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Source: (consider it) Thread: Our galaxy has 200,000,000,000 stars & the universe has more galaxies than this
Golden Key
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# 1468

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quote:
Originally posted by Oscar the Grouch:
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
There is a school of thought that has solved the Fermi Paradox by positing a galaxy-spanning civilisation that snuffs out emergent intelligence wherever they find it - not vindictively, but as one would exterminate a bacteria with antibiotics.

Would that be the same school that has watched too many episodes of Star Trek?
[Razz]

There was an episode of "Star Trek: TNG" where a scientist was running an experiment on the surface of a planet that had no intelligent life.

However, there was a civilization of bacteria, very intelligent, living just below the surface. Some of them were killed by the experiment, and there was a big confrontation. Things were straightened out as much as they could be. Then Capt. Picard said "we'd like to get to know you", etc. The spokesbacterium basically said, "You're not ready. Come back when you've grown up." This unsettled Picard a bit. Not used to being in that position!
[Smile]

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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")

Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001  |  IP: Logged
LeRoc

Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216

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quote:
Golden Key: There was an episode of "Star Trek: TNG" where a scientist was running an experiment on the surface of a planet that had no intelligent life.
Would that be Evolution (Season 3, Ep. 1)?

However, when I think of 'a galaxy-spanning civilisation that snuffs out emergent intelligence wherever they find it - not vindictively, but as one would exterminate a bacteria with antibiotics', the Borg spring to life more readily.

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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)

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Yorick

Infinite Jester
# 12169

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Like I said, I understand (very acutely) that we humans are important to ourselves. We’re the most significant thing in the universe, to us, and this is so despite the fact that we are small in size compared to galaxies, etc. OBVIOUSLY this isn’t about size, and it’s not even about how significant we are to ourselves, however much people keep blathering on about that. It’s about how important or significant we are in the universe, and, by the same kind of process, how significant or important we are to a hypothetical entity (God) that sees us objectively in context of the whole. And that is the bit that I’d like people to discuss with me, if anyone should care to.

My argument is this. We are insignificant* on the cosmic scale like a grain of sand is unimportant on an unending beach. God sees us on a cosmic scale, although we cannot do so ourselves. Indeed he allegedly made us insignificant and unimportant in this particular way. I’d like to understand why people imagine this might be.

*When I talk of significant or important, I mean in the classical sense that we make any difference whatsoever, whether we exist or not.

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این نیز بگذرد

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orfeo

Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878

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quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
Like I said, I understand (very acutely) that we humans are important to ourselves. We’re the most significant thing in the universe, to us, and this is so despite the fact that we are small in size compared to galaxies, etc. OBVIOUSLY this isn’t about size, and it’s not even about how significant we are to ourselves, however much people keep blathering on about that. It’s about how important or significant we are in the universe, and, by the same kind of process, how significant or important we are to a hypothetical entity (God) that sees us objectively in context of the whole. And that is the bit that I’d like people to discuss with me, if anyone should care to.

My argument is this. We are insignificant* on the cosmic scale like a grain of sand is unimportant on an unending beach. God sees us on a cosmic scale, although we cannot do so ourselves. Indeed he allegedly made us insignificant and unimportant in this particular way. I’d like to understand why people imagine this might be.

*When I talk of significant or important, I mean in the classical sense that we make any difference whatsoever, whether we exist or not.

It is what we're discussing. You just don't seem to like the answer. You assert that "God sees us on a cosmic scale" but what is a "cosmic scale" if it's not about size? If it's not about size, where do you get the proposition that God sees us as insignificant? He's said the exact opposite.

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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.

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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081

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quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
We are insignificant* on the cosmic scale like a grain of sand is unimportant on an unending beach.

I agree completely with orfeo. You are still equating significance with size.
quote:
*When I talk of significant or important, I mean in the classical sense that we make any difference whatsoever, whether we exist or not.
Size has absolutely nothing to do with significance.

Besides, your assumption that significance is defined only in terms of "making a difference" is questionable. The biblical perspective is that humans are significant because we are made in God's image.

(This discussion would be even more fun in French, in which the word important means both "large" and "significant")

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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy

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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748

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quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
My argument is this. We are insignificant* on the cosmic scale like a grain of sand is unimportant on an unending beach. God sees us on a cosmic scale, although we cannot do so ourselves. Indeed he allegedly made us insignificant and unimportant in this particular way. I’d like to understand why people imagine this might be.

You've a whole passel of assumptions there, but try this:

We are the eyes with which the Universe Beholds itself, and knows it is divine

That's not insignificance. That's a solemn duty, and it belongs to each and every one of us.

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Forward the New Republic

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Dafyd
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# 5549

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quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
God sees us on a cosmic scale, although we cannot do so ourselves.

You seem to be confusing God sees us on a cosmic scale with God sees us only on a cosmic scale. The latter is not objective.

Looking at a mountain from a hundred kilometres above it is no less a specific viewpoint than looking at it from half way up the side of it. It may have advantages for certain purposes such as large scale mapping in context, but it's less good for others (the vegetation half way up the side of it).

