From: "psypher" <overload@fastmail.ca> Subject: Re: virus: Maxims: the universe and truth To: virus@lucifer.com Date sent: Thu, 20 May 1999 21:24:26 -0400 (EDT) Send reply to: virus@lucifer.com
>
> >> ...so would you agree that an imagined complex [middle earth is a
> >> good example of what I mean by a complex in this case] can be
> > useful > for generating ideas and insights which are of value in
> > relating to > the world of space-time?
> >>
> > Of course, since the source for the components used in its
> > constitution (which were shriven of their original context and
> > recombined in imagination to create the "middle earth" context)
> > is worldly perception of matter/energy residing within the
> > aforementioned spacetime.
>
> ...what if, instead of middle earth, say, the complex is god, joe?
>
Ludwig Feuerbach, in his work THE ESSENCE OF CHRISTIANITY,
points out that religion is simply anthropology that is unaware of
itself as such. The idea of benevolent but severe masters who
must be obeyed is parentally imprinted in the developing infant
mind, providing a substrate which is so intertwined with the
developing self-image and self-identity that its adherents become
deeply emotionally invested in reifying it to the point of forsaking
reason, logic, rationality, and the subsequent evidence of their own
senses, and the attributes of any deity are the crystallized and
absolutized attributes we admire in human beings (strong becomes
omnipotent, wise becomes omniscient, special becomes unique,
good, true and beautiful get capitalized, and so on). If people had
wings, their god-concept would be of a big bird; we create our gods
in our own image (not the other way around), and it has ever been
thus.
> -psypher
> ______________________________________________________________________
> http://fastmail.ca Fastmail's Free web based email for Canadians
>