shmuel,

When discussing Tutankamun with an Egyptologist at the Singapore Civilizations Museum, I was told by her, to go to Greeks to understand what happened in Ancient Egypt. I think there is a lesson, here. Find objective sources. Religionists are often scholarly, but their field of focus too narrow. Research is used for confirmation, not challenge.

Relda, indeed, if I am saying that we cannot ignore the imperfections produced by INFINITY then let's put "imperfections" in inverted commas. Perfection if there is such a thing as perfect, like everything else for we human beings can only be relative because perfection is only perfection in relation to things that are imperfect . Much the same as saying if there were no lies, everything would be true, and therefore truth would not exist and good couldn't exist without evil, because without evil to compare it to, everything would be good, so nothing would be good.

Perhaps we should accept perfection as you say ...... as a human abstraction because even though we may imagine such, like Plato, it will prove impossible to find in an infinite environment. It will also prove impossible to find identicals because relativity denies the existence of identities in nature. Now that's something to think about and also a good one for Peter to comprehend. However, considering some here have made mention of quantum mechanics perhaps I can add that both quantum mechanics and classical mechanics are similar because both are still based on the now obsolete assumption of finite universal causality. e.g. Quantum theory still regards quanta as being identical and of course everyone is seduced by formulas until they penetrate the many inbuilt arbitrary assumptions.

In my earlier OLO posts I mentioned my early experiences as a child growing up in the bush. These experiences aroused great curiosity about life that could be beautiful and chaotic, ancient and new, peaceful and cruel in the extreme as well as forever changing. It is not surprising that I came to believe that the universe is infinite and of an unbroken wholeness ....... never created and far from anthropocentric. Today I say there is an inseparable quantum inter-connectedness as reality that requires assumptions like infinity, relativism, causality, uncertainty and complementarity.

Gnostic "gospel" of Mary:

Jesus said there is no sin.

The Bible:

Jesus said there is sin, and he came to earth to destroy the works of the devil (sin and death).

Gnosticism posits that man can become god, that man is matter enclosing a divine spark the source of which is the infinite/divine.

The Bible posits that man can never be "god", that when man believes he can (pride), he becomes dangerous to himself and others.

The biographical sketches of the Old Testament are intended to show the reader, among other things, that when man departs from God's leading, the former departs from morality itself -- right and wrong to the detriment of other humans. It also shows that man often departs from right and wrong when the former is full of pride about what he knows, or thinks he can know (e.g. gnosis)....

Buddha was a man, raised as a prince protected from the world, who left his paradisical compound, saw that there were the aged, the unbeautiful, the dying, and thought that the way to heaven was to deny human mortality and weakness. In an occult trance, he thought that a solution to this problem was "the circle" of reincarnation (presuming there is such a thing), where an individual could eventually work off his past misdeeds (no help from the divine), on his own. Further, in this life, he could reach nirvana by pretending to be without desire. According to Jesus who is God,this is an impossibility for human beings. Out of the hearts of men comes hate, war, envying, strife.

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RE: Ad Hominem arguments

The Aryans were Indo-European killers on horseback who dualized those they destroyed (raped, stole from, murdered), claiming the latter "deserved" what they got, being inferior. Some still use ad hominem attacks when arguing -- attacking the persons of those they object to, rather than the argument -- a legacy of Indo-European dualizing which objectifies the other, attaching "inferior status" to the other in order to "conquer" (win the argument, without winning the argument)....

Ronnie Peters

Liked your post. Can we meet at Starbucks in Hawaii? Just fly on over.

Peter

We have "crossed swords", in a civilsed fashion, on this board before. I find your current post most stimulating. You have certainly grasped the essential reasons for my rejection of the Christianity I was brought up in...(trad RC of the Aust Irish sort mostly pre John XXIII). I am not so sure that this means my rationalist world is "flat", tho - missing perception of a real as opposed to imaginary dimension which we might call spiritual, tho that word makes my hackles rise instinctively. You have given me some food for thought.

It amuses me to think, those so condemning of Gnosticism are often peering over a Gnostic ‘elephant in their own backyard’. The ‘Gospel of John’, from the canonical ‘scriptural textbook’, is overtly Gnostic. The reason why the Gospel of John was finally passed on as an accurate gospel is perhaps because Christianity was so highly Greek and Gnostic, its allusions were not so radical as they would have appeared to Jews in the 1st century.

In fact, the Gospel of John very nearly didn’t make it into the cannon because of its strong Gnostic overtones. A few years after Irenaeus, the Roman Presbyter Gaius denounced it as having been written by a Gnostic heretic named Cerinthus. Certain Gnostic elements are noteworthy in the gospel, such as a metaphysical rationalizing to explain why the Resurrection and Parousia had not happened as a physical event. The resurrection is indeed given just such a spin with Christ supposedly saying: “I am the Resurrection and the life,” making the concept of a one-time vast resurrection of the dead into something far more metaphysical or allegorical.

It is interesting to also note, the gospel was written late in the 90s AD or early 2nd century as shown by the fact that the prophecies regarding the destruction of Jerusalem, now a past event, are noteworthy for their absence, and apocalypticism in general is expurgated. Christ is no longer a Jewish figure at all, but he is Greek, engaging and talkative, disputing, evasive, and mystical.

Keiran, I enjoyed reading your last post.