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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams

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Golden Key
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# 1468

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quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
quote:
Golden Key: There was an episode of "Star Trek: TNG" where a scientist was running an experiment on the surface of a planet that had no intelligent life.
Would that be Evolution (Season 3, Ep. 1)?

However, when I think of 'a galaxy-spanning civilisation that snuffs out emergent intelligence wherever they find it - not vindictively, but as one would exterminate a bacteria with antibiotics', the Borg spring to life more readily.

No, "Home Soil", from the first season. I was wrong: the creatures are (micro) crystals, not bacteria. BTW, they described humanoids as "ugly bags of mostly water"! But the "Evolution" episode deals with some similar ideas.

I think the Borg, as awful as they were, sought more than just extermination of other species. IIRC, they assimilated whatever life they could in a particular place, and destroyed what was left. "Your biological and technological distinctiveness will be added to our own."

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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")

Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001  |  IP: Logged
LeRoc

Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216

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quote:
Golden Key: No, "Home Soil", from the first season.
Ah yes, of course. I mostly try to forget about Season 1.

quote:
Golden Key: I think the Borg, as awful as they were, sought more than just extermination of other species. IIRC, they assimilated whatever life they could in a particular place, and destroyed what was left.
You're right, but in the Star Trek universe, this is the closest I could think of to the civilisation Doc Tor described.

The Revelation Space novels by Alastair Reynolds describe a race called the Inhibitors. However, they have a moral goal for their actions (SPOILER ALERT): they want to protect sapient life against the collision with the Andromeda Nebula.

[ 04. March 2015, 11:17: Message edited by: LeRoc ]

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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)

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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748

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The problem is ascribing 'morality' to an action that could be as mundane as a bit of pest control.

I'm rather hoping that we're not in the sights of a civilisation that is as far above us as we are above ants. And for all we know, we're first: emergent intelligence in the universe has to start somewhere, and it could be us.

How's that for significance?

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Forward the New Republic

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Oscar the Grouch

Adopted Cascadian
# 1916

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quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
The problem is ascribing 'morality' to an action that could be as mundane as a bit of pest control.

I'm rather hoping that we're not in the sights of a civilisation that is as far above us as we are above ants. And for all we know, we're first: emergent intelligence in the universe has to start somewhere, and it could be us.

How's that for significance?

But if a civilisation is as far above us as we are above ants, wouldn't that be most likely to mean that they would be LESS inclined to just exterminate us? I think it is possible to see in our own struggles to "improve" ourselves that the more "developed" a society becomes, the more understanding it is of "the other" and the less inclined it is to treat "the other" as a threat that must be eradicated as soon as possible.

I think I might be moving myself a little to the view that there may be "super races" out there, but they are so developed that they have chosen to remain hidden from us for our own benefit. It is a little like the occasional discoveries of new tribes in Brazil or Borneo. These days, we tend to try and leave them well alone, rather than leap in and try to "civilise" them.

Perhaps a very developed race might have a very developed sense of morality?

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Faradiu, dundeibáwa weyu lárigi weyu

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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748

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"Dude, you've got humans on you."
"Arghh! Get 'em off, get 'em off!"

I think it's fine as long as we stay where we are. We need to bear in mind the potential swatting that might come our way if we travel to somewhere outside of our immediate environs.

It might also be that we need to bear in mind the swatting we can dish out. The amount of energy required to move a mass interstellar distances will always make a handy weapon.

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Forward the New Republic

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LeRoc

Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216

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quote:
Oscar the Grouch: I think I might be moving myself a little to the view that there may be "super races" out there, but they are so developed that they have chosen to remain hidden from us for our own benefit.
In discussions about the Fermi Paradox, this is called the 'Zoo Hypothesis'.

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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)

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IngoB

Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700

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quote:
Originally posted by Oscar the Grouch:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
If there are sapient aliens out there, then
  1. They are fallen.
  2. God has not come incarnate to them.
  3. Their Saviour is none other than Jesus Christ.

  1. From what?
  2. Why not?
  3. How?


Very good. My responses to IngoB would be:
  1. How do you know?
  2. How do you know?
  3. Extremely implausible. I think that this makes God a very big bastard. "You need a Saviour, but it is someone on a planet you've never heard of and can never have any chance of encountering."

I do not know this. In the full text (just before the quoted text) I said that I was making predictions. And I've stated explicitly the basis of my predictions, namely that they are an extrapolation from prior salvation history. These aliens would be fallen from a state of original innocence and grace, just like we are. Indeed, exactly like we are, for then Adam would be their ancestor (in a spiritual, not biological, sense). This whole scenario relies indeed on us being able to reach the aliens, at a minimum that we can communicate with them. I do not know how. Clearly this would require considerable technological advances at least on one of the sides. But if we can bring the gospel to the aliens, then this answers the objection that they cannot be saved by what they do not know. (Presumably they can be saved even by what they do not know, at least this is a standard argument why not all non-Christians will go to hell. But I agree that it would be fitting for them to have a chance to become Christians.) I believe that there would be only one Incarnation precisely as the logical continuation of salvation history with one "Adam" for all rational animals, and one Christ as well, and with steadily widening circles of who is explicitly included as "God's people".

