (rather than a contradiction) when they look at a religion in real life. I could just as well say that there IS no paradox in TCOC - just self-contradictory BS.

And you'd be completely entitled to say it, and believe it, and I wouldn't take that from you.

However, SRD makes no pretense about the fact that his works are fiction.

[Cybrweez]

I happened to read this today, and thought it was timely:

www.wallbuilders.com/LIBissuesArticles.asp?id=120

However, through this brief review of the Old Testament slave laws we have seen that American slavery violated some of these laws, not to mention the spirit of liberty instituted by the coming of Christ.

[aliantha]

Here's a link to my previous post that is a 'nutshell' version of what I'm talking about.

members.cox.net/deleyd/religion/solarmyth/christ2002.htm

Fascinating reading, Dromond, thanks!

Thank you for reading it, aliantha!
It's a beautiful story, and doesn't lessen the beauty one bit,learning the true origins, and only enhances it in my eyes and mind... a wonderful and most useful tale mankind had learned and passed on.

Actually, much like Sunder learning the truth about, well, aliantha.

Aww, shucks.

The true origin of all the myths has been discovered much too often. There are too many keys to mythology, as there are too many cryptograms in Shakespeare. Everything is phallic; everything is totemistic; everything is seed-time and harvest; everything is ghosts and grave-offerings; everything is the golden bough of sacrifice; everything is the sun and moon; everything is everything. Every folk-lore student who knew a little more than his own monomania, every man of wider reading and critical culture like Andrew Lang, has practically confessed that the bewilderment of these things left his brain spinning. Yet the whole trouble comes from a man trying to look at these stories from the outside, as if they were scientific objects. He has only to look at them from the inside, and ask himself how he would begin a story. A story may start with anything and go anywhere. It may start with a bird without the bird being a totem; it may start with the sun without being a solar myth. It is said there are only ten plots in the world; and there will certainly be common and recurrent elements. Set ten thousand children talking at once, and telling tarradiddles about what they did in the wood, and it will not be hard to find parallels suggesting sun-worship or animal worship. Some of the stories may be pretty and some silly and some perhaps dirty; but they can only be judged as stories. In the modern dialect, they can only be judged aesthetically. It is strange that aesthetics, or mere feeling, which is now allowed to usurp where it has no rights at all, to wreck reason with pragmatism and morals with anarchy, is apparently not allowed to give a purely aesthetic judgement on what is obviously a purely aesthetic question. We may be fanciful about everything except fairy-tales.

Now the first fact is that the most simple people have the most subtle ideas. Everybody ought to know that, for everybody has been a child. Ignorant as a child is, he knows more than he can say and feels not only atmospheres but fine shades. And in this matter there are several fine shades. Nobody understands it who has not had what can only be called the ache of the artist to find some sense and some story in the beautiful things he sees; his hunger for secrets and his anger at any tower or tree escaping with its tale untold. He feels that nothing is perfect unless it is personal. Without that the blind unconscious beauty of the world stands in its garden like a headless statue. One need only be a very minor poet to have wrestled with the tower or the tree until it spoke like a titan or a dryad. It is often said that pagan mythology was a personification of the powers of nature. The phrase is true in a sense, but it is very unsatisfactory; because it implies that the forces are abstractions and the personification is artificial. Myths are not allegories. Natural powers are not in this case abstractions. It is not as if there were a God of Gravitation. There may be a genius of the waterfall; but not of mere falling, even less than of mere water. The impersonation is not of something impersonal. The point is that the personality perfects the water with significance. Father Christmas is not an allegory of snow and holly; he is not merely the stuff called snow afterwards artificially given a human form, like a snow man. He is something that gives a new meaning to the white world and the evergreens, so that snow itself seems to be warm rather than cold. The test therefore is purely imaginative. But imaginative does not mean imaginary. It does not follow that it is all what the moderns call subjective, when they mean false. Every true artist does feel, consciously or unconsciously, that he is touching transcendental truths; that his images are shadows of things seen through the veil. In other words, the natural mystic does know that there is something there; something behind the clouds or within the trees; but he believes that the pursuit of beauty is the way to find it; that imagination is a sort of incantation that can call it up.

