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Integrational Polytheism
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The discussion below is from |
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Calum Guy Who Runs The Site Joined: 28 Jul 2002 Posts: 304 Location: Outside of my head |
Posted: Tue Feb 11, 2003 12:53 pm Post subject: Integrational Polytheism Confused by Integrational Polytheism? Ask, discuss, lecture in this section of the board. it's a young and very flexible religion, and it's very open to people's thoughts. _________________ ’War is fun when you know you won’t die’ – Michael Moore Help save the rainforests Back to top |
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Kate I like this site Joined: 29 Jul 2002 Posts: 66 Location: London | Posted: Thu Feb 13, 2003 10:21 pm Post subject: Poo-bah Are you like the integrational polytheism poo-bah and if so do you have a fez, like in the Flintstones? Back to top |
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Calum Guy Who Runs The Site Joined: 28 Jul 2002 Posts: 304 Location: Outside of my head | Posted: Thu Feb 13, 2003 10:52 pm Post subject: it is impossible to gaze into my fez. _________________ ’War is fun when you know you won’t die’ – Michael Moore Help save the rainforests Back to top |
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Peter I feel like I've been here before! Joined: 12 Dec 2002 Posts: 34 |
Posted: Fri Mar 21, 2003 6:37 pm Post subject: what i want to know is Do you support the concept of a supreme being, what about new age beliefs that argue for the god within yourself? Back to top |
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Calum Guy Who Runs The Site Joined: 28 Jul 2002 Posts: 304 Location: Outside of my head | Posted: Fri Mar 21, 2003 10:30 pm Post subject: yes and yes, but if you support one of those theories exclusively and deny that other beliefs have merit too, then you wouldn't be an Integrational Polytheist. _________________ ’War is fun when you know you won’t die’ – Michael Moore Help save the rainforests Back to top |
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skyfaller Guest |
Posted: Mon May 12, 2003 7:44 pm Post subject: How can you allow mutually exclusive gods to exist? I'm confused as to how it is possible for ALL gods to exist. I can see many gods, the Greeks and Hindi and everybody pulled that off fine. But, if one god claims to have created the world, and so has another, they can't both be right! Unless they were world-creating buddies once and they had a falling out... or they're both compulsive liars... Or Earth actually moves through space under the power of an Improbability drive, and everything is simultaneously possible! Back to top |
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Processean Guest |
Posted: Wed May 14, 2003 7:36 am Post subject: The Gods The Gods have existed through history. We just keep giving them new names every time a new religion forms. Every group wants to feel they are 'closer to the divine' than their 'heathen' neighbors so they personalize. In the end we will possibly know but for now we will wonder. Angela Back to top |
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Calum Guy Who Runs The Site Joined: 28 Jul 2002 Posts: 304 Location: Outside of my head | Posted: Thu May 15, 2003 11:13 am Post subject: in a kind of way i believe you both to be right, plus other things too. In my opinion if one god says he/she/it created the whole universe then either that god is lying or else they don't know the full story. also it is possible that that god did indeed create the whole universe in one sense, but in another sense maybe that universe is a tiny part of a much larger existence, or something along those lines. you know how people generally accept there are many possible futures? why can't there then be many possible pasts, and many possible presents, not to mention many possible everythings and many possible gods who are all the one and only god. Unlike many polytheists i choose not to discriminate against certain gods just because they make the grandiose claim that they are the only god around. (not that i am criticising those other polytheists at all, because i respect and agree with them too). _________________ ’War is fun when you know you won’t die’ – Michael Moore Help save the rainforests Back to top |
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Kate I like this site Joined: 29 Jul 2002 Posts: 66 Location: London | Posted: Sun May 18, 2003 11:18 am Post subject: Now lemme tell you... Well the way I see it, it is humankind that must distinguish by name and character and really this is symptomatic of our need to categorise. What I believe is that the names we give our Gods are really just labels for the energy force that is. Back to top |