The alternative is that either we are alone in the universe (which I consider most probable), or that we are not alone, but in practice out of reach. (Then an Incarnation elsewhere would for all practical purposes not interfere with ours, even if it is in principle within the same universe.)

It is of course thinkable that there are many alien races, and that they have all their own specific "Adam" and "Christ". However, if these many species of "rational animal" end up making contact, then I can see this only working if none of them fell, or if all of them did. I do not think that a mix of fallen and not fallen works. I don't think the fall is just a human (rational animal) thing, it is more like a disease that spreading from the steward infects the entire domain. The world falls with us. But if a fallen human and a not fallen alien would meet, then there would be a contradiction in their worlds, their domains would clash. One can imagine the fallen world "infecting" the not fallen one, but that is taking the disease analogy too far. Why would the non-fallen alien steward have less power of governance over their domain?

Since we have fallen, then to avoid salvation clash, all aliens we can reach must have fallen as well. But if we say that all of them are fallen, then it looks like God is tricking us. It may appear that Adam fell out of his free choice, but if all those alien "Adams" have also fallen, then that's a bit much of a coincidence. I don't think that this can work, because it would make God appear like a trickster.

So the one mode that I can imagine - if we are to meet aliens - is that they are simply the next widening of the circle of salvation spreading from Christ. That's possible. I consider this unlikely, because it abolishes the biological connection and makes Adam a mere spiritual figure. So my best bet is that we are alone, that we are the only embodied sapient creatures in the entire universe (or at least in the entire practically reachable universe). But if we are not, then I think the first thing we have to do is to bring these aliens Christ, however that can be accomplished.

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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear

Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004  |  IP: Logged
Palimpsest
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# 16772

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Many things are possible. There's been some opposition to trying to the effort communicate with extra-terrestrial intelligence on the Ogden Nash theory;
"When called by a panther, don't anther". They point to what usually happens to isolated indigenous peoples when civilization calls... decimation, death or at best assimilation.

I do have a vision that if there are alien civilizations out there, that they may see something similar to the people of Papua, New Guinea who have eight hundred languages. They may be surprised that we have more than one or two religions.

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orfeo

Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878

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quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
These aliens would be fallen from a state of original innocence and grace, just like we are. Indeed, exactly like we are, for then Adam would be their ancestor (in a spiritual, not biological, sense).

I love it when people use the word "spiritual" to evade the obvious point that what they are saying is not true in any literal sense.

It kind of leapt out at me from your original predictions that there is no reason an alien should share in the consequences of the fall of Adam. Nor is it obvious why Jesus, who constantly labelled himself as "the Son of Man", should be the saviour of an alien.

Even if you are right in your prediction that aliens have fallen (an approach which, as I've pointed out, CS Lewis did not share), it'd be their own fall, not Adam's. And if it's their fall, then surely it has to be their redemption - all the stuff that Paul says in Romans about Adam and Christ doesn't really make sense for aliens.

And if their redemption requires the incarnation of God, as ours did, I really can't see why God couldn't incarnate over there as well.

[ 04. March 2015, 20:53: Message edited by: orfeo ]

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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.

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Martin60
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# 368

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IngoB: Fallen? Again, what's that?

According to LeRoc was it? We'll dis/prove ET in 10 years. On what basis? If we'll know in 10 years we must already have the technology patented. What is it? Unless we're extrapolating to having the technology in 10 years that will enable us to know. Again from what, at what rate?

How many more orders of magnitude of information do we need from extra-solar planet star transits to measure atmospheric oxygen? Let alone to see extra-solar planets in detail by starshine.

And as for the proposition that a Kardashev II level civilization would be functional and emotionally crippled enough to murder us ... again, that's silly. No species that powerful, that smart, that experienced could be that insane. That evil.

Kardashev II is obviously impossible or they'd be here: there isn't enough anti-matter to harvest and there certainly aren't any silly wormholes.

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Love wins

Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001  |  IP: Logged
LeRoc

Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216

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quote:
Martin60: According to LeRoc was it? We'll dis/prove ET in 10 years. On what basis?
Not prove or disprove ETs. But if there is an exoplanet within our range with oxygen in its atmosphere, then we'll be able to detect that within a decade.

My basis for this is that we already know how to do this. We've already detected oxygen in the atmosphere of at least one exoplanet. That was a gas giant moving close to its star, making it easier, but doing this for other planets too is just a matter of improving resolution. I believe that we'll be able to do that within a decade.

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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)

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itsarumdo
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# 18174

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yes - there was a programme on TV about this last week - about a decade. The SETI people were saying it will mean their search is no longer random and they will be handed a "telephone directory"

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"Iti sapis potanda tinone" Lycophron

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Martin60
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# 368

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From this article: We conclude that in the near future extremely large telescopes will enable us to search for the signature of oxygenic photosynthesis on habitable planets near late-type stars.

The feasibility has been done with the Mauna Kea 30 m. How large is extremely large? 10 x larger, i.e. 100 m? Who's building this?

