[lit-ideas] Re: The 'Near-Eastern' influences on the Greek philosophy, sc...

  • From: Scribe1865@xxxxxxx
  • To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Sat, 10 Apr 2004 13:02:11 EDT

In a message dated 4/10/2004 10:50:45 AM Eastern Daylight Time, 
junger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx writes: 
The question is, how the Old Testament's Jehovah, 
: an extremely temperamental Deity inclined to all sorts of (from a human : 
perspective) arbitrary nastiness (see, for example, the Book of Job) : become 
tamed into the Deists' watchmaker, who then wanders off stage, : leaving 
Natural Laws in his place
_____
In my first post, I suggested in passing that it is due to the three Western 
religions' attempt to view the world as an artifact, something shaped and 
created, along the lines of a clay figurine or bowl shaped by a creator god. 
Viewing the world as an artifact, as the religions of the ancient Near East 
do, rather than as organic process, as for example the Taoists do, allows it 
and its creatures to be subject to all kinds of limitations specific to 
artifacts. Here are a few of the limitations implied by the universe seen as 
artifact:

(1) It sets up a spirit/matter dichotomy in which people COME INTO the world 
rather than GROW OUT OF the world. 

(2) It sets an unbridgeable gap between creator and created. In such a 
situation, all knowledge comes from the Lord, and attempts at individual 
inquiry 
succeed or fail on the basis of appeals to a creator existing outside its 
creation.

(3) It encourages a view of the world as something that exists for the sake 
of something else. Therefore the universe can be made war on (we conquer space) 
used up (we cut down all the forests) or managed as if by an outside agency 
(we are stewards of the planet for God).

Cause/effect is thus one of the implications of (2) where simplified aspects 
of the natural world are broken into sets believed to be responsible for each 
other.

When it became obvious that the fire-demons Yahweh or Allah were not active 
in the world except by extension, what was presumed to remain were the RULES 
set up by these Creator of Artifacts, hence natural law, the limits imposed on 
the artifact by the nature of its form, i.e., pottery, figurine making.  


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