[lit-ideas] Ignorance and Superstition and the Passion
- From: Scribe1865@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 7 Apr 2004 11:11:27 EDT
In a message dated 4/7/2004 3:47:48 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx writes:
But I don't see how this could be taken to
excuse the crime or to suggest that it never happened.
Many of the West's most valuable notions -- science, reason, empiricism,
medicine, a nonkingly legal system, philosophy, democracy -- are of Greek
origin.
Most of the intolerant, divisive, retrograde notions in the West come from the
ancient near eastern cultures.
Where Greek thought encouraged individual inquiry, the influence of ancient
near eastern thinking always involved recourse to various forms of authority.
Remember that it was the Stoics who coined the term "universe" and "nature"
and who advocated equality of the sexes and an end to slavery, several
centuries BC. Whenever we view the world as an artifact that can be exploited
and used
up because some celestial boss says so, we are victim of those ancient
superstitions.
Using the biblical account as inspiration for ethnic hatred is just more of
the same sunstroke madness that plagues people throughout the world. Maybe the
time will come when humanity will reassess the value of appropriating
religious authoritarianism in the three Western religions. Then again, maybe
our
sunstruck bad-daddy religions will kill us all before we can shed them.
My time has not yet come,
Zarathustra
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