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Love wins

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Barnabas62
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# 9110

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I'd have thought they would do better with "Hubble 2", suitably enhanced. Not sure if there are any plans, or even dreams, in that direction either, but getting the instruments outside the earth's atmosphere looks likely to improve the possibilities of successful detection.

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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?

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no prophet's flag is set so...

Proceed to see sea
# 15560

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Re Star Trek etc....

It seems just as likely as Kurt Vonnegut's character Kilgore Trout who wrote the basis for a story called "The Dancing Fool" in the book Breakfast of Champions. "Like so many Trout stories, it was about a tragic failure to communicate. "

quote:

Here was the plot: A flying saucer creature named Zog arrived on Earth to explain how wars could be prevented and how cancer could be cured. He brought the information from Margo, a planet where the natives conversed by means of farts and tap dancing.

Zog landed at night in Connecticut. He had no sooner touched down than he saw a house on fire. He rushed into the house, farting and tap dancing, warning the people about the terrible danger they were in.

The head of the house brained Zog with a golfclub.

I expect that we will treat aliens as kindly as this, and we should expect the same treatment from them. But perhaps bacterial aliens will communicate by infecting us, and measles is really alien communication, and anti-vaxers are their fifth column. Yup yup yup.

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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/

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IngoB

Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700

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quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
I love it when people use the word "spiritual" to evade the obvious point that what they are saying is not true in any literal sense.

God can couple the fate of any rational animal in the universe, and indeed of all the universe, to the historical deeds of one specific kind of rational animal. If He so wishes. "Spiritual" evades nothing here, it is simply descriptive: the connection would not be biological, obviously, but between like spirits (namely embodied ones) and established by a Spirit (namely God).

quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
It kind of leapt out at me from your original predictions that there is no reason an alien should share in the consequences of the fall of Adam. Nor is it obvious why Jesus, who constantly labelled himself as "the Son of Man", should be the saviour of an alien.

To repeat what I have already said: philosophically every (sapient) alien will be a human being, namely a "rational animal". Currently we are the only species of this (philosophical) genus that we know of, but if we meet aliens then there would be multiple species of "human being". Just like the (biological) genus "panthera" contains the species tiger, lion, jaguar, leopard and snow leopard.

Consequently, it is possible that "Son of Man" is a reference to the genus "rational animal", not to the particular species thereof that runs around on earth. (I said "possible", not "likely".)

quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
Even if you are right in your prediction that aliens have fallen (an approach which, as I've pointed out, CS Lewis did not share), it'd be their own fall, not Adam's. And if it's their fall, then surely it has to be their redemption - all the stuff that Paul says in Romans about Adam and Christ doesn't really make sense for aliens.

If C.S. Lewis said something theological, then for me it is likely that it sounds nice but is wrong. There's nothing in Romans about Adam or Christ that would not make sense for aliens. Our connection to Adam is anyhow tenuous and while linked to biology, not really biological. It's not like original sin is a gene defect.

quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
And if their redemption requires the incarnation of God, as ours did, I really can't see why God couldn't incarnate over there as well.

You mean other than according to the nice arguments I have made about that? I do not think that the universe can contain both fallen and unfallen stewards of creation, unless their respective domains are so well separated as to effectively not interact. If a fallen and a not fallen steward meet, in what sort of universe are they meeting? In a fallen or a not fallen one? It cannot be both, and I see no a priori reason why one should trump the other. Then such "world breaking" meetings must be impossible, either because different kinds are too separated, or because there is only one kind.

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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear

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orfeo

Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878

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quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
And if their redemption requires the incarnation of God, as ours did, I really can't see why God couldn't incarnate over there as well.

You mean other than according to the nice arguments I have made about that? I do not think that the universe can contain both fallen and unfallen stewards of creation, unless their respective domains are so well separated as to effectively not interact. If a fallen and a not fallen steward meet, in what sort of universe are they meeting? In a fallen or a not fallen one? It cannot be both, and I see no a priori reason why one should trump the other. Then such "world breaking" meetings must be impossible, either because different kinds are too separated, or because there is only one kind.
1. Well it's fairly clear their respective domains ARE well separated. If there are any aliens out there, we've done a spectacularly good job of not interacting with them so far.

2. I'm not sure I'm happy with you postulating that because we're fallen we live in a "fallen universe". Nor with labelling us as stewards of creation in a way that implies we're looking after the Andromeda Galaxy. We're really not. If we're stewards of anything, it's of our own particular planet.

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orfeo

Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878

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quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
There's nothing in Romans about Adam or Christ that would not make sense for aliens.

You think that the second half of chapter 5 is compatible with your propositions?

I suppose it is technically, in that it doesn't say anything that's explicitly 100% incompatible with the notion that Adam is responsible for the fall of the entire sentient universe, but in my translation at least it says things like "sin entered the world" not "sin entered the universe". If we do ever encounter aliens I think you'll find the theological debate doesn't naturally fall into line with your view that the spiritual battles of the whole universe are centred on Earth. Even if Doctor Who does visit here remarkably often.

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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.

