The Gods--All of them! (Religion)

by dhw, Tuesday, November 23, 2010, 14:06 (4896 days ago) @ xeno6696

MATT: I leave you with this question: Why do we only value our weak gods?-dhw: [...] Maybe I need to know who "we" are. The god of the Jews, Christians and Muslims is omnipotent. How weak is that?-MATT: The major innovation of the Jewish religion, was subservience of the individual to the community.-You are doing your willow-o'-the-wisp act on me again. After the above, you see no need to apologize for man being a brutal creature, Achilles is a fighter, Christ gets himself crucified, the fatal flaw of Judaism and Christianity is the issue of fate v. free will (though none of the Jews and Christians I know would subscribe to that idea)......What's all this got to do with your question and my answer? Jews, Christians and Muslims worship a god whom they deem to be omnipotent. So who says "we" only value weak gods?-MATT: Contrast this son of God [Alexander the Great]; to Heracles; and then to Christ. Which is more noble ... and why?-dhw: [...] I find absolutely nothing noble in Alexander's ambition to conquer the world. I could not even begin to compare this utter disregard for human life with Christ's attempts to create a more humane world.-MATT: History would have had some other course had he [Alexander] traveled a more peaceful path [...] Had Greek culture not been spread as a consequence of Alexander's conquest, there is no way that a man called Christ would have even been born [sensational new genealogy for Christ]; and it is Christ that brought the civilizing influence into Europe. [The Greeks and especially the Romans would have been surprised to hear this, but still...][...] I am unapologetic for the crimes of my fathers, grandfathers, going back to my great ancestors. [...] Guilt from the past is something we should have been long free from!-What have I done to deserve this? Here are three dictionary definitions of noble: "morally good or generous in a way that is admired"; "based on high ideals or revealing excellent moral character"; "of or characterized by high moral qualities". Of course Alexander influenced history. So did Hitler. So did Napoleon. So did George W. Bush. So did every conqueror and would-be conqueror. What does that have to do with Alexander's moral character compared to Christ's? Who has asked you to apologize for the crimes of your ancestors, and what has guilt from the past got to do with the "nobility" of Alexander the Great, Heracles, and Jesus Christ? Verily I say unto you, he that asketh a question and receiveth an answer but goeth off at a tangent cometh eventually to a sticky and irrelevant end.