Hatter <Hatter23@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>:
>nocTifer <yronwode.com@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>> Hatter<Hatte...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>:
>> >panamfl...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
wrote:
>> >Notice every religion has been touted as the eternal [Truth],
>>
>> not all of them even believe in eternality.
>
>But the overwhelming majority do
I cannot confirm that this is so.
>> >yet they never seem to survive the fall of the culture
>> >that sup****ted them, or at least not intact.
>>
>> dunno, many Asian and Indian religions have done so.
>
>Really? They have survived but there never has been
>a complete cultural collapse.
your reference to a "complete cultural collapse" is
probably something on the order of the Harrappan or
Vesuvian civilizations, i gather, and with this i
can find little to quarrel.
> No the religions have not survived intact from a
>complete collapse of culture....there has ever
>been a complete collapse like the [Mayans],
there are at least some remains of the Mayans.
>The Celts,
tough one to ascertain. I didn't know they could
be identified with a single cultural structure that
may be presumed to have suffered a complete collapse,
but you're probably quite correct.
>The Romans,
there is in this instance a particular point in
Western history known as 'the Fall of the Roman
Empire' and this is likely to what you refer.
>The Easter Islanders,etc.
dunno about that one.
so your argument seems to be that culture informs
and sustains religion in a way that it does not
inform and sustain technology. the logical come-
back would therefore be that religions and
technologies *might* be said both to be revived
at points in time, and that modern Neopaganism
is an attempted return to those religions,
whereas the technologies are fairly easy to
track.
one that impacts my local zone is the use of
certain fungi to dye (long lost but the name
of the shroom conveyed this to an artist who
experimented and reinvented the technology
probably lost for hundreds of years).
your response is surely to be that religions aren't
really ever re-created, but are only facilely
reproduced at distance of time and space without
the rudiments which culture gave it in its original,
and i would be hard-pressed to gainsay you.
>> >Yet when it come to things like ceramics, iron forging,
>> >gunpowder....these are not held to be eternal truths
>>
>> they're technologies, not expressions per se.
>
>That's the point. When you figure out how things really
>work...you have found something much closer to an eternal
>truth than the myths and magics
I find it difficult to argue this against you, but i'll try
because the topic is so intriguing. :) analyzing this a bit,
an "eternal truth" is going to be something on the order of
a principle of nature, like the laws of thermodynamics,
whereas the "myths and magics" that you are mentioning you
think are more flexible and likely to change through time
or as constructed by different cultures.
I would like to point out that there are some commonalities
of myth and definitely principles common to magic the world
round. if you think that for some reason this doesn't
qualify in the same way as the technology of physicality,
please explain why it could not be technology of another
character (psychic/spiritual/mental). examples here include
the Sun God in myth and the principle of Contageon in magic.
>> >by religion but most seem to easily survive the fall
>> >of the culture that invented
>>
>> technology will do so if there is a incentive to
>> retain it.
>
>Mostly...because unlike religion...it works...that's my point
some religions do seem to survive as was said by others in
this thread. cultures ex****t religions, for example, and
then the religion survives beyond the culture.
>> >them. Yet, they were not held to the esteem religion was.
>>
>> of course, because ultimacy is compelling.
>> technology is not ultimate. it is pragmatic.
>
>Pragmatic...exactly. Non-cultural dependent. The way the
>real world works...unlike myth and magic
the problem with "real world" is that it comes with its
built-in premise of ultimacy. you're merely reiterating
your claim here, not substantiating it for me.
>> >It really isn't difficult to figure out science works
>>
>> knowledge applied is convincing.
>>
>> >and survive because it is real
>>
>> and so if science doesn't survive then it isn't real?
>> I don't follow the logic.
>
>No, you've got it slightly backward..if it doesn't survive,
>chances are it wasn't real. If something is cultural dependent,
>religion...magic....mythology...it was a cultural convention
>and not an aspect of how the real world works.
same should be true for science.
>Now there are some lost technolgies...I'll give you that,
>and there were some non-real memes that survive [cultural]
>****fts, yes. However when you look at cross cultural
>survivability and spread, technology seems to be right
>at the top of the list.
physical technology, agreed. it is the most stable and
likely to be reproduced. that doesn't mean that magic
and mysticism (and myth) aren't a different *kind* of
technology that is "soft" and more malleable. granted
this possibility, we might see it reproduced less often
in quite the same ways, but repeating nonetheless.
>> >and religion doesn't because it is cultural.
>>
>> if religion does then it is real? ....
>No...it was an observation of how easily religion falls apart when a
>culture that sup****ted it does and drawing a conclusion based on
>scores and scores of example throughout history, yet technology seems
>to work for everybody and coming to the obvious conclusion that
>religion is a cultural meme (hence not actually real) and technology
>works for everyone (hence is real)....
I'm inclined to agree, but i wonder how far that
assertion really goes. I've tried to make the case here
that some of these things associated with religion might
be *types* of technology (especially in guises of magic
and mysticism), and that these have their own forms of
principles which are re-used over and over for personal
(and subjective) effects at least that resurface or are
surviving cultures in a similar way that physical
technology does.
that is, my assertion in response is that "the real"
is not just the physical, but also incor****ates other
dimensions of things. as such, technology might be
more than guns and bomb and plows.
nocTifer
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