From Rapture Ready

Mr Clingford said:
Absolutely - they're good Xtian characters!
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Let's be honest, though. The Hero's Journey is the oldest story we tell. Jesus is somewhere in the middle of the line of mythological heroes, not the start. The archetype, I'm afraid, is much, much older.
 
slingblade said:
Let's be honest, though. The Hero's Journey is the oldest story we tell. Jesus is somewhere in the middle of the line of mythological heroes, not the start. The archetype, I'm afraid, is much, much older.
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Fair enough. But this harks back to my point that people can tell tales to help make sense of the world so that they may make better decisions. It is in that light that some of the stories of the Bible, regardless of historical truth or not, can be of help. Besides, it can be fascinating to read 'Just so' stories of any culture.
 
Mr Clingford said:
...this harks back to my point that people can tell tales to help make sense of the world so that they may make better decisions
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This (conveniently? I hope not) obscures the point that people can observe reality to make consistent sense of the world

MrC... If you can present evidence that myths and legends are beneficial, please do

Otherwise... well... erm.... get ready for teh rapture, I s'pose ;)
 
six7s said:
This (conveniently? I hope not) obscures the point that people can observe reality to make consistent sense of the world

MrC... If you can present evidence that myths and legends are beneficial, please do

Otherwise... well... erm.... get ready for teh rapture, I s'pose ;)
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I am a little surprised that you wish to argue this as I don't think there is any controversy about my claim. Myths and legends are stories and stories can help people. I have found Middlemarch by George Eliot, or Animal Farm, for instances, help me ponder human nature and the consequences of decisions I might take.

I have made my daily preparations for the rapture - going round to my neighbours and laughing at their fiery fate. Revenge is mine!
 
Mr Clingford said:
I am a little surprised that you wish to argue this as I don't think there is any controversy about my claim. Myths and legends are stories and stories can help people. I have found Middlemarch by George Eliot, or Animal Farm, for instances, help me ponder human nature and the consequences of decisions I might take.
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By 'myths and legends', I was thinking more Zeus, Thor, Satan, Ganesh, etc... y'know the supposedly supernatural stuff? I really did think that you would have guessed that much, seeing as though you ain't dim and this is R&P, not History, Lit & the Arts

Mr Clingford said:
I have made my daily preparations for the rapture - going round to my neighbours and laughing at their fiery fate. Revenge is mine!
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Best savoured cold... irredeemable in hell? ;)
 
six7s said:
By 'myths and legends', I was thinking more Zeus, Thor, Satan, Ganesh, etc... y'know the supposedly supernatural stuff? I really did think that you would have guessed that much, seeing as though you ain't dim and this is R&P, not History, Lit & the Arts
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I see what you mean when you put it like that. The word 'myth', though, can have a bad press IMO. I don't use it as a dismissive value judgement on a story but as a category of writing that seeks to make sense of something, and it is in this sense that it has relevance not only to H, L and the A but also to R and P.

Just because a story has elements of the supernatural does not mean that it automatically has nothing to say at best and is harmful at worst.
 
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six7s said:
OK...

Please describe when and how and for what the Torah was most recently 'beneficial' in 'making sense of something'
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Come on, that's a bit ridiculous, but as you ask... There are plenty of stories in the Pentateuch of fallible humans, for instance, that one can read, reflect on, and consider if one acts in a similar fashion and what one might do about it. Humans are still prey to the same weaknesses and have the same strengths as BCE.
 
Mr Clingford said:
Please describe when and how and for what the Torah was most recently 'beneficial' in 'making sense of something'
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Come on, that's a bit ridiculous, but as you ask... There are plenty of stories in the Pentateuch of fallible humans, for instance, that one can read, reflect on, and consider if one acts in a similar fashion and what one might do about it. Humans are still prey to the same weaknesses and have the same strengths as BCE.
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Honestly, I wasn't intentionally asking you to describe something that was ridiculous...

And, without wanting to sound confrontational, you didn't describe anything specific... :(
 
six7s said:
Honestly, I wasn't intentionally asking you to describe something that was ridiculous...

