On 03-07-98 Keith Knapp wrote to Day Brown... 
 KK> DB>This notion has lead me to the study of mysticism and myth which 
 KK> DB>has had the serendiptous effect of exposing to me cosmologies that 
 KK> DB>are as ancient, or more, than religious dogma, but which aren't in 
 KK> DB>fact, in contradiction to the available scientific interpretions 
 KK> DB>of the facts such as we now find them in the digs, telescopes and 
 KK> DB>quantum physics labs. 
 KK>  
 KK> That is all well and good, IMHO, but the reason I think the 20th 
 KK> century is the most spiritual century of all time is because we 
 KK> are learning to separate superstition from spirituality.  Rejecting 
 KK> the literality of Genesis does not require us to reject the divinity 
 KK> of Jesus. 
 KK>  
 KK> Empirical spirituality?   
 KK>  
 KK> Some ancient cosmologies require insights that go beyond words, 
 KK> and modern physics does too.  It does not follow, however, that 
 KK> therefore the object pointed to is the same thing. 
"Empirical Spirituality?" hey that's cute. I gotta get that into a 
tagline.  It is at the heart of the ancient Greek experience known 
as the Eleusian Mysteries... which was exactly as you say, 'beyond 
words' but was also part of the scientific [ it was an experience 
that was a rite of passage for] Greeks like Aristotle- generally 
regarded as the founder of 'Science'. 
 
Superstition is not all it's cracked up to be. The explosion of 
herbology is based on it, and shows surprising insights. I think 
the explosion of spirituality you refer to is a by-product of the 
modern means of production that allow leisure now for folks to go 
and spend time looking into it.  It is also a by-product, or even 
a rebellion to, all the hype used to sell increasingly trivial 
items into a market already saturated with junk. 
 
I do not reject the divinity of Jesus.  God can, as the Bagavad- 
Gita tells us, make any form, and animate it anyway that he likes; 
such a form is an 'Avatar'.  Jesus was an Avatar.  *Why* he acted 
as he did is a far more open question than most folks assume. The 
gospel author says it was to save men from evil.  Zoroaster said 
that life was a struggle between 'Good' vs. ignorance & insanity. 
I find such a view consistent with what I know about humans and 
the reasons they act as they do. *Evil* per se, is an obsolete, 
and erroneous concept, and thus also- is 'sin'. 
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 * OFFLINE 1.58 * Reverse engineering the atom is a real bitch. 
--- Maximus 3.01
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