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Internet Sacred Text Archive

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Re: Internet Sacred Text Archive

#71

Post by kiba »

edgyquant wrote: post #27
Podgajski wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you look at religion, folklore, mythology, as metaphors, then you really can’t exclude anything as a religion, that includes science, which is also a metaphor. All language is a metaphor. Science as you practice it today, to me, is also a religion. I don’t mean that to denigrate science in anyway. We need metaphors to make the infinite more manageable. And by metaphor I mean a thing regarded as representative or s…

You’re definitely correct about the religion part. That people want their religion to have “modern physics” shows just how religious science has become in the last century. Religion is supposed to be about guidance for people and how to live a good life as a part of the whole. Dealing with ethical codes, coping with the human condition of stress and suffering, familial and social bonds etc. Science on the other hand,…

Religion is supposed to be about guidance for people and how to live a good life as a part of the whole. Dealing with ethical codes, coping with the human condition of stress and suffering, familial and social bonds etc.

It's all just mythology that also have some moral guidance, some of which is incompatible or purported to be incompatible with existence of people I care about.

It isn't made for you and me today. It's made for people who lived thousand of years ago with their concerns and values.

Science on the other hand, at least hard science, is focused on making predictions about the material world. The two have very little overlap in general and trying to mix them I fear will not result in good science or good religion.

Science is one of our most valuable and most reliable way to answer questions about reality. As such, it will always be a useful tool to help inform our moral questions, even if it's basically mostly silent on that question.

Re: Internet Sacred Text Archive

#72

Post by nprateem »

naremu wrote: post #47
nprateem wrote: post #20

Kind of related to what I was mentioning on the Godel thread, but IMO the Kundalini (or whatever you call it) experience is the "grand unifying theory" of religion and mythology (although it's not actually a theory, but an experience). It provides an explanation for where religions may have come from, beyond our typically pompous attitude that earlier generations of people were superstitious and stupid. Instead, it s…

The Perennial Philosophy (both the concept and the book) focuses on more these types of things. It brings up that even in Christianity you can easily point at the non-personified elements of the theology and find conceptual relation to geographically unrelated beliefs. One interesting bit he mentions is how dangerous it could be to be one of those people without being in some prophetic or theologically defensible pos…

Yeah, historically, and even now, there were good reasons for not talking about altered states of consciousness too much. It seemed like a good way to end up being executed.

Now describing some of the experiences that are supposed to accompany altered states (hallucinations, strange abilities, etc) could still lead to reputational damage. Hopefully things are changing though, as Western scientists are beginning to study spiritual awakenings:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8417526/

https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2012-34730-006

Re: Internet Sacred Text Archive

#73

Post by stonlyb »

CrypticShift wrote: post #29
stonlyb wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Im reminded of Roko's basilisk which I suppose may have gained a significant number of new believers in the last year. What I'm looking for is something specific to physics or astrophysics and that is at the scale of god / mythical creature creating. Like someone writing a literal (mythical?) interpretation of "Maxwell's Demon" into a new-new testament.

So, you are looking for a "religiously presented" science text [1] rather than "scientifically presented" religious text (as most comments here suggest)? [1] i.e inferring classic religious ideas, like God/demons/etc from scientific premises

Both but yes more interested in "religiously presented" science. Again, based on the assumption that most religions started as tools approximately explaining what was known at the time (or for defining and increasing adherence to local policy).

Re: Internet Sacred Text Archive

#74

Post by elefanten »

serf wrote: post #37
edgyquant wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Basic assumption is that most/all are based on dated observations of seasons, planets, stars, etc -- things that were once mysteries in the mechanical universe. I think this is pretty much propaganda from anti-religious people. I have read all of the major religious texts over the last two years and If you look at most religions and their scriptures they deal very little with the physical world in general and are mo…

> I have read all of the major religious texts over the last two years you're doing better than a lot of monks did over their entire life time. call me a skeptic, but even if I was able to accomplish such a herculean feat over 2 years time I doubt I would have the time to grasp much of any of the content that I blazed through -- but of course we're different people -- allow me to express my awe.

