That Thread Written by ChatGPT

[emjay]

Hey Neo, I'm just curious what your intent is with this this thread, ie is it meant in good faith as basically a conversation starter (and/or maintainer) on Swedenborg... or is it just a prank/some sort of satire... basically gaslighting? I hope it's the former, because as amazing as ChatGPT is, I do fear it will bring out the worst in people.

As to Swedenborg I don't have much to say really. Obviously I would or could never take it literally, and to the extent that it is considered symbolic then personally I'm not a great fan of that in any area of life. Ie for instance if I was looking for a therapist I would never choose a Freudian, finding that sort of vague symbolism unhelpful. But that's just me... each to their own.

"It's symbolic" is a religious euphemism for "bullshit".  Ala, god "symbolically" created the earth...which is to say god did not create the earth, but I want to say something else so I lead in with god shit as a primer and authority pump.  Ultimately, any of the "symbolic" truths that the afflicted wish to advocate for could be advocated for without a single reference to a god, if those references are..in fact.."symbolic".  

As far as trying to rehabilitate loons like swedenborg, he wasn't being symbolic.  He was nuts, and calling it symbolism is just laundering that reality.  Ultimately, I think that christianity offended his relativistic moral sense.  A morally conflicted nut, searching for hidden meanings in magic books to assuage his own inner turmoil.  Still he offers an alternative to christianity, which is becoming more and more of interest to christians - and so their retconning this nut is pretty much inevitable.

I was meaning that more in a sort of personal symbolism sense, rather than what the author intended, whatever that may be. Ie I was not taking Neo to be saying it was necessarily written with this intent, just that that was one (of potentially many) interesting ways of looking at it. And in my case saying that in general in my life I don't put much stock in symbolism, but should probably have added that that doesn't mean it's not valuable, even to me, sometimes, just not in general. Ie reading about Greek gods for instance would be full of interesting symbolism, and perhaps an interesting intellectual/entertainment endeavour in its own right, but that would be an exception rather than a rule for me.