Hello, I'm new on the list, and from the posts I've read thus far I'm happy I came to land here.
David McFadzean wrote:
> Religious myths, rites, doctrines, and practices seek to assert the
> merger of the nomos and the cosmos. The social order, in Berger's words,
> is 'cosmologized' and rendered 'sacred'. The social order is no longer
> a human construct, subject to change, but a divinely given order
> subject to the will of the gods (or other supernatural forces) alone.
> The gods may choose to act through their human intermediaries, but the
> world is no longer a merely human creation.
I imagine the gods driving the society were the same as the gods driving the individuals. Maybe monotheism was the realization that the social order is an emerging phenomenon similar, but distinct from another phenomenon: a human personality is an order emerging from mysterious drives.
I don't think modern societies have changed any little bit of the pattern. We still don't know how to be free from our inner gods, still less how to make the society different. All words of the prophets, philosophers, moralists, are empty calls, abstract injunctions.
In a way, yes, the stupid gods still master the universe. But I believe we are going to change that, because we are really approaching the depth of our minds. AL and AI (Artificial Life and Artificial Intelligence) are very young sciences, but I feel they will bring more discoveries, awareness, and power of action, than any science ever setup by man.
Cheers!
-Lionel