Let's look at the ethics of religious terminology in light of efficient cause and final cause. The authors of the New Testament were members of a fertility cult and the term "Jesus" was a thinly veiled code word for a psychedelic mushroom. (Source: the Dead Sea Scroll scholar, John Allegro). This is the humble beginnings of Christianity. But thanks to the final cause Christianity has been slowly transforming into a religion that is moral. In arithmetic the term 'division' once meant that your result could only amount to something less than the original amount. Today the term has been expanded to where it can be used to represent ratios like 2/6. (Source: de Morgan) I'm afraid people's resistance to the expansion of the term 'God', especially with the capital G, is creating the undesired effect of making common religious people feel an aversion to expanding their ideas of 'god'. I once read that the evolution of dogs from wolves happened a lot quicker than what was once believed. Maybe the expansion of some terms should follow suit.
OK, I think Allegro's idea is rough, but I do believe that the concept of 'god' when the term was first coined was closer to Allegro's portrayal of the belief of the original Christians than the common contemporary church-goer's concept. Matt > On Jun 17, 2014, at 10:33 AM, John Collier <[email protected]> wrote: > > Quite. The term 'god' has been used traditionally to refer to something that > wills from no place in existence. There is no such being. It is impossible. >
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