(December 6, 2011 at 9:08 am)Epimethean Wrote: He was not teleological in his lessons, but was, rather, about letting us explore concepts to which there was not always an easy answer.I guess he never suggested to the students to explore the origin of the concept of god or soul.
He most probably was expecting students to react in the normal but sterile way of thinking that Rhythm demonstrates above.
(December 6, 2011 at 9:47 am)Rhythm Wrote: You bury your dogs with a carpet and and collar and tools, and food, and changes of clothing, and expensive jewelry, and ritual objects, and effigies of loved ones, and half finished projects from their lives, in an ornately decorated hole?.
See how sometimes things can be similar, but not exactly alike? How a behavior can come from more than one source? You haven't overturned the entirety of paleolithic archaeology by throwing collars and carpets in your dog's grave.
You describe the burial of an Egyptian king and make it appear like it was a Neanderthalian one. Do not forget that you yourself wrote: In all cases we have their burials, their art, and their artifacts. All of which seem to point to a belief in an afterlife, souls, etc.
You would not think that they all seem to point to a belief in an afterlife if you had not been taught that an afterlife exists. Your conclusions are too heavily biased.
(December 6, 2011 at 9:47 am)Rhythm Wrote: First, you go full on euhemerism (ignoring the possibility of fiction for which we have fantastic examples), and then, without any mention of exactly how you propose that this singular narrative was carried across the entirety of the world where cultures believed in souls and the afterlife (in all cases your egyptian philosophers would have needed a time machine)..
Full on ehemerism. Correct!
The only “fiction” that counts is the one that comes in more than two copies.
This singular narrative was carried across the entire world by the people who left the Near East forty thousand years ago to end their voyage by arriving at Easter Island just a few hundred years ago. That’s the “ divine ethnic cleansing” that Dawkins detected in the OT (The proper term I know only in Greek «O Καθαρμός της χώρας». Epimethean could help here.)
(December 6, 2011 at 9:47 am)Rhythm Wrote: You do this in an attempt to salvage a kernel of truth from myth which is probably there sometimes, but probably isn't all the time..
Without “probably” I assure you I can connect one kernel after the other, like pieces of a puzzle, and present to you the entire story from the beginning in the Near East to the end in Easter Island, if you dare give me only one kernel.
You dare not! No one dares because apparently there would be no pause once we start.
Do you think Harvard and Oxford Universities are unaware of the fact that in the funerary texts a judgment of men alive in described? Do you think that they believe the ancient Egyptians were stupid to the point to believe that they could have good sex only after their death?
They know very well what is written on the texts but if they admit the judgment of the living they would then have to answer questions.
No kernel should be given away! Total refusal is the safest way out: Myth is fairy tale!
(December 6, 2011 at 9:47 am)Rhythm Wrote: (I'm not sure what you were asking about Native American beliefs. If they believed in souls, spirits, afterlives and gods? Long story short, they did. Many still do.).
Oh, yes! How original!! Heavenly beings marrying Indian girls!
P.S. I did not see any comment on the Celts’ prommisory note.