Reply to Why believe in god?

Forum Index » Religion

Reply to "Why believe in god?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]If anything, the Christian "God is light" metaphor comes from a long tradition of dualism between good/evil and dark/light.  The Manicheans were the extreme form of this dualism. The attempt to connect this metaphor to Zeus, the sun god, is silly. Sometimes a metaphor is just a metaphor![/quote]

Zeus was not the sun god.  Ra was.  Zeus was the god of the sky and the ruler of all lesser gods.  Ra was part of ancient Egyptian culture.

Metaphors are based on our thought process, which is shaped by culture.  In Western culture, up is good; down is bad.  We have the concepts of heaven and hell.

We view time in a linear fashion with the past behind the present and the future in front of the present.  However, there are some South-American Indian languages that view the present as behind and the past in front, as we KNOW the past (we can see it), but we can't yet see the future.

We do indeed live by metaphors, and religion is just an extension of that way of thinking, as it helps many people make sense of their world.  So Jesus is light.  You can see during the day.  The sun heats us and helps with crops.  Therefore, it's good.  It's only a natural progression to move from a sun god to Jesus.  The Manicheans were no different - very pagan.  Have you examined the history of that belief system?  cosmology, demons, elements (Fire, Water, Air, Ether, and Light), very violent and dark origin, btw

Read [i]Metaphors We Live By by Lakoff[/i].
http://www.amazon.com/Metaphors-We-Live-George-Lakoff/dp/0226468011
It should open up your mind.  I still have my copy from college.
[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics