Some Theological Aphorisms

Greek and Jewish Religion

For the Greeks, first there is a place. This makes sense, it corresponds with experience. For the Hebrews, first there is a being, an all-creator. This makes sense for hierarchy, it corresponds with rulership. In a culture of rulership, first there is the ruler. That is the first existence for the ruled. Most religions are like this, the Mayan religion for example, where the all-creator uses maze. The Hebrew religion is simply the greatest exponent of this type, and that is also why it attracted the attention of the Romans, who were very hierarchical. And so, for the Hebrews, first there is God. For the Greeks, first there is The Well. The Well is a place, from whence spring all places and beings. Or, rather, some beings, and some places, and then some places and beings spring from those places and beings. Even Plato and Aristotle begin with a place, the Topus Uranus, but being that what they concieve to be in this place can only exist in the imagination, and imagination can only be generated by a being, they were extremely well suited for a hierarchical religion like Christianity. Judaism, for all its hierarchy, is still not imaginary. It is a realistic religion, the reality of hierarchy. Thus, it had to be modified in the form of Christianity to allow for Plato and Aristotle’s universalism. Plato, of course, is the rulership thinker par excellence, giving even a philosophical necessity for a state government structure. In the way that the Uberman was Nietzsche’s gift to humanity, the Philosopher King (read: king) was Plato’s gift to humanity.

The final thing to understand about religions of rulership is that they are not religions of rulers, but of the ruled. Even kings, in rulership religions, must themselves be ruled by God. Judaism is the search for and attainment of nobility in being ruled. It understands that the ruler cannot be understood, cannot be studied by it. Only the ruled can. And it seeks nobility in the ruled. What makes a ruled man holy? Catholicism, greatly to its credit, seeks as much as Plato allows to follow this ethos. Other Christian sects seek to fulfill the absurdity of understanding nobility in a ruler through a religion of rulership. It is an absurdity because Plato was lying, his view of the philosopher who would be king was not religious. His study of “virtue” did not, as its claim to universalism ostensibly bound it to, apply to a philosopher, (need I say it?) to himself.

The Difference Between Theoligical and Religious

To say that this is the best of all possible worlds is already a judgement on God.

A Common Misconception

Polytheism requires much more subtlety of mind than monotheism.

A Question

In Latin, the word for “God” is Zeus, giving the comical conception that some religions have “many Zeuses.” Where does the word “God” come from? Gothic is a very young language, a question for the future.

Liberty

The notion of freedom was born as a religious notion.

Jew-God is considered a ruler.
Worshiping a political figure.
Jew-God has rules, crime and punishment. Political.

When you say “Jew-God,” do you mean the Jewish God?

Or are you setting out to prove this man’s theory that nazism and communism are the same beast?

I didn’t mean to intervene, I was just writing some rap and came across this.

Enjoying the aphorisms very much.

Good to see an antiantisemite roaming these boards again.

Yes. I consider it a monster. Mix of good and bad qualities. Impure. Relative to madness.

And what do your parents think?

Puritanism

The interesting thing is that arian supremasists could not begin to suspect what an actual conception of purity, such as is portrayed in Jewish texts, could look like. That is the tragedy of the decline of religion. In older times, even the scruffiest of goat herders would have access to a fantastic well of knowledge and understanding, simply from religious tradition. The Roman religion does deal with it, and that tradition was much less selective. One suspects that the very same instincts that drove that religion from the masses are the ones that drive puritans now.

I thought that “in the beginning there was darkness” - “and God spoke…” - so even to the Hebrews there would be “a place” in the beginning - but also a ruler.

And I thought for the Greeks there wasn’t “a first” but that the universe and things in it had always existed.

This is meaningless without a historical context.
When is “now”?
Without that you cannot even tell if ; “In older times, even the scruffiest of goat herders would have access to a fantastic well of knowledge and understanding,” was IRONIC or not.

This is the most amusing modern myth told to centrist children all over the western world. Funny that an adult (I presume) should be seen repeating it on a forum supposedly “philosophy”.

I admit it’s not my best aphorism. You are correct about historical context. Ironically, the part you quote is not where it lacks.

Usually, “now” is taken to mean the time of writing.

I take it you subscribe to one of the groups mentioned?

Yes, but it seems to me that “there was darkness” serves more as a context to God than an originating source. As “and God spoke” implies, it is so clear that God always was, and did not come from that place, that it is not even worth addressing. Something like “and God, who was obviously already there because he always was and always will be,”

As for the Greeks, it clearly isn’t true that all things had always existed. Things had carefully described provenances. And the ultimate provenance, after you chased down the last “son of” and “born of,” was the Well. In distinction to the Jewish religion, the Well itself, without any being, is where everything that didn’t come from something else came from.

I should also clarify, but this is beside the points strictly mentioned: the Greeks didn’t have a “universe.” At most they had a world, or a collection of worlds. But really, they had stories and explanations for specific things, no wider over-arching thing such as a Universe existed, which would have, in any case, detracted from the significance of, for example, other realms. Universe, of course, being traceable to “single speech,” alluding to perhaps a single speech given by some ultrauniversal force, or a realm that can all coherently be described, leaving nothing out, in a single speech. A single realm. A single thought.

Possibly the furthest the Greeks got in terms of naming everything that exists or can possibly exist is Parmenides’s (religious) poem. But even there, comically (comically in an admiring way, the Greeks had an immensity of spirit that makes one laugh) he gives “everything that exists and can possible exist” as onlye ONE possible realm, everything that is not and cannot possibly be making the other realm. The other realm being so misterious that even the Gods did not have access, but that very much exists. Again, everything comes from a place, and even the Gods are brought to heel.

But I believe that the Jewish religion also does not have a Universe. And it also has many realms. Even though everything originates from God, there is no “single thing.” Which, in any case, would be to set limits on God.

I can easily be wrong about this stuff so if it wasn’t Aristotle who said that the Sun and Moon had eternally crossed the heavens then who did?