[Wellsy]

https://www.marxists.org/archive/ilyenkov/works/ideal/ideal.htm

It is quite true that the “real talers” are in no way different from the gods of the primitive religions, from the crude fetishes of the savage who worships (precisely as his “god”!) an absolutely real and actual piece of stone, a bronze idol or any other similar “external object”. The savage does not by any means regard the object of his worship as a symbol of “God”; for him this object in all its crude sensuously perceptible corporeality is God, God himself, and no mere “representation” of him.

The very essence of fetishism is that it attributes to the object in its immediately perceptible form properties that in fact do not belong to it and have nothing in common with its sensuously perceptible external appearance. When such an object (stone or bronze idol, etc.) ceases to be regarded as “God himself” and acquires the meaning of an “external symbol” of this God, when it is perceived not as the immediate subject of the action ascribed to it, but merely as a “symbol” of something else outwardly in no way resembling the symbol, then man’s consciousness takes a step forward on the path to understanding the essence of things.

For this reason Kant himself and Hegel, who is completely in agreement with him on this point, consider the Protestant version of Christianity to be a higher stage in the development of the religious consciousness than the archaic Catholicism, which had, indeed, not progressed very far from the primitive fetishism of the idol-worshippers. The very thing that distinguishes the Catholic from the Protestant is that the Catholic tends to take everything depicted in religious paintings and Bible stories literally, as an exact representation of events that occurred in “the external world” (God as a benevolent old man with a beard and a shining halo round his head, the birth of Eve as the actual conversion of Adam’s rib into a human being, etc., etc.). The Protestant, on the other hand, seeing “idolatry” in this interpretation, regards such events as allegories that have an “internal”, purely ideal, moral meaning.

[Potemkin]

There are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the splendor of those in heaven is of one kind, and that of those on earth is of another. 41One kind of splendor belongs to the sun, another to the moon, and still another to the stars. In fact, one star differs from another star in splendor.

42This is how it will be at the resurrection of the dead. What is planted is decaying, what is raised cannot decay. 43The body is planted in a state of dishonor but is raised in a state of splendor. It is planted in weakness but is raised in power. 44It is planted a physical body but is raised a spiritual body. If there is a physical body, there is also a spiritual body.

'Spiritual' does not mean 'symbolic', Sivad. When St Paul talked about the "spiritual body", he was not using a poetic metaphor. He meant it literally.

[Sivad]

'Spiritual' does not mean 'symbolic', Sivad.

I never said it did.

When St Paul talked about the "spiritual body", he was not using a poetic metaphor. He meant it literally.

Paul was a mystic. He definitely believed in God and believed in a world to come but the resurrection he preached was not physical. The physical miracles are metaphors for more subtle spiritual mysteries, they're not to be taken literally.

[Potemkin]

Paul was a mystic. He definitely believed in God and believed in a world to come but the resurrection he preached was not physical. The physical miracles are metaphors for more subtle spiritual mysteries, they're not to be taken literally.

The "spiritual body" was every bit as real to St Paul as the "physical body". More real, in fact, since the physical body perishes whereas the spiritual body exists for all eternity.

[Sivad]

The "spiritual body" was every bit as real to St Paul as the "physical body".

What's your point? My point was that myths aren't intended as literally true accounts of physical, historical events and nothing you're saying here contradicts that, it really doesn't even address it. The spiritual plane of reality exists within consciousness(5th dimension), it is very real but it's not a physical place with a physical location occupied by bodies. "body" is a metaphor for a non-physical mode of existence that transcends time and space.

More real

Sure, but not in any physical, historical sense. It's a spiritual reality and it has to be understood as such, it's a deep and subtle mystery that requires an intuitive mystical faculty to comprehend. You seem to be taking "spiritual body" as just a rarefied material body that floats around in a place called Heaven and that's a gross bastardization of the teaching.

[ness31]

My point was that myths aren't intended as literally true accounts of physical, historical events and nothing you're saying here contradicts that, it really doesn't even address it.

This was the whole point of the thread. Even now you are using a ‘dominant’ cultures tools to understand that of a native peoples.

Why not quote some Australian Indigenous text and see how you fare with your analysis?

Good luck finding them

[Sivad]

you are using a ‘dominant’ cultures tools to understand that of a native peoples.