And, without wanting to sound confrontational, you didn't describe anything specific... :(
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OK, but there are so many stories are therefore examples, even if some of the points are rather banal. What about the beginning of the story of Joseph in Genesis 37. Here we have something of the follies of arrogance, lording it over others and the dangers of the poisoning effects favouritism can have on a family. Someone could read that, think about how they behave towards others and consider how to modify behaviour accordingly.
 
Roadtoad said:
As we're sweating an Armageddon, may I make a suggestion? You know, just for the giggles...

*snip*

I expect better from myself.
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You know, as I read your post it occurred to me that this whole Armageddon thing, the idea that the world is about to end anytime soon, actually has clear consequences that can be demonstrated logically, via game theory. (I´m having two classes involving game theory this semester, so it is kind of bouncing around in my head right now)

The thing is, optimal strategies in game theory depend very strongly on whether the game is finitely repeated or infinitely repeated.
For the Prisoner´s Dilemma, for example, with finite repetition (in the simplest case, just playing once) the optimal strategy for both "players" is to defect, i.e. in this case to rat on their buddy.
With infinite repetition, the optimal strategy for both players is to cooperate, i.e. in this case to keep mum, until they observe the other defecting (which he won´t because cooperating is best for him, too), in which case they will defect every time from then on.

The Prisoner´s Dilemma can stand for a great many things, besides the actual scenario, and protecting the environment is a very good example. "Going green" is expensive now, but has the advantage of providing a better quality of living in all eternity (as far as eternity goes for Earth - but even if it´s only a few hundred years, we have essentially the same result). Depending on the cost, the amount of better living quality (such as not dying from heavy metal poisoning or skin cancer or whatever), and your temporal preferences (i.e. how much less you value something you get next year versus something you get right now), a certain amount of "going green" will seem advantageous to you.
On the other hand, if you believe the Rapture or Armageddon or Ragnarok or whatever is fairly imminent, you expect the "in all eternity" part to be fairly short, which means you will value better future quality of living less, because you expect there to be far less future in which to enjoy it.
(quick mathematical example: if you consider a certain improvement in quality of living, starting next year, to be worth $1 each year, and your temporal preference is 0.9, then if you expect the world to go on forever for you and your descendants, this improvement will be worth paying $10 for you now, whereas if you expect the world to end after the end of next year, it will be worth $0.90 to you)

Anyway, that´s what cold, hard logic has to say about this. Not that I´d dismiss your approach, but it´s a little hard standing on only one leg in the long run.
 
six7s said:
OK...

Please describe when and how and for what the Torah was most recently 'beneficial' in 'making sense of something'
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I'm not sure if this is what you're after either (!), but I am not trying to say that the Torah etc is the bestest most perfect thing ever, only that there could be stuff that actually isn't abhorrent, that is, perhaps, even worthy of consideration.

Right, Deuteronomy 26: 12, part of laws about firstfruits and tithes, states (NIV):
When you have finished setting aside a tenth of all your produce in the third year, the year of the tithe, you shall give it to the Levite, the alien, the fatherless and the widow, so that they may eat in your towns and be satisfied.

Sounds a bit like some sort of welfare for the needy and it wouldn't surprise me if some of the British Left who founded the Welfare State in 1945 were influenced by this kind of idea to be found in the Torah.
 
Mr Clingford said:
This is a strawman, especially, for me as an Anglican, who also considers tradition and reason; the Bible is not the end of a debate but a start.
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It’s a rather poor start, isn’t it? Its moral instructions are contradictory, and scattered among a selection of creation myths, bits of garbled historical propaganda, collections of poems and stories and other such gubbins, all translated through several different languages by people with an exciting variety of agendas. Isn’t something about Kant’s categorical imperative, or a book by, say, Peter Singer, which is explicitly about ethics, rather better?

And regardless of which book you’re starting from, isn’t the next immediate thing to do to apply reason to it to decide the extent to which it makes any sense. Much as you would with any ‘tradition’ you came across. My point being – either reason trumps everything or there’s some additional, explicitly non-‘reasonable’ mental operation that you think is necessary for ethical thought. If the latter, I should be interested to know what you think that operation is and why you believe it’s beneficial.
 
