[MD] Theism/epistemology

[david buchanan]

MP quoted the bible:"God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him" (1 Jn 4:16).
Marsha quoted it too:"When the Lord your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess and drives out before you many nations . . . then you must destroy them totally. Make no treaty with them, and show them no mercy." (Deuteronomy 7:1-2)
MP replied:...Why the Deuteronomy quote? I don't see the relevance and it seems to imply a contradictory position to "Okay." ..I hesitate to respond until I understand your meaning.


dmb says:Not that I should be speaking for Marsha, but her meaning seems pretty clear to me. She's contrasting the merciless, genocidal nature of God with the notion that God is love. This contrast could hardly be more stark. You know, for God so loved the world but he was also angry, jealous and demanded a monopoly on vengeance. Not to mention Shiva the Destroyer, the Crusaders or the Inquisitors. ("Awe"' is the root word of both "awesome" and "awful".) I suppose the story goes that God cleaned up his act somewhere between the old and new testaments, as Christians have it. Or should I say "half" it? I recently learned that Socrates didn't disbelieve in the gods so much as he hated the way the myths depicted the gods. They'd never eat or fuck their children or do any of the other nasty stuff we find in myths. Instead, he thought, the gods were totally righteous dudes, virtuous in all ways. This attitude was inherited by Christianity. The contrast between good and evil and the notion of a cosmic battle between the two also comes down to us from Zoroaster (Zarathustra). From a psychological perspective, the naughty, ancient gods reflect a healthier mind. To side exclusively with goodness and light sounds right but actually entails the repression of natural elements in the total psyche. These repressed elements, BECAUSE they're repressed, develop into dangerously distorted versions of that element. In the language of myth, they become monsters that we have to face and overcome or else we'll eventually be swallowed up by them. These are the dragons that knights have to slay, the riddling trolls that guard the bridges, etc.. Jung calls this the shadow side and he says that health, wholeness and holiness entails the proper integration of these dark elements into the larger Self. What happens if we don't, if we continue to deny this darkness in our own hearts, is that we project it onto the other guy, the other group and this has very practical and very negative consequences, not the least of which is war and death and genocide. That, I think, is why we can change the world only by changing your own damn self. That's why it starts in your own head and heart and hands and not with some big plan for everybody.





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