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To: betty boop
I'm sure you're aware I don't believe that humanity has arrived at any final or even near-final truths just yet.

Science and technology have their root in the intellectual and moral traditions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. (As to the latter, Aristotle may never have made it into the Western tradition, had it not been for the "transmission belt" from great Arab thinkers such as Averroes and Alcinna.)

Thank you for this bit of historical insight. Seems Islam took a wrong turn somewhere, though.

All of the immediately above-named cultures (I should say spiritual communities, united by their shared convictions regarding the One True God -- the "I Am That Am" that is the mysterious but fundamentally Personal -- that is, supemely intelligent and willing god -- hold that God and His creation to be quite distinct entities. God is neither contained nor constrained by the rules he makes. The artist stands apart from his creation. You cannot physically locate Picasso in Guernica. Blame Aristotle for first recording this insight if you want to.

This subject-object separation is indeed quite Western and our conceptual treatment of the physical world as though it is apart from us has allowed our great strides in scientific understanding IMHO. Now for the "but" ... I would suggest that to believe any real-world situation is resolvable into two, and only two, alternatives is highly artificial and unduly restrictive. What I am driving at in my Redneck Intellectual way is there is a deep mystical tradition among all religions whereby the mystic very convincingly achieves at times seeming near-oneness with an ineffable something that completely belies apartness. Do we now have a third alternative? Is it possible that physicality is infused in some poorly understood way (by our sciences) with/by GodStuff, that all that we see is sacred? Does the artist indeed stand apart from his creations? These are of course a rhetorical questions -- you know what I think.

200 posted on 09/15/2002 8:39:08 PM PDT by Phaedrus
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To: betty boop
...These are of course -a- rhetorical questions...

If at first you don't succeed ... ;-}

201 posted on 09/15/2002 8:49:33 PM PDT by Phaedrus
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