Actually I'm doing the exact opposite. These people were not rational empiricists so I'm not interpreting or judging their sacred narratives by rational empirical standards. I'm saying they need to be understood by the same dreamtime myth logic in which they were conceived. The aboriginal mythology was not intended as a literal history of the world and anyone who judges it by that standard is fundamentally confused.

[ness31]

I’ve spent a little while trying to get a response and it’s ended up in the drafts compartment lol.

I think you’re wrong though @Sivad.

Modern Australian Aborginies have a direct and very physical connection to their land.

And the kind of literalism you describe as vulgar fundamentalism doesn’t apply here. I’m not clever enough to articulate why just yet, but it will occupy my thoughts until I can.

Off the top of my head I’m going to say it’s because their belief system wasn’t enacted with an agenda. ...but I got some work to do on that train of thought

[Sivad]

I think you’re wrong though @Sivad.

Of course I'm wrong, everyone's wrong, I'm just less wrong than the rest of you.

[ness31]

Of course I'm wrong, everyone's wrong, I'm just less wrong than the rest of you.

At least you’re funny.

[Rich]

At the time of Paul Judea was a shit hole country with a shit hole religion. Jews largely accepted the cosmology of the superior pagan civilisations that surrounded them and conquered them. Paul's theological fantasies took place within that cosmology. The Heavens are very real and our understanding of their essential location has not changed since Paul's time. They are upwards. To get to the heavens just go up and just keep going.

Many educated people in Paul's time believed in the seven layer model of the Heavens. I believe the Pagans believed in a literal seven layer hierarchy and that this wasn't a metaphor for the ISO seven layer communications model. Paul's Jesus experienced his cosmic sacrifice in the lowest heaven beneath the moon. He was killed by the demons that had taken over the lower heavens and hence become rulers of this world in ignorance of all who he truly was. This is why the earliest Christians never speak of Jesus's return.

Jesus was revealed (originally invented) through a reinterpretation of Jewish scriptures, both canonical and non canonical.
Later these earlies revelations were reinterpreted as appearances of Jesus on Earth from the highest heaven.
Later still the Gospel stories of Jesus's were created as a sort of prequel to the appearances.

[ness31]

At the time of Paul Judea was a shit hole country with a shit hole religion. Jews largely accepted the cosmology of the superior pagan civilisations that surrounded them and conquered them. Paul's theological fantasies took place within that cosmology. The Heavens are very real and our understanding of their essential location has not changed since Paul's time. They are upwards. To get to the heavens just go up and just keep going.

Many educated people in Paul's time believed in the seven layer model of the Heavens. I believe the Pagans believed in a literal seven layer hierarchy and that this wasn't a metaphor for the ISO seven layer communications model. Paul's Jesus experienced his cosmic sacrifice in the lowest heaven beneath the moon. He was killed by the demons that had taken over the lower heavens and hence become rulers of this world in ignorance of all who he truly was. This is why the earliest Christians never speak of Jesus's return.

Jesus was revealed (originally invented) through a reinterpretation of Jewish scriptures, both canonical and non canonical.
Later these earlies revelations were reinterpreted as appearances of Jesus on Earth from the highest heaven.
Later still the Gospel stories of Jesus's were created as a sort of prequel to the appearances.

I wonderful post Rich. I learnt so much

[Sivad]

Paul's theological fantasies took place within that cosmology. The Heavens are very real and our understanding of their essential location has not changed since Paul's time. They are upwards. To get to the heavens just go up and just keep going.

Many educated people in Paul's time believed in the seven layer model of the Heavens. I believe the Pagans believed in a literal seven layer hierarchy

Platonic idealism was pretty widespread at the time and it didn't hold to any of that literally. There were many philosophical traditions going back to the pre-socratics that understood all of that to be figurative and not literal. There was every kind of metaphysical philosophy imaginable so Paul's theology did not necessarily take place within that cosmology and Paul was definitely a mystic so his theology was unique to his experience and insight just as it is with all mystics and spiritual visionaries.

[Sivad]

[ness31]

So I’ve just found out that depending on where you live in Australia, the Indigenous people of varying regions have their own seasons.

That’s the kind of stuff I’m talking about. Keep your SSFW shit to yourselves ..

[ness31]

So I’ve just found out that depending on where you live in Australia, the Indigenous people of varying regions have their own seasons.

That’s the kind of stuff I’m talking about. Keep your SSFW shit to yourselves ..

Edit - you know what? Don’t even google ‘4 seasons’...it’s an embarrassment.