From tyagi@bjt.net Wed Dec 18 07:12:18 1996 Return-Path: tyagi@bjt.net Received: from kudonet.com (kudonet.com [165.227.52.1]) by bitsy.hollyfeld.org (8.7.4/8.7.3) with SMTP id HAA23597 for ; Wed, 18 Dec 1996 07:12:15 -0500 Received: by kudonet.com (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id DAA24246; Wed, 18 Dec 1996 03:01:37 -0800 Date: Wed, 18 Dec 1996 03:01:37 -0800 Message-Id: <199612181101.DAA24246@kudonet.com> To: tyagi@hollyfeld.org Subject: Magick/9612.mgkgods.rfh From: tyagi@houseofkaos.abyss.com (nagasiva) Reply-To: tyagi@houseofkaos.abyss.com (nagasiva) Status: O >Path: kudonet.com!kudo!tyagi >From: tyagi@houseofkaos.abyss.com (nagasiva) >Newsgroups: alt.magick.tyagi,alt.magick,alt.pagan.magick,alt.pagan,talk.religion.misc >Subject: RFHall: Magic and Gods (was Re: A Necessary God) >Followup-To: sci.philosophy.meta,alt.magick.tyagi,alt.magick,alt.pagan.magick,alt.pagan,talk.religion.misc >Date: 18 Dec 1996 01:56:28 -0800 >Organization: KudoNet On-Line Services >Lines: 83 >Sender: tyagi@bjt.net >Distribution: inet >Message-ID: >References: <58l4qu$48d@ns2.borg.com> >Reply-To: realistic@seanet.com (Richard F. Hall) >NNTP-Posting-Host: kudo.kudonet.com >Xref: kudonet.com alt.magick.tyagi:8453 alt.magick:77321 alt.pagan.magick:1849 alt.pagan:159699 talk.religion.misc:220592 [from sci.philosophy.meta: realistic@seanet.com (Richard F. Hall)] In article <58l4qu$48d@ns2.borg.com> nanrek@dreamscape.com (John S. Kernan) writes: >From: nanrek@dreamscape.com (John S. Kernan) >Subject: A Necessary God >Date: Wed, 11 Dec 1996 01:51:30 GMT >I doubt there is such a thing as a perfect God because I believe it >is ontologically impossible for perfect things to exist. Even >theists place limititations on God, As we look at the history of understanding we can find that as far back as three thousand years ago rational people tried to test the repeatability and reliability of magic. In their minds, proper magic results followed properly performed rituals. If the desired results did not follow a give n ritual, the belief was that the ritual was not done correctly. We see instances where the rituals are described in great detail; down to the ty pe of cloth the priests wore. Their belief was that God was in direct control of man's destiny. They did not understand that God's control worked through the laws of conservation, entropy, and gravity. They believed that God would protect good people who went through the proper ceremonies of allegiance to him. The early people understood that there were times when things went well with them and they tried to record the situation accurately. When things went wrong, they believed that it was because they had sinned against God. They went back and examined their memories and records, and tried to compare what was happening during good times and bad times. Sometimes the differences eluded them, therefore, they concluded that they were in some way sinners unbeknownst to themselves. Another possibility that occurred to them was that something in their ceremony was not done properly and that undermined God's confidence in their discipline and allegiance, therefore, they were being punished and trained. They tried to do their rites exactly alike each time, being critical of mistakes and omissions. If the ancient writers would be asked if they believed in magic in the sense that they were ignoring the laws of Nature, they would have denied it. They thought their expectations were justified in reality. They never heard of the laws of conservation, entropy, and gravity, and to them events occurred according to God's will. It may be pointed out here that God's will is now understood to work through the laws of Nature. In other words God's will and the laws of Nature are equated. Though God was the controller, they paradoxically felt that they could control God by proper ceremonial rites. They tried simple sacrifices. When that did not work, they spent more money, time, effort, incense, holy water, and gold. They even tried returning to rituals with human sacrifice, which entailed the eating of the flesh and blood of the sacrificed. When the results of those rites were found to be no more consistent with success than those which used animals and vegetables, they switched to those substitutes. It seems that only the wealthy could afford to sacrifice good food that way, and the less wealthy, who used only a little dab of bread and wine, were every bit as "favored in the sight of God". Thus, they all switched to the sacrificing of bread and wine which symbolized the flesh and blood of the former sacrifices. As social structures evolved among real people, similar social structures in mythology were derived in the spirit world. Never have refinements in the spirit world come before those in the real world. Recently the hierarchy of Saints was reviewed and some of the Saints, such as Saint Christopher, lost their positions. These decisions are much more complex than in earlier times. Beginning of dialectic materialism All such things were recorded, studied, and thought about. Progress was made, enlightenment spread, and they were proud of it. As we now understand, the consistency was never perfect, no matter what they did. When all seemed to fail, some few people were discouraged enough to try to go it alone, denying that there was a God. In the old days, when everyone believed in many Gods, the doubters who believed in none were p olyatheists. When people had thought more about it and believed in only one God, the doubters were simply called atheists. Their thoughts were of dialectic materialism, but they still did not know about the laws of Nature, and their conclusions were as magic as ever, maybe, even more so. The thrust of my argument is to get away from a stagnation of faith in the unreal and the placement of our faith in reality, and at the same time preserve our ideals. Come visit Realistic Idealism http://www.seanet.com/~realistic/idealism.html