by Terry 34 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
I'm no expert on 'Greek gods' but IIRC Hercules wasn't regarded as one, was he? I thought he was just one of the 'heroes'.
Hercules (Heracles) was a demigod. His father was Zeus himself and his mother was the mortal Alcmene. At his death, Zeus changed him into a full god and he took his place at Mount Olympus, or so the story goes.
I really don't think that plausibility is a stumbling block to religious fundamentalists. They seem to have an ability to 'shut off' the questioning and reasoning part of their mind when it comes to their faith, to compartmentalise it, to resist the questions let alone seek to answer them.
My grandfather was a coal miner, a very tough man. In his younger days he was a bare-knuckle boxer and was a local champion. When he was 'converted' (I believe during one of the religious 'revivals' in the Welsh valleys) he became absolutely committed. He and a few friends built (literally) the gospel hall in their village (we knew it as the 'tin tabernacle' - but not in his hearing!). He believed the bible completely and literally. If thr bible had said that Jonah swallowed a whale, he would have believed that unquestioningly.
It's an interesting point about Galileo (could we equate it to the reception of Darwin's ideas later?). If you ask a 'fundie' about that issue today he'll perhaps find some biblical verse somewhere to 'show' that God said the Earth went round the Sun and if he's a fundie protestant he'll point out that RCs aren't really 'Christians' anyway.
The discussions about man's predisposition to religious or supernatural belief cite societal peer pressure as a very significant factor.
Your comment about the Puritans reminded me of the old quote (can't attribute it, sorry) which said that the Puritans left Britain in search of greater religious freedom - the freedom to persecute each other more than they had previously been allowed to do.
As for the Antipodes - which was the largest island in the world before Australia was discovered?
Australia.
Cheers
TD: thanks for that. I stand corrected.
Terry,
What I had in mind is that Christianity has had to survive in the age of reason. No thinking Christian today would say that God lives in the Pleiades. For Christians, God doesn't necessarily exist within the confines of the material universe at all.
The ancient Greeks may not have known exactly what was at the top of Mount Olympus, be we certainly do today. It's barren rock and snow and as far as we can see, there are no gods. I suppose if people still believed in the Olympians today, Mount Olympus would be definitely figurative and the actual home of the god's would be some other place currently inaccesible to man. But that belief system quit evolving a long time ago.
Plausibility is limited only by the imagination, the ability to form a mental image about a concept/thing. Russel spoke of probability, which is grounded in the physical world, not the mental.
That's my Johnnie Walker Wisdom for this evening!
Well, as someone mentioned above, I don't think anyone actively believes in the Greek Gods. Unless there exists a neo-pagan movement. In any case, I believe that as long as one can either prove or disprove the Biblical accounts as literal, then one can either prove disprove the Christian God.
I don't think there is an equivilancy.
Terry, you should warm up your Underwood and write a dialogue between Bertrand Russell and Nietzsche on religion and christianity in particular.
TD:
Isn't that the point? 'Thinking' Christians have to change and adapt their beliefs to keep them plausible and in line with accepted knowledge or the more 'unthinking' ones just shut their eyes and cling on blindly.
Change and adaptation or 'new light' in JW parlance go against the 'unchanging' nature of the god they profess.
Knows nothing:
In this context, why do you believe that there is a difference between the 'gods'?
In this context, you're right, there is no way I can prove any of these gods don't exist. I was just thinking that I think it's harderr to deal with bible god, because if you disprove an account such as the flood, then you can disprove his existence. Has this been done conclusively? I don't know.
With the greek gods, its easy. It seems like a no-brainer to me. Everything adds up to myth.
