[Buddha-l] Historical vs Psychological Religious Narratives

[Erik Hoogcarspel]

L.S. Cousins schreef:
> Hi there, Leigh,
>
> I was wondering the other day what had happened to you.
>
> I think we should be rather careful not to be mislead by the word 
> 'god'. It has one meaning in the Abrahamic religions and another in 
> most forms of polytheism. For the former we are dealing with a 
> transcendent being in terms which can really only be conceived after 
> the development of the Platonist philosophical tradition. For the 
> latter we are dealing with beings of great power, but beings who are 
> not necessarily more powerful that e.g. human magicians. Moreover, any 
> person or thing of great potency is a god for the latter but not for 
> the former. Also the latter gods, even if considered as creator gods, 
> do not usually create from nothing.
I wonder if not the concept of 'belief' is the problem. Since Thales belief or doxa has been opposed to epistèmè and that was the beginning of the end of belief. Epistèmè is practical, its about knowing how you can do things. Now my experiences with believers is not that they think they can cross the street without looking, because God takes care of everythning, but that not believing is a betrayal of race, friends and family. It seems to me that belief is more about the habit of telling tales and not think about it to much, because those tales are thought to be essential for keeping up the teamspirit. 

Erik


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