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mousethief

Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953

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quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
My argument is this. We are insignificant* on the cosmic scale like a grain of sand is unimportant on an unending beach. God sees us on a cosmic scale, although we cannot do so ourselves. Indeed he allegedly made us insignificant and unimportant in this particular way. I’d like to understand why people imagine this might be.

But that's not an argument, it's mere assertion.

I see you have two things going on here:

1. We are insignificant on a cosmic scale. This is asserted but not argued for.

2. God sees us on a cosmic scale. This is asserted but not argued for.

But your last sentence is bizarre. "Here is a claim that you disagree with. Why do you think it's true?"

[ 05. March 2015, 01:19: Message edited by: mousethief ]

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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...

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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528

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quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
Like I said, I understand (very acutely) that we humans are important to ourselves. We’re the most significant thing in the universe, to us, and this is so despite the fact that we are small in size compared to galaxies, etc. OBVIOUSLY this isn’t about size, and it’s not even about how significant we are to ourselves, however much people keep blathering on about that. It’s about how important or significant we are in the universe, and, by the same kind of process, how significant or important we are to a hypothetical entity (God) that sees us objectively in context of the whole. And that is the bit that I’d like people to discuss with me, if anyone should care to.

My argument is this. We are insignificant* on the cosmic scale like a grain of sand is unimportant on an unending beach. God sees us on a cosmic scale, although we cannot do so ourselves. Indeed he allegedly made us insignificant and unimportant in this particular way. I’d like to understand why people imagine this might be.

*When I talk of significant or important, I mean in the classical sense that we make any difference whatsoever, whether we exist or not.

You are begging the question, I'm afraid. (and thank you--I've been looking for a great example of that for a while!)

You beg the question when you say, "Look, we're insignificant, why did God make us that way?" You assume we are insignificant (reasons not stated) and then go on to inquire about the cause.

But that's illogical, because "insignificant" is an value judgment which does not exist as a thing-in-itself; rather, it is held by a Person. To be insignificant is to not matter, to be of no concern [... wait for it... to whom?]. For this concept to make any sense, there has to be Someone out there to whom we matter (or don't, to whom we are of concern (or not). Nobody matters (or doesn't) in an unpeopled vacuum. If no such person exists, the whole issue of significance loses its meaning.

So you must first settle the question of whether there is a God. Because if there is, his opinion (being Maker and Preserver at once) is ultimately the only one that counts.

Once you have determined that question (does a God exist?), you may inquire into his opinion of us (significant or insignificant?) which opinion you will need to ask him for if you want a dependable answer. Trying to derive his opinion from unspoken clues in the universe (physical size or other stuff, it doesn't matter) is a chancy business, as "my thoughts are not your thoughts, and my ways are not your ways." Heck, trying to derive another human being's opinion without asking directly is a chancy business--how much worse in the case of a non-human like God!

So you will need to ask--or search out places where he has already spoken, if any such exist. Scripture (which of course you don't accept) has him saying that yes, we ARE important to him. But if you refuse that evidence, you will need to seek out something else.

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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!

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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468

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Yorick--

I don't know if this will help...but if you think of the saying "can't see the forest for the trees", then maybe God is fully aware of the forest AND the trees AND every bit of them, further and further in AND that entire habitat AND further and further out--all at the same time.

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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")

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SusanDoris

Incurable Optimist
# 12618

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quote:
Originally posted by Jay-Emm:
I'm in the camp where we crossed the insignificance bridge when we realised we were only one small country in a world. If you could shrink the universe then it would cause a shift in worldview, going outward just makes it more amazing with each order of order of magnitude. In one sense fascinating, in another more of the same]

Thank you. yesterday I
was waiting for a taxi after swimming and many young children were coming in with parents taking them to some activity. I wonder what new and fascinating information will be available to them during the next 80 years!
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
quote:
SusanDoris: I wonder if you would expand a bit on the subject of humility, Leroc. You see, I don’t think I feel humble! This does not mean that I feel superior though. I’m firmly in the middle all of the time I think. I respect skills, understand awe,etc, but humility…. Hmmmm.
There was a time we thought we were the centre of the Universe, and that everything revolved around us. You'll probably say that the Church was largely to blame for this, and you'd be right. Science has shown us our place and size with respect to the Universe, and this has taken away some of that arrogance. I think that is a good thing.
Yes, the church was probably mostly responsible, but on the other hand most of the people were probably doing the best they could with the information at their disposal most of the time, I suppose - though somewhat reluctantly!
quote:
Humility isn't the same as low self-esteem. I do a lot of work with young people with low self-esteem in Latin America and Africa. Psychologists on the Ship may know this better than me, but low self-esteem can cause bad school results, unemployment, substance abuse, teenage pregnancies, crime ...

On the other hand, finding yourself more important than everyone you interact with, isn't good either. It leads to arrogance, stilted social interactions, and lack of empathy.

I think that humility helps us to find the balance between these extremes. To keep us firmly in the middle, as you express it.

Many thanks for your interesting reply. I like that wider and more practical definition of humility.

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I know that you believe that you understood what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.