Seems like the natural gulf between a serf and an edgy quant. :shrug:

Re: Internet Sacred Text Archive

#75

Post by neaden »

eruleman wrote: post #65
smeej wrote: post #64

> The Gospel of Thomas Reputedly the writings of the apostle ‘Doubting Thomas’. This text purports to be a collection of the sayings of Jesus. Traditionally Thomas was Jesus’ twin brother. This text shows strong Gnostic influence. I'll admit I'm not deeply familiar with most religious traditions, but I am absolutely sure none of the major ones have any "tradition" in which Jesus had a twin brother. Yes, "Thomas" mean…

You’re not familiar with this text or gnosticism. GPT-4: “In Gnostic texts, particularly those found in the Nag Hammadi library, Thomas is often referred to as "Didymos Judas Thomas." The name "Didymos" is Greek for "twin," and "Thomas" is Aramaic for "twin." In the Gospel of Thomas, one of the Gnostic gospels, Thomas is depicted as having a special understanding or connection to Jesus, but the text does not explicit…

Leaving aside GPT as a source you're saying agreeing with OP that Thomas is not traditionally understood to be Jesus' twin brother, except in perhaps a spiritual sense so the summary is wrong.

Re: Internet Sacred Text Archive

#76

Post by archon1410 »

smeej wrote: post #64

> The Gospel of Thomas Reputedly the writings of the apostle ‘Doubting Thomas’. This text purports to be a collection of the sayings of Jesus. Traditionally Thomas was Jesus’ twin brother. This text shows strong Gnostic influence. I'll admit I'm not deeply familiar with most religious traditions, but I am absolutely sure none of the major ones have any "tradition" in which Jesus had a twin brother. Yes, "Thomas" mean…

> In later traditions (most notably in the Acts of Thomas, Book of Thomas the Contender, etc.), Thomas is regarded as the twin brother of Jesus.

Wikipedia cites a primary source, a translation of the Gospel of Thomas by John D. Turner, for this claim. It does has say "Now, since it has been said that you are my 8 twin and true companion [...]" in that translation.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_of_Thomas

http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/bookt-jdt-ln.html

Re: Internet Sacred Text Archive

#77

Post by xhevahir »

smeej wrote: post #64

> The Gospel of Thomas Reputedly the writings of the apostle ‘Doubting Thomas’. This text purports to be a collection of the sayings of Jesus. Traditionally Thomas was Jesus’ twin brother. This text shows strong Gnostic influence. I'll admit I'm not deeply familiar with most religious traditions, but I am absolutely sure none of the major ones have any "tradition" in which Jesus had a twin brother. Yes, "Thomas" mean…

Like the other commenter said, The Gospel of Thomas is a real religious scripture from a date very early in the Christian era. When Origen, Eusebius, and the other Church Fathers decided which texts and doctrines were properly Christian, they didn't include the Gospel of Thomas. Assuming they were aware of Thomas at all, they would have judged its content to be heretical. It's likely, though, that Thomas' readers saw it as forming part of the nascent Jesus movement. Not only that, it shows signs of having borrowed from the same "sayings gospel," "Q," that the authors of the Synoptic Gospels used as a source

Re: Internet Sacred Text Archive

#78

Post by stryan »

neaden wrote: post #75
eruleman wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re not familiar with this text or gnosticism. GPT-4: “In Gnostic texts, particularly those found in the Nag Hammadi library, Thomas is often referred to as "Didymos Judas Thomas." The name "Didymos" is Greek for "twin," and "Thomas" is Aramaic for "twin." In the Gospel of Thomas, one of the Gnostic gospels, Thomas is depicted as having a special understanding or connection to Jesus, but the text does not explicit…

Leaving aside GPT as a source you're saying agreeing with OP that Thomas is not traditionally understood to be Jesus' twin brother, except in perhaps a spiritual sense so the summary is wrong.

The summary is written in the context of the tradition the text is in, not an overall Christian/etc context.

Re: Internet Sacred Text Archive

#79

Post by verisimi »

smeej wrote: post #64

> The Gospel of Thomas Reputedly the writings of the apostle ‘Doubting Thomas’. This text purports to be a collection of the sayings of Jesus. Traditionally Thomas was Jesus’ twin brother. This text shows strong Gnostic influence. I'll admit I'm not deeply familiar with most religious traditions, but I am absolutely sure none of the major ones have any "tradition" in which Jesus had a twin brother. Yes, "Thomas" mean…

What else can you tell us about the historicity Jesus? And how is it you are able to say anything about this person that is purported to have lived 2000 years ago?

Re: Internet Sacred Text Archive

#80

Post by fnorder »

a-ungurianu wrote: post #25

Wonder how hard would it be to convert all the public domain texts to Standard Ebooks. I know there’s already ebooks of most of these texts, but having them all together in a standard form would be nice.

This would be a cool project for a Uni Humanities Department and would lend some credibility to the finished product. Get them rolling with some basic infra; a site, wiki, bugtracker and git repo.
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