Are we really looking to "unstack" the deck, or just struggling for control over who gets to stack it? Is "not allowing a divine foot in the door" any less stacked than allowing only one specific "divine foot" while disallowing any others?
What “we” is this, Pilgrim? Are you “looking to unstack the deck,” or “or just struggling for control over who gets to stack it?”
You misunderstand me terribly, dear tacticalogic, if you think I am seeking "control" over anything. I'm not here to win arguments, but to point to ideas that I find interesting.
Here's an idea that I find interesting:
...[I]rrespective of whether something actually "happened" in an historical sense, the historical (or horizontal) perspective of any scripture is only useful insofar as it helps to illuminate a non-historical or "vertical" dimension operating outside chronological time. Both religious and scientific fundamentalists attempt to locate in historical time what can only be found in metaphysical space, and mistakenly regard conventional history as more "real" that the deeper or higher truth from which it is a declension. To cite just one example, one may well believe that Moses led the enslaved Israelites out of the death-cult of Egypt and into freedom. But what relevance does this have for us today, unless it is still possible, with divine assistance, to escape the spiritual death-cult of our own psychic Egypt and be led toward the higher Light and Life? Likewise, if we consider some of the words used by Jesus — bread, water, blood, vine, birth, father, son — each of these has a literal sense, an abstract sense, and a highly resonant spiritual/experiential sense. In fact, one could almost define scripture as a special kind of language that operates in a top–down fashion, containing material from every stage and dimension of reality, from the mystical, noetic, and spiritual, to the moral and psychological, to the mythic and allegorical, to the concrete, material and historical. And this is precisely why it is so easy for billions of people to get caught up in the most concrete and literal aspect of scripture, oblivious to the higher and more subtle meanings it contains, for "they have ears, but hear not." — Robert W. Godwin, One Cosmos Under God: The Unification of Matter, Life, Mind and Spirit, 2004; p. 200f.It just remains for me to say that I regard "scientism" as a strongly doctrinal and dogmatic secular religion. And its adherents are definitely "fundamentalists" in the manner and type of preaching they preach.... And it seems as if such folk regard Darwin's theory as the holiest, most sacred of scientism's scriptural texts.
Well, just some thoughts, my friend. May you have a blessed, Merry Christmas!