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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110

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The term self-esteem is interesting in this connection. And Le Roc is right to point out that humility, properly understood, helps balance.

Mary's prayer in Luke's gospel points to that rebalancing in an interesting way. The proud are to be scattered and the lowly lifted up.

But I'm still not clear how the church was responsible for overstating the significance of human beings in such a way as to encourage us to be proud or self-important. Regardless of how wrong it may have been, historically, in its cosmological understanding, it seems clear to me that pride has been discouraged since the birth of the church.

Also, using Le Roc's concept of balance, I can't see how the lowly are lifted up by asserting the insignificance of human beings on the cosmological scale. One might argue that an emphasis on cosmological insignificance can be as damaging as an emphasis on cosmological significance.

The psychological problem with a belief in personal insignificance is that it can damage awareness of personal responsibility, encourage the damaging and destructive aspects of the victim mentality. I think C S Lewis pointed out that the "worm mentality" very often concealed a kind of inverted pride.

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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?

Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged
Philip Charles

Ship's cutler
# 618

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leRoc
quote:

Christians believe that we are significant because we are significant to God. He made us and we have something of Him in us.

But the second reason, no less important, we are significant because we are significant to eachother. Yes, I'm talking about relationships between one tiny speck and another tiny speck. But these matter, and their size cannot be measured.

My wife is significant to me, and I am significant to her. This relationship is far more important to me than my relationship to an immense universe.
I am fortunate to know that I have a unique and special relationship with God. Again this relationship is more important than my relationship with the universe.
God is even more immense that the universe and he has a relationship with everyone and all the bits that make up the universe. I am linked into the human race and the universe through my relationship with God.

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There are 10 kinds of people. Those who understand binary and those who don't.

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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740

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Who said that if I stub my toe, this is vastly more important than the universe at that moment? It sounds like David Hume.

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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.

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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110

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Speaking as someone who once broke a toe by stubbing it on a door frame ...

All that happens is than the immediate pain drives all thought from your mind. Bugger the big picture, THAT HURTS.

And I guess there is something in that. If we are beset by immediate and painful problems and challenges, cosmological speculations don't get much of a look in. We just don't have time for such stuff. Nor, I find, do we have much patience for them. So conversations like this are nearly always born out of the thoughts and fancies of our more reflective times. When we have the both time and the space (emotional and intellectual) to "shoot the breeze".

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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?

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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740

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I remember that a friend of mine broke his back, and was in hospital for months, and very uncomfortable it was. I cautiously asked him if he'd had much time for spiritual matters, and I'm afraid to say that his reply was unprintable. But of course, others have been inspired by illness or recuperation.

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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.

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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740

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I used to have a Zen teacher, who used to get very passionate, and she would grab the sleeve of her sweater, and bellow, 'what's this, you fools?' Of course, we goggled at her like goldfish. But all thoughts of cosmology or philosophy were banished.

[ 05. March 2015, 11:20: Message edited by: quetzalcoatl ]

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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.

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LeRoc

Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216

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quote:
Barnabas62: But I'm still not clear how the church was responsible for overstating the significance of human beings in such a way as to encourage us to be proud or self-important.
To be honest, I'm feeling a bit out of my depth to defend in much detail what was really an off-hand remark I made about humility. What I was doing was to try to meet Yorick halfway: "Our small size with respect to the Universe doen't teach us our insignificance, but it might teach us humility."

What I didn't give much thought on when I made this remark is that 'humility' can have different meanings, both positive and negative, as people on this thread have rightly pointed out. I even think there is a difference in nuance between the Portuguese word humildade and the English 'humility'.

I could go into this further, but I admit that I don't really have an extensive theological / philosophical framework for the concept of humility I could draw upon. It would be interesting if I had that, but it isn't a subject I've dived deeply into.

With respect to the Cosmos, I think that the big fight between the Church and Science at the end of the Middle Ages wasn't about the Earth being round, but about the Sun and the planets not revolving around us.

I'm not an expert on this time period, but in the way the Church saw the Earth as the centre of the Universe (and itself as the centre of Earth), I detect some hubris. And this self-aggrandising may well have been used to oppress the lowly. At least, that is how I interpret it.

What people like Galileo and Copernicus did, was to remove the basis of that hubris, and I think that's a good thing.

I've been thinking, perhaps it would be an idea to open a topic on the relationship between Christianity and humility? I believe the subject is more ample than the discussion about our size with respect to the Universe, and I think there are a number of Shipmates who could say more about it than me.

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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)

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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740

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Yes, a considerable decentering has occurred; I would add also the discovery of the unconscious (by people like Nietzsche and Freud), which made the ego look rather puny. I suppose this is often linked to the 'death of God', which Nietzsche thought might impel us to become gods, in a kind of grotesque compensation.

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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.

Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011  |  IP: Logged
IngoB

Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700

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quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
1. Well it's fairly clear their respective domains ARE well separated. If there are any aliens out there, we've done a spectacularly good job of not interacting with them so far.