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Matt the Poet said:
It’s a rather poor start, isn’t it? Its moral instructions are contradictory, and scattered among a selection of creation myths, bits of garbled historical propaganda, collections of poems and stories and other such gubbins, all translated through several different languages by people with an exciting variety of agendas. Isn’t something about Kant’s categorical imperative, or a book by, say, Peter Singer, which is explicitly about ethics, rather better?
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It certainly is a great big mix of different styles of writings and I don't tout it as a moral handbook for the simple reason that it isn't; Romans, for instance, is about the nearest anything in the Bible gets to a systematic theology.

Matt the Poet said:
And regardless of which book you’re starting from, isn’t the next immediate thing to do to apply reason to it to decide the extent to which it makes any sense. Much as you would with any ‘tradition’ you came across. My point being – either reason trumps everything or there’s some additional, explicitly non-‘reasonable’ mental operation that you think is necessary for ethical thought. If the latter, I should be interested to know what you think that operation is and why you believe it’s beneficial.
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Yes, everyone has to interpret. I'm not sure that we mean the same thing by 'reason'. I mean the application of thinking, applying logic, literary analysis, knowledge, science to a passage. This is best done as part of larger Xtian communities, so one can undergo a sort of peer review. And sometimes agreeing to disagree is all that one can do for a time. As a Xtian, one would ask the Holy Spirit to guide all of one's thoughts, and maybe the Spirit does, but as a number of opposing positions can be sincerely held, about the best that one can say is that one's position is provisionally held.
 
six7s said:
Mr Clingford said:
... my point that people can tell tales to help make sense of the world so that they may make better decisions.
Click to expand...
This (conveniently? I hope not) obscures the point that people can observe reality to make consistent sense of the world

MrC... If you can present evidence that myths and legends are beneficial, please do
Click to expand...

Mr Clingford said:
I'm not sure if this is what you're after either (!)
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Not exactly... but I do sincerely appreciate your honest attempt and enduring civility

Thanks :)


Mr Clingford said:
but I am not trying to say that the Torah etc is the bestest most perfect thing ever, only that there could be stuff that actually isn't abhorrent, that is, perhaps, even worthy of consideration.
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I think I know what you mean... but... erm... I can't see how that gels with your earlier post:

Mr Clingford said:
... my point that people can tell tales to help make sense of the world so that they may make better decisions.
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​

If you have to cherry-pick to select the salient bits, why revere the entire work? (Yeah, I know... I know... you personally don't necessarily revere the whole work... but you know that the distinction isn't made officially... its not 'In Cherry-Picking We Trust' on US currency... its not 'Prunus avium Selectum et Mon Droit' on the Saxe - Coburg - Gotha - Mountbatten - Windsor family crest)



Mr Clingford said:
Sounds a bit like some sort of welfare for the needy and it wouldn't surprise me if some of the British Left who founded the Welfare State in 1945 were influenced by this kind of idea to be found in the Torah.
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It wouldn't surprise me if 'social welfare' ideas hadn't sprung up in parts of the world without a Judeao Christian influence

The statesmen of ancient India
He declares that " the inhabi-
tants are rich and prosperous, and vie with one another in the prac-
tice of benevolence and righteousness." A specially interesting
manifestation of public charity was the free hospital, w4rere we are told
the sick "get the food and medicines which their cases require, and
are made to feel at ease ; and when they are better, they go away
of themselves. " This testimony proves beyond all doubt that the
government of Chandragupta II. (Vikramaditya) struck a foreign
traveller living under its protection as being eminently sensible and
efficient— a government which permitted all reasonable liberty and
encouraged the growth of both wealth and learning. The testi-
mony is the more emphatic because the pilgrim was a zealous
Buddhist, while King Chandragupta II. was an orthodox Hindu,
specia]l3^ devoted to the worship of Vishnu. No country in Europe
at that period could have been described by a traveller in such terms,
and the conclusion is inevitable that in 400 a.d. India possessed
statesmen who knew how to govern effectually without the aid of
cruelty. The general social prosperity and advanced political deve-
lopment were reflected in Sanskrit literature, which, at about the
same time, attained its highest point in the works of Kalidasa.
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