[FRIAM] the role of metaphor in scientific thought

[Steven A Smith]

Glen -

>> Works for me, I was thinking "crypto athiest"...
> Naa.  I don't qualify as any sort of atheist.  I have gods, they're just unique gods.
Understood...  "crypto-animist" perhaps?   I didn't think much of the 
term (animist) until I encountered it in Abram's "Spell of the Sensuous" 
which I am now recognizing anew in the "Pan Consciousness" movement.   
You may also enjoy, if you haven't read it, Neal Gaiman's "American 
Gods"...
>> Interesting that you didn't believe "a word uttered in Mass" while I, as a young adult came to believe (or at least a appreciate) a great deal of what was uttered in Mass. […] I "believed" a great deal of what he offered in those Homilies.
> Hm.  I suppose we could parse "believe".  But I've had way too many arguments about the difference (or lack thereof) between belief and knowledge.  I don't enjoy them much anymore.
I guess more important to me was that I *liked* and *tended to agree 
with* a great deal of what he had to say.  His Homilies illuminated my 
understanding of the mystery of being human in this world in a new and 
larger way than I had before.   None of that was, by the way, couched in 
the specific dogma of Catholicism or even Christianity.    His 
conception of "Grace" for example, did not require a literal belief in a 
Paternalistic God, or a Forgiving Son, though maybe something like a 
mysterious "Holy Spirit", nor a literal Garden of Eden or a Snake or an 
Apple, or Satan or ....   It might be noted that he had a lot of tussle 
with the congregation at-large, partly over his "secular" style.   
Selfishly, it "worked for me"!
>> I lost what little "faith" in Christian Dogma I might have had when during a summer Bible School teaching (9 years old?).  I got really excited by the many "miracles" (manna from heaven, red sea parting, burning bushes, virgin birth, rising from the dead, etc.) and when I expressed my enthusiasm, taking these to be literal and true and verifiable stories, my Bible School teacher became very stern with me, but did not attempt to explain allegory or parable to me, leaving me to believe that SHE didn't believe those stories either. Kinda undermined the magic of it all!  I got a little back years later when I came to understand allegory and parable.
> Heh, I kinda wish I'd had more "people in positions of power" like that.  Maybe I did and just ignored any power they had.  My CCD teacher taught us to meditate and chant.  I knew Jesus as Buddha before I learned anything about Buddha.
I wish I had not been so quick to ignore/dismiss those "people in 
positions of power" myself.   It *did* allow/require me to do a lot more 
thinking for myself than if I'd swallowed their hooks, lines and 
sinkers, but I think there might have been a finer line to have 
appreciated than I did.   For example, if I'd recognized those 
miraculous stories for what they were, I might have returned for more of 
that good 'ole Bible- thumpery-for-children and developed a more astute 
understanding/appreciation of Christianity earlier...  I feel quite 
lucky to have been immersed in Catholicism as much as I was, and only 
wish I had had more opportunity to get the same up-close-and-personal 
taste of other "foreign" cultures.

I've a very good friend born/raised Muslim but extremely Westernized who 
I wish would take me into her family for a year... she lives in 
Australia...  otherwise I think she would.  Her father (now deceased) 
was known for his scholarly nature and his affection for "Whiteys" (her 
term, not mine) and the class of discourse they offered that was 
different from his own peers in Islamic culture... she was raised at his 
knee watching John Ford Westerns, many set in our local scenery...  She 
is a very powerful hybrid of three cultures.   I have numerous Native 
American friends but they are mostly if not all too "Americanized" to 
give me yet more cultural/spiritual parallax, not to mention the clutter 
we have loaded on them with ideas like "noble Savage".   Even those born 
and raised in the relative isolation of a "the Rez"... or more likely, 
I'm not listening carefully enough.

- Steve