The domains would however cease to be well separated if we made any contact whatsoever with aliens. And since we are basically discussing the possibility and consequences of that scenario, nothing much follows from the fact that so far they appear well separated. (Other than that we are almost certainly wasting our time with this discussion, but that's has never stopped us on SoF, has it?)

quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
2. I'm not sure I'm happy with you postulating that because we're fallen we live in a "fallen universe". Nor with labelling us as stewards of creation in a way that implies we're looking after the Andromeda Galaxy. We're really not. If we're stewards of anything, it's of our own particular planet.

We are not the stewards of this particular planet either. The prince of this planet is Satan. We have lost the role we were supposed to have, and we will not regain it until Christ comes again. At which point I think being stewards over Andromeda is as much on the cards as anything else. Of course, just because we have lost our role does not mean that we ought to be shit to the environment and non-sapient life forms. We ought to build back to what we were supposed to be like. My point is not to deny that taking care of this planet is our duty here and now, it sure is, to the limit of our abilities. My point is that our limitations now are not a proper measure of what ought to have been and what will be.

quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
You think that the second half of chapter 5 is compatible with your propositions? I suppose it is technically, in that it doesn't say anything that's explicitly 100% incompatible with the notion that Adam is responsible for the fall of the entire sentient universe, but in my translation at least it says things like "sin entered the world" not "sin entered the universe".

I think it's pretty safe to say that "world" back then meant "all there is", or at least "all there is with people in it". There is no particular reason to restrict this discussion to "planet Earth", at least not based on an ancient text whose writers certainly were not aware of the potential existence of many other inhabited planets.

And once more, I personally actually think that we are "alone" in the universe, in the sense of being the only embodied intellectual spirits. There are animals below us, and angels above us, but we are it as far as the mixture of these two modes of being is concerned. That's what I actually think is true. And in part so precisely because I think the "Adam event" was more than a myth or concept. However, I'm discussing here what else is possible in terms of scripture. So to say that scripture is not explicitly incompatible with what I am saying is good enough.

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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear

Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004  |  IP: Logged
Martin60
Shipmate
# 368

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What did we ever have that we've lost?

From what height are we fallen?

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Love wins

Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001  |  IP: Logged
Boogie

Boogie on down!
# 13538

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quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
What did we ever have that we've lost?

From what height are we fallen?

We didn't.

Our failure is a failure to become the best we can be, not a fall from a previous state.

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Garden. Room. Walk

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IngoB

Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700

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quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
What did we ever have that we've lost? From what height are we fallen?

Tradition claims that Adam had sanctifying grace (formal justification, partaking of Divine nature, sonship by adoption, eternal life, plus the equivalent of receiving the Holy Spirit, the infused virtues of faith, hope and charity, etc.) as well as the preternatural gifts of integrity (perfect harmony of intellect, will, and desires/impulses - no concupiscence), immortality (not experiencing a separation of body and soul, no bodily death), and infused knowledge (infused in the sense of not regularly learned, not in the sense of beyond human nature - knowledge concerning God and his characteristics, the moral law and man's relationship to God, and some material / spiritual knowledge about the universe).

Through Christ we have regained the ability to receive sanctifying grace, but we have not regained the preternatural gifts and hence are under much greater threat to lose it (misled by concupiscence, fear of death and ignorance).

In terms of Adam's "day job", he would have been master over all the animals and would have lived in harmony with the soil and plants, which would have provided him easily with all he needed. Details on how that would have worked are a bit sketchy, obviously, but in a way we are reproducing technologically (in the sweat of our brows) what we would have received for free. The "domestication" of animals, as well as the killing of animals that are dangerous / inconvenient to us, ape our command over the animal kingdom. And the entire global network of farming and allied technology ape our ability to simply collect from the land what we need and want. Basically we would have been "nature benders" not by force of our intellect and technology, but by the freely given obedience of nature. How far these skills would have extended is anybody's guess.

(I would say that Adam was at the very beginning of exploring these skills when he fell. Basically I think the entire human intellectual and technological enterprise is a kind of corrupted image of what a non-fallen humanity would have achieved in "nature-bending". Likewise, our fascination with sorcery and magic stems from the same desire to regain what was lost. We see the same in fictional characters like Yoda. I think a non-fallen humanity may well have developed "nature-bending" into much more than just stopping a lion from eating us or making a fruit appear in a tree. But those are just my speculations, and they are more based on guesswork from what I see in humanity today than what has been revealed. And I do not believe that any such magic exists today as skill that could be acquired.)

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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear

Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004  |  IP: Logged
no prophet's flag is set so...

Proceed to see sea
# 15560

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quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
We are not the stewards of this particular planet either. The prince of this planet is Satan.

This is both ridiculously funny in the way you go on to explain it as personified evil, and sadly true in the symbolic sense that so many of us do all the wrong things.

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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/

Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010  |  IP: Logged
IngoB

Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700

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quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
We are not the stewards of this particular planet either. The prince of this planet is Satan.

This is both ridiculously funny in the way you go on to explain it as personified evil, and sadly true in the symbolic sense that so many of us do all the wrong things.
I did not go on to explain this as "personified evil", nor indeed in any other manner. So what the heck are you talking about?

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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear

Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004  |  IP: Logged
no prophet's flag is set so...

