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This thread is for discussing III. "The Christian World View."

This is both the end of Greek and the start of the Christian World View.

I read this part riding in on Metro this morning. It struck me that Plato was the dreamer, the architect of Greek Philosophy. Aristotle was the builder. The man that made it functional. I found it interesting how Plato thought mathematics was proof of the godhead. That god was made real through math.

What Plato did was go the step beyond. In this I mean from story telling and observation to trying to find proof in math of the underlying connection of all to god and the archetypes that sprang from god.

The author closed with how Alexander the Great in conquering Greece actually made it immortal. That was followed by the realization that any major change of how people view the world, and their place in it, the narrative of life I suppose, is only accomplished by war or violent revolution.

The section on the Christian World View has been a rehash of what I have already knew so I am going to continue reading.

nova wrote:That was followed by the realization that any major change of how people view the world, and their place in it, the narrative of life I suppose, is only accomplished by war or violent revolution.

I disagree with that. Many philosophical developments, such as the Enlightenment and the Scientific Revolution, weren't violent. For that matter, the formation and initial spread of Christianity wasn't violent, though Christianity did inspire various wars later on. Violence generally doesn't create new ideas.

Instead, violence lets a more powerful power imprint their ideas on other cultures: Alexander the Great established Hellenism across the lands he conquered, as did Romans in their Empire and Western Europeans around the world.

I think it is really interesting how Tarnas describes a shift in philosophy. During the Greek period reason and knowledge were both extremely important. And different ideas were embraced. Christianity emphasized faith and there was only room for one idea. It makes me wonder why this shift happened. I don’t think that the Romans were that different from the Greeks in their philosophical leanings; it seems like they just co-opted Greek thought and made it their own.
Perhaps it was not an extremely huge change. Perhaps philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle were rare; he does talk about how mystery religions and the Greek Pantheon still played a role in people’s lives. Maybe this sort of faith was always important for a majority of people. It is intriguing. It seems from Tarnas’ perspective that Christianity was a Greek mystery religion that became important for everyone to practice.

seespotrun2008 wrote:I think it is really interesting how Tarnas describes a shift in philosophy. During the Greek period reason and knowledge were both extremely important. And different ideas were embraced. Christianity emphasized faith and there was only room for one idea. It makes me wonder why this shift happened. I don’t think that the Romans were that different from the Greeks in their philosophical leanings; it seems like they just co-opted Greek thought and made it their own.

Hi Seespotrun, interesting comment on Richard Tarnas. I think why the shift happened from the old pagan rational diversity to Christian uniformity was that as the Roman Empire grew and evolved, conflict over ideas became a source of material conflict. To maintain unity, the empire started with its own mythology, and switched to Christianity when they found the story of Jesus resonated more with how the dominant people wanted to understand history. The idea of Christ as a redemptive prophet who brings the empire to account was a compelling narrative. So, when Roman 'rule of law' met Christian 'rule of faith', they were reconciled under the view that 'faith is law'.

Perhaps it was not an extremely huge change. Perhaps philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle were rare; he does talk about how mystery religions and the Greek Pantheon still played a role in people’s lives. Maybe this sort of faith was always important for a majority of people. It is intriguing. It seems from Tarnas’ perspective that Christianity was a Greek mystery religion that became important for everyone to practice.

That is interesting to ask if our reading back on the Greeks assumes a more important position for philosophy than it actually had. Maybe the lost mysteries of pagan ritual and belief were more decisive than the philosophy of the Academy and Lyceum for how Christianity intertwined with Greek culture? For later Christian orthodox theologians, Plato and Aristotle were more congenial than were the popular mythologies. So mythology was suppressed in favour of a combination of philosophy and creed. After a while even the support of philosophy was ignored by the focus on the creed as the statement of truth.