Originally posted by googlefudge
Thankyou, This reply is actually helpful.
[quote]Is Brahms’ fourth symphony true? Or false? Is it a genuine symphony?
Is Robert Graves poem “Warning to Children” true? Or false? Is it genuine poetry?
Is the Voluspa (part of Norse mythology, in the Elder Edda) true? Or false? Is it a genuine myth?
To read poetry as if it were just ...[text shortened]... ience only with people who studied it in depth then I would find a forum built for that purpose.
Um, I think you are rather miss-characterizing the argument that goes on between atheists and theists.
If I intended that as a generalization, I would be, no doubt. I think I left you with the impression elsewhere that I was accusing
you of that error—my fault for not being clear; I apologize. But I have both witnessed and participated in a lot of those arguments over the years on here, and it has become one of my pet peeves when an atheist adopts essentially the same position as a biblical literalist vis-à-vis the nature of the texts, only to show how stupid the texts (and their authors) are. Yeah, it really has happened, or it wouldn’t be a peeve of mine. [And I do recognize that often the atheist is simply adopting the biblical literalist's premise to deconstruct it; I of course have no peeve with that.]
I know the bible stories are myths, although I might argue about whether or not they were originally intended as myths. I don't think you can attribute motives to the writers that definitively.
A fair point. The biblical corpus contains a number of different literary genres. Although the author of the Yahwist narrative (embedded in the Torah among other strands by a later redactor)*, for example, likely would not know the word “myth” or its definition, her work has the signs of mythological story-telling, and appears to be of a sufficiently high literary quality as to support the thesis that the author knew what she was about in her use of symbol and metaphor, etc.**
However, I often prefer the less technical term “story”. Some of this stuff probably originated as something like campfire stories. The fact that our ancestors were ignorant of what science is able to tell us about how the universe works, does not mean that they necessarily took story, including various creation stories, as fact rather than—well, story. I think that would presume too much ignorance on the part of our forbears (and I am absolutely
not accusing you of that). Did the Norse actually think that the first human was licked out of the primordial ice by some kind of cow? I don’t think so; I think that, absent the kind of knowledge that science imparts, they told stories that usually had some sort of understanding of the universe embedded in the symbols.
Yes, I did give it some consideration, and there was no snark. You are reading too much tone into a question that wasn't there.
Well, actually, then, I read too much into a question that
was there: “How is that so hard to imagine?”.
Yeah, I read that as a snarky put-down to someone you later claimed was rude for not wishing to respond to you. I take your word that I was mistaken, and apologize. Aside from that, it seemed that I was clearly implicated in your accusation of rude behavior, based on how and when I might choose to respond (or not respond) to any post—I attempt to explain my disagreement with your understanding of rude behavior on a site such as this one below.
Re “domains of discourse”—I was unclear, and that was probably a poor choice of phrase. I meant the kind of discourse that characterizes, say, poetry as opposed to prose, or myth/story as opposed to logical inference. Wittgenstein’s term—“language games”—is better, and likely more accurate. Of course one can validly employ logical discourse to analyze the truth probability of what appears to be propositional truth-claim embedded in mythological symbolism—but in order to determine what, if any, such claim is actually being made, you have to analyze myth as myth, in terms of its own language game; the same for poetry, which is often another language game in which myth is cast.
Again, my fault for not being clear. [EDIT: I am not implying that you have no appreciation for poetry, myth, story, etc. Or that there would be some fault implied if you don't. We all have different aesthetic personalities, shaped however they've been shaped.]
The fact that you have no qualms doing it doesn't mean it isn't rude. Just that you don't care.
No, it means that I don’t think it’s necessarily rude (though I am capable of being rude). We just disagree over what constitutes—we could call it perhaps “the ethics of courtesy”—on a site like this one.
I know that you are often patient in explaining, at some level; but I don’t think that you have been rude when you have suggested reading material rather than summarizing its content as requested (which might lead to more errors of understanding as well). I think that someone who refuses to go to such sources, and who would insist instead that you teach them, in the context of a discussion thread on another subject, would be acting—rudely. I don’t think there’s any hard line there; it’s a judgment call.***
In sum, I don’t think that, because I post on here at all, I am thereby ethically obligated to respond to everyone who engages me at whatever level on whatever subject. If you still think that is rude, so be it. (And I do not mean
that as snark; just my acceptance of a fact that I cannot change.)
__________________________________________________
* Following the conclusions of what is called “form criticism” here.
** I use “her” following literary critic Harold Bloom’s speculation in
The Book of J; also his analysis of her literary skills.
*** Since I tend to be a reader of books, I often do not have ready on-line sources that I can recommend; so my reading suggestions may not be as accessible as others’.
Buddhism.........
26 Nov '13 06:071 edit
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