www.cse.dmu.ac.uk/~mward/gkc/books/ever ... l#chap-I-v

A charming fellow, your Mr. Chesterton. In one fell swoop, he has: insulted anyone who doesn't agree with Christian theology as "simple"; willfully misunderstood the concept behind immanent spirits (i.e., spirits of place); went totally off the rails in his description of Father Christmas (who is, btw, one of *your* saints); and blithely disregarded the possibility that Christian doctrine, like the mythology he derides, could, in and of itself, be a mythology -- and that, in fact, plenty of parallels have been delineated between Christianity and earlier religions/cults by "simple" anthropologists and folklorists (many of whom, speaking of paradoxes, know about those parallels and still choose to be Christian). In short, he has insulted and made fun of anybody who doesn't buy into Christianity.

Thanks for the excerpt.

[rdhopeca]

Fascinating reading, Dromond, thanks!

Thank you for reading it, aliantha!
It's a beautiful story, and doesn't lessen the beauty one bit,learning the true origins, and only enhances it in my eyes and mind... a wonderful and most useful tale mankind had learned and passed on.

Actually, much like Sunder learning the truth about, well, aliantha.

Aww, shucks.

The true origin of all the myths has been discovered much too often. There are too many keys to mythology, as there are too many cryptograms in Shakespeare. Everything is phallic; everything is totemistic; everything is seed-time and harvest; everything is ghosts and grave-offerings; everything is the golden bough of sacrifice; everything is the sun and moon; everything is everything. Every folk-lore student who knew a little more than his own monomania, every man of wider reading and critical culture like Andrew Lang, has practically confessed that the bewilderment of these things left his brain spinning. Yet the whole trouble comes from a man trying to look at these stories from the outside, as if they were scientific objects. He has only to look at them from the inside, and ask himself how he would begin a story. A story may start with anything and go anywhere. It may start with a bird without the bird being a totem; it may start with the sun without being a solar myth. It is said there are only ten plots in the world; and there will certainly be common and recurrent elements. Set ten thousand children talking at once, and telling tarradiddles about what they did in the wood, and it will not be hard to find parallels suggesting sun-worship or animal worship. Some of the stories may be pretty and some silly and some perhaps dirty; but they can only be judged as stories. In the modern dialect, they can only be judged aesthetically. It is strange that aesthetics, or mere feeling, which is now allowed to usurp where it has no rights at all, to wreck reason with pragmatism and morals with anarchy, is apparently not allowed to give a purely aesthetic judgement on what is obviously a purely aesthetic question. We may be fanciful about everything except fairy-tales.

Now the first fact is that the most simple people have the most subtle ideas. Everybody ought to know that, for everybody has been a child. Ignorant as a child is, he knows more than he can say and feels not only atmospheres but fine shades. And in this matter there are several fine shades. Nobody understands it who has not had what can only be called the ache of the artist to find some sense and some story in the beautiful things he sees; his hunger for secrets and his anger at any tower or tree escaping with its tale untold. He feels that nothing is perfect unless it is personal. Without that the blind unconscious beauty of the world stands in its garden like a headless statue. One need only be a very minor poet to have wrestled with the tower or the tree until it spoke like a titan or a dryad. It is often said that pagan mythology was a personification of the powers of nature. The phrase is true in a sense, but it is very unsatisfactory; because it implies that the forces are abstractions and the personification is artificial. Myths are not allegories. Natural powers are not in this case abstractions. It is not as if there were a God of Gravitation. There may be a genius of the waterfall; but not of mere falling, even less than of mere water. The impersonation is not of something impersonal. The point is that the personality perfects the water with significance. Father Christmas is not an allegory of snow and holly; he is not merely the stuff called snow afterwards artificially given a human form, like a snow man. He is something that gives a new meaning to the white world and the evergreens, so that snow itself seems to be warm rather than cold. The test therefore is purely imaginative. But imaginative does not mean imaginary. It does not follow that it is all what the moderns call subjective, when they mean false. Every true artist does feel, consciously or unconsciously, that he is touching transcendental truths; that his images are shadows of things seen through the veil. In other words, the natural mystic does know that there is something there; something behind the clouds or within the trees; but he believes that the pursuit of beauty is the way to find it; that imagination is a sort of incantation that can call it up.