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Flash Light Not posted much yet Joined: 20 Mar 2003 Posts: 15 Location: New York City | Posted: Mon May 19, 2003 10:09 am Post subject: epistemology Calum, I'd be careful about calling any god a liar, mortals have been smote for less! Rather, I think you're on to something when you speak about "many possible pasts." We seem to be discussing epistemology, the nature of knowledge. It seems to me there's a cultural "Law of relativity." There is one truth, however it looks completely different, depending on the view point you're observing it from, and we see vastly different views by looking through the eyes of different cultures. I would argue that some of the authors of the Bible were aware of this, hence we get two completely different stories of creation: Genesis I compared to Genesis II. I believe the point of including two different versions, both of which can't be true, was to make the reader aware that they were reading about mythic truth, not literal truth. Unfortunately the creationists seem to have missed this. Robert Graves, in "Hebrew Myths," makes a persuasive argument that the Genesis I version comes from Babylonian myth, whereas Genesis II comes from Edomite myth. It strikes me that the ancient Egyptians were masters of mythic reality: you see numerous examples of their combining different myths. One of the most dramatic was the merging of belief in Ra, the sun god, with belief in Kheprer, the beetle god. The confluence resulted in Kheprer-Ra, depicted as a man with a beetle's face and a sun disk on his head. _________________ http://www.Polytheism.org May the Gods be with us! Back to top |
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dreamili Not posted much yet Joined: 06 Aug 2002 Posts: 7 Location: Australia | Posted: Mon May 19, 2003 11:38 am Post subject: Not sure what some of you's are getting at but... In a Judeo Christian sense, it seems to me god personifies human's imagination of what constitutes a representation of the perfect human subject and lifted it into the realm of worship. Have I just described narcissism? However, well may it be said that we can imagine the perfect circle, it does not necessarily follow that the perfect circle can ever be realised. Perhaps we should free our imagination from the burdens of deification. _________________ Kate is my one and only. Back to top |
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Calum Guy Who Runs The Site Joined: 28 Jul 2002 Posts: 304 Location: Outside of my head | Posted: Mon May 19, 2003 11:34 pm Post subject: Re: epistemology Flash Light wrote: "Calum, I'd be careful about calling any god a liar, mortals have been smote for less!" smitten surely, also i didn't say any god was a liar! it's my personal opinion actually that gods don't lie, but that's something i am sure is subjective to the individual. Quote: "It seems to me there's a cultural 'Law of relativity.' There is one truth, however it looks completely different, depending on the view point you're observing it from, and we see vastly different views by looking through the eyes of different cultures. " well the only question is what the boundaries are of this "one" truth then, a lot of people put the boundaries quite narrowly together, like they say there can only be one possible way the earth was created (this seems to be a significant historical event to mention in religious circles) and so on, and this is how they define the "one" truth, by saying "right, well if there's one truth then there must be one this and one that and one of the other too", but i say "righto, there's only one truth, but this just means there is one truth that contains EVERYTHING else that is true" and in my opinion truth is subjective and changeable at all times and places. So in my one truth there can be infinite this and infinite that and whether they appear to contradict within our own linear prejudices about space-time is an irrelevance. Why should the truth care how it appears to us? Quote: "I would argue that some of the authors of the Bible were aware of this, hence we get two completely different stories of creation: Genesis I compared to Genesis II. I believe the point of including two different versions, both of which can't be true," ah ah ah ah! if they can't both be true then why do so many people fail to see this? some people don't even realise that the first few chapters of genesis are written by two different authors (this myth probably stems from the rumour that moses is responsible for the whole penteteuch). Quote: "was to make the reader aware that they were reading about mythic truth, not literal truth. Unfortunately the creationists seem to have missed this." that's one opinion, the creationists have a watertight theory about the creation of the universe too, they say "well while it might all look like it came into being over the last 18 