On Sun, Feb 07, 2016 at 08:21:41PM +0100, Bruno Marchal wrote: > > On 07 Feb 2016, at 07:28, Russell Standish wrote: > > >A really interesting article I just read in New Scientist. > > > >https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22830520-800-god-vs-the-multiverse-the-2500-year-war/ > > > >Its behind a paywall - please ask me for a PDF if you don't have > >access to New Scientist. > > > >Interesting view that the subversion of theology in 300CE that Bruno > >Marchal refers to (closure of the academy) can be blamed almost > >completely on both Aristotle and Plato (pox on both their houses :). > > I would requires much more subtanciated evidence than > > "Plato insisted on a creator-god who made only one universe:" > > That might be a vague allusion to the Timeaeus, but it needs to be > reappraised after the reading of Parmenides (and Plato does not > choose between its participants in his dialogs). > > But please, Russell, be careful, I have never said that a subversion > of theology has been done in 300CE. > Only in 500BC (after Christ). Plato and Aristotle just creates all > sciences (theology included) and the subversion has come only when > Plato's academy has been made close, the philosophers bannished or > exiled, most in Alexandria at that time). This is eight centuries > later Plato and Aristotle.
That is what I said. 300 CE is 800 years after the time of Aristotle and Plato during the Greek golden age of 500 BCE. > > It is not fault of the christians, but it is related to the > exploitation of christianity by Justinian (not Constantine like I > said a long time ago). The subversion has come with the "blaspheme" > consisting in mixing religion and politics (which is very natural to > do, and became anti-science when the theological proposition becomes > dogma, instead as subject of discussion like before). > > > > > > >Also interesting is the view that pantheism (what I'd call Spinoza's > >god) and atheism are not that far removed from each other. > > That is what the Tibetan called (pejoratively) materialist > spiritualism. I agree atheism and such pantheism are very close. > > I would not put Spinoza there, though. Spinoza is neutral monism; > more like with Mechanism: where both mind and matter rise from > something else (number relation for mind, and number relation for > matter appearance, and of course there is no primary matter, in that > monist picture). > I would say Spinoza (and pantheism as Rubinstein is using it) is just the idea that God can be identified with the totality of reality. We are a part of god, not separate from god, as Christian theology would have it. Using God in such a way is more of a mystic wonderment at the world we live in, rather than any expression of blind faith. But I do have some sympathy for John Clark here, who would prefer to keep the term God to describe what the majority of God believers (ie theists) are referring to. Its OK when all participants in a discussion are using the same terms - the trouble comes when you and John start talking past each other about unrelated notions of God. -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dr Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Principal, High Performance Coders Visiting Senior Research Fellow [email protected] Economics, Kingston University http://www.hpcoders.com.au ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
