What do we mean?

Originally posted by twhitehead
I suppose that there is always a danger in using analogies or symbology as it is always open to being 'over interpreted' often even by the person who first creates the analogy. For example the father-son relationship in Christianity between Jesus and 'the Father' is taken by some to be symbolic but they often loose sight of the symbolism and take it far m ...[text shortened]... in Christianity where there is often confusion as to what they mean in a given context.

Oh, kindly please give me a moment🙂

This is a concept first implied in Mahabharata -the Trinity: "God" is a pure entity full of unthinkable dynamism, but non-acting. "God" is pure energy/ spirit, without flesh, whilst every existence emanated through flesh is condemned to Life and Death. And the basis of Life is the Rhythm and not the constant progress ahead.

On the contrary, the biggest problem with Christianity is that neglects the Rhythm, for it counterbalances "God" with "Evil" instead of following the model "Shiva - Vishnu". The dualism of the Christian religion is not balancing but antagonistic, and this is the reason why it cannot lead to the functionary Third entity where the power is finally balanced. The "God" of the Christians remains just the same eis tous aionas ton aionon and never develops through the ever developing emanations. As a result the Christian religion has not the sense of Analogy because it cannot contain the law of the Balance/ Rhythm in the Space/ Time😵

Originally posted by twhitehead
I suppose that there is always a danger in using analogies or symbology as it is always open to being 'over interpreted' often even by the person who first creates the analogy. For example the father-son relationship in Christianity between Jesus and 'the Father' is taken by some to be symbolic but they often loose sight of the symbolism and take it far m ...[text shortened]... in Christianity where there is often confusion as to what they mean in a given context.

I suppose that there is always a danger in using analogies or symbology as it is always open to being 'over interpreted' often even by the person who first creates the analogy.

Agreed. Sometimes access to multiple interpretations is intentional (just as sometimes paradox is intentional). Sometimes multiple (valid) interpretations are just inescapable. It depends on the nature of the communication. A text is different from verbal communication (where one can ask questions of clarification), and likely more subject to “over-interpretation”; one has to be aware of one’s hermeneutical assumptions and guidelines.

Another thing, that both you and I have addressed before, is the use of symbols and analogies and such to cover over (intentionally or not) concepts that are simply, at bottom, incoherent. And that may be a case where the person who creates the symbols or analogies “over-interprets” to try to make the concept coherent (rather like adding more and more epicycles to make the Ptolemaic solar system cohere?). Sometimes, there just is no coherent interpretation to be had.

Originally posted by vistesd
[b]I suppose that there is always a danger in using analogies or symbology as it is always open to being 'over interpreted' often even by the person who first creates the analogy.

Agreed. Sometimes access to multiple interpretations is intentional (just as sometimes paradox is intentional). Sometimes multiple (valid) interpretations are just inescap ...[text shortened]... olemaic solar system cohere?). Sometimes, there just is no coherent interpretation to be had.[/b]

I return to Einstein again and again to study his ideas.

I believe I understand some substantial part of what he thought about the universe.

I also believe I understand his statements indicating what he didn't know.

He spoke of a religious awe of the universe as a system that followed what we call laws and which has a structure so complex that neither Einstein or anyone since has yet comprehensively to identify, describe, or understand.

Yet Einstein believed that mathematics was proof in and of itself that once observed or shown to be the case, the universe as a system was not a random, fantastic collection of disconnected aberrant characteristics. He believed, but could not prove, that the laws of physics, for example, would run true. But he didn't have the technology to prove through empirical evidence his mathematics that indicated gravity bent light. Since his era, we've done that and he was proved correct in that and many other respects -- empirically.

At the root of his thought is the idea that all of this incomprehensibly complex system that is the universe was all that there is or was and that therefore nothing apart from it constituted what he would use the word "God" to describe. Much as the Buddhists or Spinoza, the universe was God. This is not to say he believed the universe occurred or operated by accident. Quite the contrary.

My aversion to organized religion is that of the agnostic -- I do not deny the probability that the universe, and indeed an infinite number of quantum realities, may be a design or a deliberately created series of systems.

I am averse to anyone who claims to know that which presently is unknowable, beyond our ken. And I am hostile to all those who insist on attempting to exercise social control or political authority in the name of this false understanding that they adopt as a pretense in order to exercise control and authority.

It doesn't help that so much of religious dogma of whatever stripe you please appears so completely ludicrous. The specifics of all these faiths make it quite impossible, I think, for a rational person to take them seriously, even if it leaves one quite alone under the cold vacuum of apparently infinite time and space.

It would indeed be much warmer and easier to just switch off the mind and huddle with the rest of the faithful, secure in the mass decision to eschew the rational for the comfort of a good bedtime story.