billion years or so, actually we reckon it was all created by hand in seven days a few thousand years ago, but it was made to look as though it was 18 billion years old just to give people something to talk about". And who's to say that's not the truth either? i daresay stranger things have happened. Quote: "Robert Graves, in 'Hebrew Myths,' makes a persuasive argument that the Genesis I version comes from Babylonian myth, whereas Genesis II comes from Edomite myth. It strikes me that the ancient Egyptians were masters of mythic reality: you see numerous examples of their combining different myths. One of the most dramatic was the merging of belief in Ra, the sun god, with belief in Kheprer, the beetle god. The confluence resulted in Kheprer-Ra, depicted as a man with a beetle's face and a sun disk on his head." top cool! you learn something every day. _________________ ’War is fun when you know you won’t die’ – Michael Moore Help save the rainforests Back to top |
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Peter I feel like I've been here before! Joined: 12 Dec 2002 Posts: 34 |
Posted: Thu May 22, 2003 11:58 am Post subject: That makes sense I have wondered why I have seen Ra sometimes with said disk and sometimes without. Back to top |
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Flash Light Not posted much yet Joined: 20 Mar 2003 Posts: 15 Location: New York City | Posted: Sat May 31, 2003 2:57 am Post subject: Cultural Relativity dreamili, You wrote "Perhaps we should free our imagination from the burdens of deification." Far from a burden, myth is the software of our neural networks. Without myths, we're like computers without software. If you want to understand people, it is useful to understand their beliefs, and if you want to understand their beliefs, it is useful to study their myths. Calum, Thu May 15, 2003 11:13 am, "....then either that god is lying or else they don't know the full story. " Mon May 19, 2003 11:34 pm "... i didn't say any god was a liar! " Then you're saying some gods don't know the full story? Also a perilous claim for a mere mortal ! I don't deny the logic of the Creationists, nor denigrate their right to that belief, rather I'm observing that the belief in a literal interpretation does not appear to be supported by the relevant biblical scripture, given the evidence of the difference between Genesis 1, and Genesis 2. Never-the-less, Creationism is another viewpoint of how the earth was formed, among the myriad of mythic viewpoints on the subject, all equally deserving the respect of Polytheists. The "one truth," in this issue, is that the Earth was somehow created, but the views of that truth vary from the Creationists claims of a "false fossil history," to Hindu claims that the earth was dreamed into existence by Vishnu, to the followers of Kheprer claiming the earth was created by a beetle god rolling a giant dung ball, to the Pope saying the "big bang" myth is consistent with Catholic beliefs, etc.. All these views can co-exist as long as everyone realizes that their viewpoint is only one of many possible mythic viewpoints, that one's viewpoint is determined by one's cultural perspective, that there is no contradiction in these viewpoints looking dramatically different, and that therefore no one can claim that their viewpoint is the only correct mythic viewpoint. Thus I avoid negating the laws of physics, which would be the result of claiming, "truth is changeable," and I avoid calling any god a liar, by instead saying, "There is one truth, but the observation of that truth changes relative to the viewpoint of the observer." This is my, "Law of Cultural Relativity." Thus, I assume it's one's perception of the truth that's changeable, not the truth itself. Finally, let me point out that under this, "Law of Cultural Relativity," debate and progress within a viewpoint are still possible. For example, it is encouraging to me that the Catholic church has finally admitted Galileo was right: the helio-centric myth was more accurate than the church's geo-centric orthodoxy. Similarly the Creationists may eventually conclude, after a few centuries of debate, that the length of a day, before the Earth started spinning at its current rate, could have been billions of years. _________________ http://www.Polytheism.org May the Gods be with us! Back to top |
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Calum Guy Who Runs The Site Joined: 28 Jul 2002 Posts: 304 Location: Outside of my head | Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2003 11:14 am Post subject: i think a lot do concede that already, as always i am short on time, or i would reply in more depth, sadly i can't... _________________ ’War is fun when you know you won’t die’ – Michael Moore Help save the rainforests Back to top |
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