Hi Marsha, You may find Ernst Cassirer's writings illuminating. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/cassirer/ especially the part on the philosophy of symbolic forms. There are similarities with MoQ. The reason I bring this guys name up is that he considered the intellect to be built on the foundations of the mythical consciousness. This type of consciousness would be at the root of our intellect. So to deny myth, is to deny that intellect exists (as least according to Cassirer). I equate this to Windows when it was based on DOS. Many people were in denial that it was built on the primitive DOS. I think that Cassirer makes a good argument, better than the argument that man-made myths are not meaningful. What makes something meaningful?
Now, if one takes the relativistic view, all constructs are man-made. So I take it you are saying that as an athiest, things are not relative but that there is an absolute truth out there. This sounds kind of religious. What if God was not human-like, but a synthesis of all intelligences besides those that are made up of a few interconnected neurons in our heads. Our brain is quite simple and dwarfed by the complexity of planet earth, which could be considered much more intelligent than us. Or is intelligence only the human kind? Cheers, Mark On Feb 6, 2010, at 9:00 PM, markhsmit wrote: > Hi John, > Interesting that you would use a theistic concept to dismiss theism. > If atheist is the belief that there is no deity, it cannot exist > without theism, thus approving of it. It is maybe like two sides > of the same coin. What about the coin itself? mark, john, Here is the definition I like: Atheists are people who believe that god or gods (or other supernatural beings) are man-made constructs, myths and legends or who believe that these concepts are not meaningful. It has nothing to do with exist or not exist, but finding 'god' a pattern that is not meaningful. Marsha ___ Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/ Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