Proceed to see sea
# 15560

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Satan = personified evil. Satan, the devil, whatever, is a metaphor, a projection.

That you actually accept the Adam story as fact is also the acceptance of myth and symbol as real.

[ 05. March 2015, 14:49: Message edited by: no prophet's flag is set so... ]

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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/

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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740

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quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
What did we ever have that we've lost?

From what height are we fallen?

We didn't.

Our failure is a failure to become the best we can be, not a fall from a previous state.

I find this obsessive comparison with what we were, or with what we might be, baffling. It sounds like an endless exercise in masochism. There is also something here about idealization, which is maybe more comprehensible; I mean kids idealize their parents for a while, which is an important stage in development. But we can give up the ideal for the real, eventually.

There's an old Zen story, of a woman asking a butcher for best steak, and he says all my meat is the best.

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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.

Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011  |  IP: Logged
IngoB

Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700

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quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
Satan = personified evil. Satan, the devil, whatever, is a metaphor, a projection.

Satan is neither the former, nor the latter. In fact, to say that Satan is personified evil is precisely turning him into a metaphor, a projection.

Satan is a fallen Archangel, possibly the former "top angel" as far as the angelic hierarchy is concerned. But he is a creature, and more precisely, an angel - just one who is bent on evil at least in certain regards. Unfortunately, these regards very much appear to include us humans. (There is some pious tradition, though not at the level of official teaching, that Satan fell over us - and hence has become our dedicated enemy.)

So our relationship to Satan is perhaps comparable to that of a regular Jew in Nazi Germany to Adolf Hitler. That's not to deny that angelic nature is different from human nature, in that sense the analogy is inaccurate. But it is to deny that Satan is some kind of "principle of evil". No, he is a creature with an agenda, and as much as we may protest his evil given that it is so detrimental to us, we should still be able to see also the creature rather than just the evil. Just like Hitler remained a man and in between committing genocide and war atrocities would paint mediocre paintings and be nice to dogs.

quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
That you actually accept the Adam story as fact is also the acceptance of myth and symbol as real.

I'm not sure about the precise status of the Adam story. It seems to me to have aspects of both myth and fact, and it is non-trivial to say what is what. I personally tend to think of it as a kind of "alternate universe" story. So basically, we have Adam's world, then we have our world, and we will have New Creation upon Christ's return. And all these worlds have to do with each other, but they are not exactly the same world. In that sense then Adam's story could be both fact and myth at once in the same aspect: fact in Adam's world, since something along these lines happened in that universe, but myth for us in this world, since we only know about this by (Divinely revealed) story. In particular, there is a painfully obvious fudge as we go from Adam and Eve to Cain and Abel, though the latter are supposed to be the - thus far only - children of Adam and Eve. Note that Cain fears to be slain by others. What others? There are only his mum and dad, supposedly. And where exactly is the wife he is taking coming from? Is it an unmentioned sister? So there we have a rather clear transit between two in principle separate accounts.

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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear

Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004  |  IP: Logged
itsarumdo
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# 18174

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quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
Satan = personified evil. Satan, the devil, whatever, is a metaphor, a projection.

That you actually accept the Adam story as fact is also the acceptance of myth and symbol as real.

I think not a projection, though it can be that as well in the infinite hall of mirrors. Interesting talk R4 moral maze this week - whether it is thought or action that is immoral. So a) choice of thought (good/evil) and if that stage fails b) moral choice of action, and if that stage fails c) choice of action according to punishment, and if that fails, d) go to Jail. But it starts at (a). If you believe that thoughts are "ours" (i.e. originating in, of and by us as individuals) then yes - satan is a projection and a metaphor. However, if all thoughts come from the spiritual world, then it is not a projection and we have a duty to choose which thoughts we pick up and run with, according to the principles of free will.

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"Iti sapis potanda tinone" Lycophron

Posts: 994 | From: Planet Zog | Registered: Jul 2014  |  IP: Logged
no prophet's flag is set so...

Proceed to see sea
# 15560

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We reify** many things, to our sorrow. This reification of satan allows us to examine evil and nefarious motives externally, projecting them outwardly away from ourselves. It also allows a personalization, and is another form of asserting our importance that we are noticeable enough for the personification of evil. It has the function of dealing with guilt and shame, and additional functions within society and social groups.


**treating something as real and tangible when it is rather an abstraction and idea.

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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/

Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010  |  IP: Logged
IngoB

Sentire cum Ecclesia
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no prophet, would you be willing to substitute "Adolf Hitler" in the above for "satan"? If yes, then I will try to understand what point you were trying to make there. If no, then I will consider that paragraph to be pseudo-psychological gibberish that really serves no other purpose than to "explain" rhetorically how people less enlightened than you could possibly come to believe that Satan is an actual, concrete being.

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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear

Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004  |  IP: Logged
ChastMastr
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# 716

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I agree
With IngoB.


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My essays on comics continuity: http://chastmastr.tumblr.com/tagged/continuity

Posts: 14068 | From: Clearwater, Florida | Registered: Jul 2001  |  IP: Logged



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