www.cse.dmu.ac.uk/~mward/gkc/books/ever ... l#chap-I-v

A charming fellow, your Mr. Chesterton. In one fell swoop, he has: insulted anyone who doesn't agree with Christian theology as "simple"; willfully misunderstood the concept behind immanent spirits (i.e., spirits of place); went totally off the rails in his description of Father Christmas (who is, btw, one of *your* saints); and blithely disregarded the possibility that Christian doctrine, like the mythology he derides, could, in and of itself, be a mythology -- and that, in fact, plenty of parallels have been delineated between Christianity and earlier religions/cults by "simple" anthropologists and folklorists (many of whom, speaking of paradoxes, know about those parallels and still choose to be Christian). In short, he has insulted and made fun of anybody who doesn't buy into Christianity.

Thanks for the excerpt.

To paraphrase Mel Brooks and continue the chess metaphor:

Knight jumps Queen.



In all seriousness, this is the part I find most amusing about Chesterton, and I brought this up somewhat earlier. His has a disarming way of basically calling everyone who doesn't agree with him idiots without coming right out and saying it. Pretty condescending actually.

At least in what I've read so far. None of which inspires me to read any further.

[[Syl]]

...everything is seed-time and harvest; everything is ghosts and grave-offerings; everything is the golden bough of sacrifice; everything is the sun and moon; everything is everything.

Truly this Chesterton fellow is a Buddha.

[Fist and Faith]

Fist, I mostly agree with you here - most especially on the desire to learn about these things. It is characteristic of our (fallen) nature that we do not need God as long as things are going well enough - even as long as they are only going somehow. If a person feels no interest, I have nothing to say to them. On the other hand, why do people post in the Close unless they ARE interested in these questions; unless on some level, conscious or not, they do feel that these are important questions?

As I've said, I don't claim to know, or even believe, that there is no God. I just don't believe there is. But maybe there is. If so, I'd like to know about it, whether I end up following such a being's rules or not. So I keep asking and prodding those of you who are so convinced that there is a God, in case one of you says something that makes sense (to me) and convinces me that there's something more to it than I currently think there is.

Now as to contradictions, again, you have a point - but if I have discovered apparent contradictions that turn out not to be contradictions at all, or even resolvable as paradoxes, then they are not actual contradictions (which IS the case).

Well, you just quoted two parts of the Bible that seem to contradict each other. Care to explain how they do not? Step-by-step? It can't possibly be that I have to read everything you've read about the history of the Church in order to understand it. If that was the case, then there would only be a few dozen true Christians in the world, eh?

Funny that people that love reading about Covenant's finding "the eye of the paradox" should be unwilling to consider that they may be facing one (rather than a contradiction) when they look at a religion in real life. I could just as well say that there IS no paradox in TCOC - just self-contradictory BS.

Heh. I'd likely agree with you. "It can save or damn" isn't a paradox. A knife can save life - by performing surgery - or it can kill.

Plus, what rd said.

[Loredoctor]

Some interesting quotes from some very intelligent fellows:

"I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours."
Stephen Roberts

"Jesus' last words on the cross, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" hardly seem like the words of a man who planned it that way. It doesn't take Sherlock Holmes to figure there is something wrong here."

Donald Morgan