Is the monotheism the euthanasia of the human logic?
I'm from Italy (so sorry for the poor english), a country historically Christian, so I was raised with the principles of Christianity and theology was part of my education until the end of the middle school.
They always told me that the Hebraism was such a "revolutionary" religion because it was the first one (maybe it is not true) to be monotheist.
My question is: what's so revolutionary about monotheism?
As our society teaches, I think that is way more rational to imagine a "pantheon" of gods with specific jobs, instead of an omnipotent god that runs alone the entire industry.
Not to mention the pradoxical nature of the concept of omnipotence, which can't be solved without fall into the "limitation of human knowledge" (I think everyone knows about the paradox of God and the rock that can't be raised.).
Poseidon, for example, is an extremely powerful entity, but his power doesn't hurt my logic when I think of it because it is limited to the sea and his phenomena.
Paganism is even more fair when applied to everyday life because of the belief that gods can be present in humanity's life. I can pray Asclepius to get better health, but what's the purpose of praying God when He cannot intervene in our lives?
My task is not to disrespect any religion or any of you, so please don't feel offended.
I actually believe this as my view of what is more "logical" when it comes to gods and religions and stuff. It sounds kinda new-agey but I think that the Gods of antiquity are really powerful spirits who have influence over some part of the natural world, maybe beings from another plane of existence, boddhisatvas if you will, and we can do rituals or prayers to them for favors. Makes much more sense to me than an all-powerful uber God who will set you on fire forever for not following his religion and all the other illogical madness of monotheism.
It enables objective morality
>Is the monotheism the euthanasia of the human logic?
No, it's the euthanasia of optionality. The whole point about paganism is that there are always more gods than you consider, which makes people much more weary about nonsense like singular, linear solutions to complex problems
Not to mention that the Bible is a copy-paste of every myth of anciente Greece.
>2015
>not being a panentheist
best of both worlds, champ. Yes, I do believe Poseidon exists, but "Poseidon" is just a name for the assemblage of factors, forces, energies, emotions etc. that actuate oceans and earthquakes. People have this cartoony idea of Paganism as if even the most erudite priests literally believed there was a dude swimming in the ocean with a trident and seaweed in his hair. The gods are only names/image we put to the sublimity of natural forces.
>>461767
Your Poseidon cannot be prayed then.
It is not "cartoony" to believe in an entity that has will.
Why bother calling tectonics "Poseidon" instead of call them actual tectonics?
Explain Lanciano if Christianity isn't true.
>>461778
Well, no, what's cartoony is the popular idea of these gods. Hurr durr le big man in a toga hurling bolts of lightning maymay hurr durr.
I didn't say these things don't have a will. It's not like I think the sea is literally alive but I feel the more you align yourself to these energies the more they do take on a life of their own in your consciousness. Imagine what warriors who literally thought they had been blessed by Ares - war ITSELF - must have felt like. That's where the power and the will comes in.
>>461784
Urban legend from the 8th century, became 'true' through groupthink
>>461784
Explain the strenght of Achilles if Homer isn't true.
>>461797
The study showed that it's FRESH blood.
>>461832
Which study? What methodology did they use to come to this conclusion?
No.
There's a reason why logic was so highly valued in Catholic medieval Europe. The universe having been created by a single benevolent God implies that all of creation follows his design, and therefore the same logic. The fact that our reason is a gift from him also implies that we're supposed to use our reason to understand God's work, and therefore that it's rational.
>I think everyone knows about the paradox of God and the rock that can't be raised
That's not a paradox of logic, only of semantics (human language). God can create a rock of any size and can lift any rock. It's not that he "can't" create a rock he couldn't lift, it's that this is a logical contradiction, not a limitation of omnipotence.
And I really don't see how believing in a bunch of superheros living on Olympus is more rational than believing in a single creator.
>>461848
Linoli 1971, it's all yours my friend
>>461881
>it's that this is a logical contradiction, not a limitation of omnipotence
You said it.
So a logical contradiction can be just accepted?
Also
>semantics
What are you talking about? There is no problem with language.
If you're not satisfied give me a definition of omnipotence.
>>461905
What? The idea of God creating something he can't lift is a logical contradiction because there's nothing God couldn't lift. It's the sentence that's contradictory, not the idea of omnipotence.
>>461905
>There is no problem with language.
Yes there is.
We say "God can't create" when in reality we mean "such a thing can't logically exist".
>>461910
>The idea of God creating something he can't lift is a logical contradiction because there's nothing God couldn't lift.
Then there is something he can't do, meaning he's not omnipotent.
Naturally the must be one original uncreated god. But there's no reason to assume that godly beings do not alongside him exist as part of creation. The bible never really rules out of gods, It does say idolatry is bull, but other gods are either called false gods or devils.
Personally I view that they are to us what we are to animals. We can shape the enviroment of nature and the habitat of creatures, the gods can do the same but to a greater extent and with much little effort.
>>461916
>implying logic isn't but a creation of God
God is above logic, kid. Even in our material world we can see that the classical, Aristotelian logic is a statistical effect of slightly different quantum logic.
>>461916
Why not? Is god not all-powerful? Is creating a rock too heavy for him beyond his infinite power?
