[Hong Wu]

This is why Sly Bald Guy gets mad at you guys, you are all piling onto him really hard.

[Red Skull]

Name one religion that tolerates blatantly faithlessness among its members.

@noemon: What about Athena, where is her Heavenly Body?

Who's being faithless here? Oh, that's right you're a Muslim that views non-Muslims as being faithless that doesn't accept Allah and Mohamed as his prophet.

[Nets]

Do you really believe Odin exists? (And not some cop out like "he exists in the minds of his followers".)

I don't understand why you refuse to answer this.

This is why Sly Bald Guy gets mad at you guys, you are all piling onto him really hard.

How do you know slybaldguy?

[mikema63]

Yes or No.

[noemon]

Growing up I had D'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths and D'Aulaires' Book of Norse Myths. Both were beautifully illustrated, but the Norse one was a snoozefest compared to the Greek mythology.

It's not very difficult though to understand why Athena comes outs of Zeus head, by the translation of her name: Αιθηναις Theou noe(sis) = mind of God, Athena is the mind of God in the literal sense, so it makes sense to imagine it so, too. /Plato.

[Red Skull]

Do you really believe Odin exists?



I find it equally improbable that Zeus, Odin, Yahweh or Vishnu exist. The difference is that there is actually some cultural continuity in these cases. Shintoism is the culture of the Japanese and has been for millennia. Odinism isn't your culture, it is a rejection of your culture. This is why people find it more suspicious than Shintoism.



This.

Earlier I spoke about how I see modern paganism in terms of pluralism coinciding with panentheism and pantheism.

I also view the gods in terms of symbolic Jungian archetypes. Taking in all of that you'll understand my beliefs more.

Who are you to say what my culture is and isn't?


Also, continuity has to start from somewhere. Everything has its beginnings.

[mikema63]

That is not a yes or no. In fact it's rather unclear what your even talking about, it's just hand waving.

[Dagoth Ur]

Who's being faithless here? Oh, that's right you're a Muslim that views non-Muslims as being faithless that doesn't accept Allah and Mohamed as his prophet.

1. How would that make me faithless?
2. Nothing in Islam states that non-muslims are faithless. "Unbeliever" does not mean that someone has no beliefs but that they refuse to believe in Judaism, Christianity, or Islam. The faith of Arab pagans in their father's religion is made clear in several accounts of early Islam.
3. Why do you not believe in this God you uphold? Are your Gods outside of their "followers"?

[Red Skull]

That is not a yes or no. In fact it's rather unclear what your even talking about, it's just hand waving.

Words that convey message behind them. It's not my fault if you don't understand what is being presented to you.

[Dagoth Ur]

It is your fault since you are trying to explain yourself. When people don't understand it isn't because they are dumb it is because you have presented your information in a bad way. Communication is a two-way street.

[Red Skull]

It is your fault since you are trying to explain yourself. When people don't understand it isn't because they are dumb it is because you have presented your information in a bad way. Communication is a two-way street.

Finding the meaning and definition of words is as easy as clicking on a search engine in finding out.

People's laziness here doesn't affect my resolve.

Growing up I had D'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths and D'Aulaires' Book of Norse Myths. Both were beautifully illustrated, but the Norse one was a snoozefest compared to the Greek mythology.

In modern Greece there is the movement of Hellenismos in direct opposition to Christian Orthodoxy.

[Dagoth Ur]

Almost all we know about ancient Greece today is thanks to Muslim librarians. And all of the rest through Christians.

I'll repeat: Are your Gods outside their "followers"?

[Red Skull]

Almost all we know about ancient Greece today is thanks to Muslim librarians. And all of the rest through Christians.

I'll repeat: Are your Gods outside their "followers"?

All the atheists, Communists, and other religious affiliations such as yourself are not interested in conversation or learning.

You're only interested in belittling, insulting, and being combative where really through tremendous patience I have said all I am going to say amongst you people.

[noemon]

That is not really true DU, because I'm pretty sure that we would know a lot more without the Muslims. Muslim scholars expanded and contributed only in the Aristotelian tradition, we should be grateful for their contributions on it but not for them being the reason the tradition itself exists because they are not the only ones to do so. Everything we know about Greece comes from the modern Greeks themselves and their byzantine tradition. Even very recently, Greeks had to salvage manuscripts from Constantinople, Smyrne, Soumela and other places. Greek places in Turkey, not Muslim places.

[mikema63]

Red Skull, the only one who isn't interested in the discussion is you with your complete unwillingness to answer the most basic question about your religion and this thread.

Do you believe the gods are real?

[Dagoth Ur]

@noemon: Why would we know more? If muslims hadn't been keeping libraries nobody would have.

Everything you know? Fifteen-hundred years of overwriting pagan history had no effect on Greece? And are modern Greeks suddenly not Christians?

@red skull: I am asking a simple question. Do your Gods exist outside of their "followers"? This a completely insult free question, I don't see why you can't give me an answer one way or another.

[noemon]

Why would we know more? If muslims hadn't been keeping libraries nobody would have.

If Muslims hadn't sacked and burnt the Greek libraries you mean and kept only what they could come to terms with and even that not for long. They would have done so.

[Dagoth Ur]

lel fair enough. At least they just burnt the buildings and kept the books. I doubt they would have survived medieval era. It isn't like muslims stole every single scrap of ancient greek philosophy from the continent.

[Red Skull]

Red Skull, the only one who isn't interested in the discussion is you with your complete unwillingness to answer the most basic question about your religion and this thread.

Do you believe the gods are real?

I've already responded to you guys on this question. It's not me who refuses to look up the definitions of words and their meanings to know what I am talking about. I refuse to indulge in the combative displays in any of you.

[Nets]

Re: the Dagoth-Noemon exchange,

In 642 AD, Alexandria was captured by the Muslim army of Amr ibn al `Aas. There are five Arabic sources, all at least 500 years after the supposed events, which mention the fate of the library.
...
The longest version of the story is in the Syriac Christian author Bar-Hebraeus (1226–1286), also known as Abu'l Faraj. He translated extracts from his history, the Chronicum Syriacum into Arabic, and added extra material from Arab sources. In this Historia Compendiosa Dynastiarum[20] he describes a certain "John Grammaticus" (490–570) asking Amr for the "books in the royal library." Amr writes to Omar for instructions, and Omar replies: "If those books are in agreement with the Quran, we have no need of them; and if these are opposed to the Quran, destroy them."[21]

The story is likely apocryphal, but I always cite it when students ask me how I feel about behavioral economics.