Re: Intra-Religious Warfare

From: Alex Ferguson <abf_at_cs.ucc.ie>
Date: Sun, 18 Oct 1998 05:13:15 +0100 (BST)


Sergio Mascarenhas says, of religious schisms and heresies:
> There is no space for ambiguity
> FROM THE GOD'S POV. Mortals may misunderstand what's happening, they may
> see a contradiction where from the god's POV there is none.

The which? How can you hope to usefully settle anything by reference to the _God's_ PoV? You state yourself that no mortal can possibly have access to this, yet you think it's a crucial and infallible determinant of Religious Rightness? As others have pointed out, how is remotely useful, other than as an after-the-fact rationalisation?

I think statements such as this, and indeed the whole premise of questions such as "Do the Gods have free will?" really are presuming to "antropomorphise" them to an unwarranted degree. Maybe gods are indeed "free-willed individuals", but it sems to me that the question is almost meaningless, as a Positivist would use the word. Gods are not men, so ascribing to them merely human attributes is unlikely to be a complete success.

Yes, of course _worshippers_ certainly do this, but then again, they're hardly concerned with Global Consistency or the truth of other viewpoints.

> This seems to be a paradox? Of course! Thanks goodness for it.

I'm all sort Interesting Paradoxes, but what I think you've gotten yourself into is more of an unnecessarily logical corner...

Slainte,
Alex.


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