The reason paganism makes more sense than monotheism is because it makes sense that imperfect gods would create an imperfect universe, whereas it makes no sense that a perfect god would create an imperfect universe. The human form is one that can abruptly fail because cell-division goes awry, it's built on blueprints composed largely of useless junk, it's imperfect.
>>461942
You're just saying random words and hoping it sticks, aren't you.
>>461958
You have no basis on which to call this imperfect. Mistakes in cell division is the entire basis of evolution, is that imperfect too? What would a "perfect" universe be according to you, one of homogeneous emptiness?
>>461961
That's the point. "Beyond our comprehension".
That's what I mean when I say "fall into limitation of human knowledge".
Omnipotence is linked to the death of logical thinking because we accept something as "too big to be understood"
It's way more rational to think something we can't explain is wrong in its core.
>>461987
There is absolutely nothing illogical or irrational about God or about omnipotence, only about your nonsensical concept of something "so heavy it can't be lifted". You're the one who has an issue with logic, Christianity does not.
>>461987
It's not God that's beyond our comprehension, it's the retarded rock you made up.
>>461967
No, I mean that everybody here is talking about that dumb rock and some anon tries to disprove omnipotence by that rock being illogical. However, there is no reason to think that logic wasn't created by God. Why should an omnipotent God be bound by rules of logic? He is omnipotent after all. And I used an example of quantum logic to show that even the everyday, classical (aka Aristotelian) logic isn't absolute
>>461729
Which is objectively wrong ironically.
>>462000
The rock is a means. As it is God when you try to explain omnipotence.
The question should be:
"Can someone/something omnipotent set a limit to his power?"
>>461696
I have a theory that monothiesm originally came from polythiesm. In many pagan religions your family or community might pick a patron god, and on some level I feel that that is where the jewish faith started. A branch off of a semetic group that favored a specific patron god.
Of course they were then influenced much by egyptian and mesopotamian mythology, and later graeco-roman.
I don't think you could call something like that revolutionary, but that's just my stance on it. What it developed into was most certainly revolutionary for the theological world though.
>>461975
Well a perfect creation wouldn't abruptly fail due to the most fundamental process of its body and wouldn't be built off of a blueprint composed mostly of useless garbage.
>>461975
>Mistakes in cell division is the entire basis of evolution, is that imperfect too?
Yes, as a matter of fact. Evolution can easily lead to results that hamper a species and result in its eventual extinction. Further, mistakes in cell division, in a perfect creation wouldn't result in the organism dying in absolute agony pointlessly.
Don't give me any of that "you don't suffer if you accept God into your heart" pap, because it's a load of life-denying bullshit. People who accept God into their heart suffer the same, they just delude themselves into thinking their suffering serves a purpose.
>>461696
In the specific case of history in Italy, you may want to remember that this monotheism was accompanied by a series of moral rules and guarantees that were very desirable and attractive for the followers of romano-hellenic paganism in the context of the 3rd century crisis. Which doesn't mean that similar ethics and promises couldn't be made by a polytheist religion (though it should be one more organized than the roman one), but the state decided to choose the monotheist one. In part because for a state a faith that deals with absolutes is attractive too.
>>462420
I don't see why not.
>>462552
Because those are both flaws, perfect things don't possess flaws.
>>461696
The general trend of gods throughout time (is not accurate to all cultures, but follows the general progression through most of the middle east, new religions that form may form at any level of a previously existing religion that it is in contact with
1: Gods are animals, the religion is polytheisitic and tends to be locked to areas with that particular distribution of animals
2: Gods are part animal part human, the religion is polytheisitic and the ability to spread is strictly limited
3:Gods are a pantheon of part animal part humans with the ruler of your nation and past rulers as members of the pantheon. Proselytizing is now possible by redesignating the other culture's gods as other aspects of your own pantheon.
4: Gods are human, the religion is polytheisitic and mythic heroes are incorporated as members of the pantheon. (Sometimes this is skipped and gods retain their non human appearance). Proselytizing continues as before
5: Gods are in everything and attempts to qualify the structure of the religion become a series of general guidelines at best, generally a core pantheon is maintained. Gods tend to be considered to be universally good at this point (Zeus rapes women, Jupiter does not) as the size of the pantheon reduces the general number of theological stories of any particular god, we also begin to observe a strict ranking of importance of gods.
6: This step is reasonably uncommon; but to avoid the mess of millions of gods we now demote all but one of the members of our pantheon from godhood, in the case of yhwh the semitic pagans only kept their war god. By demoting gods to new ranks (generally pilfered from notions of spirits or djinn from the previous myths of the culture) proselytizing now involves assigning the gods of another culture to these new lower ranks.
>>461894
I went looking for a source on the fresh blood thing, here's what I found:
>Fr. Giuseppe Castiglione; Episcopal Delegate
>Enzio d'Antonio; Archbishop of Lanciano-Ortona
>Fr. Giorgio Di Lembo; Minister Provincial of Abruzzo
This surely was an unbiased and correct source, and even that doesnt state that the blood was fresh, it found that it was probably human blood belonging to the AB group.
>>462933
Where did you find these frays?
