Azrael wrote:they realized that during December the sun moved further away

This is not quite true. Earth's orbit is elliptical, so we do move towards and away from the sun, but this has nothing to do with the seasons in an annual sense. The tilt of the earth causes the seasons. At the present, the northern hemisphere is actually closer to the sun in winter than in summer. The perihelion, the point of closest approach to the sun, passed the winter solstice in 1296 AD (a candidate for the bottom point of the Kali Yuga). Over the next ten thousand years we will move to a position where the winter solstice is at the aphelion, the furthest point from the sun.

This cycle is driven by earth's spin wobble, as is precession of the equinox, and is a main driver of long term climate cycles. For interest, the link between precession and global climate over the last 420,000 years can be seen in this chart of ice core data.

What if we were to say the finite "is" and the infinite "is not"? This seems a logical way to deconstruct talk of the infinite.
...Any talk of the infinite here is just an analogy for the unknown, as when we say things like 'in freedom we are oriented to infinite possibilities.'

Here lies the problem. People refer to this or that as infinite, obviously not referring to literal infinity. Such as the example of "infinite possibilities" when referring to something finite in reality. I'm actually referring to something quite different. I'm referring to the fabric and structure of space extending beyond the finite range of our current perception. Yes, that is to refer to the unknown. But it's to logically deduce what we should expect to extend beyond our immediate range of perception. And these theories are very rational expecting that space and matter must necessarily continue on without limit. No one claims to know for sure until empirical data is gathered, but at the same time all of these people are working off of empirical data that they think points to a limitless space. That's one of the concerns of the LISA satellite. Humans want real answers to the hard questions, at least some of population does to be fair about the claim...

Robert you're hilarious because you have one foot planted in atheist science (strict BBT standard model science) and the other foot floundering about in liberal Christian views. Both strict standard model cosmology and Christian mythology have traditionally been hostile towards infinite cosmologies. And I've often differed with many from both of these polar opposite sides. With you I have the entire conflict wrapped up into one neat little package.

This is itself a never ending debate with cosmologies changing from infinite to finite and back and forth according to the current state of society at the time:

"In our century the cosmological pendulum has 'swung back'. The universe of present-day cosmology is more like that of Ptolemy and Augustine than that of Galileo and Kepler. Like the medieval cosmos, the modern universe is finite in time - it began in the Big Bang, and will end either in a Big Crunch or in slow decay and dissipation of all matter. A universe of unlimited progress from an infinite past to an infinite future makes sense when society is 'advancing'. But when that advance halts, when the idea of progress is mocked by the century of Verdun, Auschwitz, and Hiroshima, when the prospect of human betterment is dim, we should not be surprised that the 'decaying cosmos' again rises to dominance." - Eric Lerner

Ultimately I think that the right thing to do is to stick with the current standard model until it's been changed. You're justified in doing so in my view.

But this has very little to do with the Mythicist Position and a scientific evaluation of ancient myths and more to do with modern cosmology. The mythicist position is addressed to anyone from any perspective who feels that "many Gods and God-Men" of mythology are in fact personifications of the natural world and not necessarily based on real people, kings, rulers, sages or whatever. The MP is not addressed to finite or infinite cosmological speculation and that is in fact an aside to the MP itself, with people from both perspectives converging together in the MP. You and I are a primary example. We (mythicists) have theists and atheists as well. Deists, agnostics and gnostics. This is an all inclusive position that has to do with a scholarly oriented opinion on comparative mythological studies. Like the science of archaeo-astronomy. There is no fixed religious belief system associated with the MP. And it seems that there has been a little confusion over that issue due to the strong religious proselytizing tone you've taken in these discussions.

For instance, when we first met we did little more than debate back and forth, you from an evemerist position on Jesus and me from the MP. You were dead set against the MP as I recall. And I'm glad to see that you've grown alot after much reading and contemplation. When you say: "Mythicism is like a caulking gun for the god of the gaps" it's interesting to see how you've evolved since those initial conversations at FTN. Now there are panentheist's out there who take the MP, so obviously there are people who don't see it the same way you're seeing it. The MP, in and of itself, doesn't do anything to the "God of the Gaps" or any God belief really. Remember, it's actually an all inclusive position that doesn't really wipe out anyone. Even Christians can take a look at the evidence and lack thereof concerning the claim of an historical Jesus and conclude that mythicism is a sound position. Tom Harpur has done just that. He believes in God in some way, but understands that the Christ myth is a human construction at the very same time. It's important that when you express your personal feelings on mythicism that you make it clear to unsuspecting readers that you're offering a personal opinion about an all inclusive position that does nothing to bolster or eliminate God belief in and of itself.

I am a pantheist myself, as you know and others may not. But that doesn't make the MP an exclusive pantheist position. I actually offered it to the world pantheism community in our private discussion forums with very flaccid results. No one seemed to understand it. Most of the others favor evemerism, no different than most atheists out there. Although the MP fits well with Pantheism when all is said and done. Murdocks beliefs are expressed in her book "The Gospel According to Acharya S." I recognize many of them as pantheist type beliefs about the God concept. It would be incorrect for her or I to go around saying that the MP is exclusively pantheist just because we happen to favor pantheist philosophy. And the same holds true for your efforts to re-arrange Christianity into a focus on it's underlying astrotheological format and the possible compatibility with science. The MP is actually a mixing pot and likely will always be because it's nothing more than something that freethinkers in general can gather around regardless of personal belief or lack thereof. It wouldn't be right to present the MP any other way...

But really, the mythicist deconstruction of conventional faith starts from the rational assumption that the universe is consistent. Murdock makes a similar point when she says the Egyptian gods were understood within a cosmology that recognized the unity of the universe. So it starts with deconstructing the old claim that Jesus was god incarnate, and moves on to deconstruct the claim that miracles literally occurred. If we doubt that Jesus was a walking talking individual man, the ground is cut out from the idea that he literally performed miracles.

Deconstructing old myths about infinity is a direct logical extension from this mythicist analysis. It seems to me very hard to accept the doubt about the myth of Christ and then turn around and say that infinity is real. It is like making the infinite something finite, which is contradictory.

The part of Christianity that is much harder to deconstruct is the ethical teachings. Even when all the fantasy is stripped away, there are sublime texts such as the sermon on the mount and the last judgment that have an enduring meaning. I would say that the meaning of these texts is sharpened and clarified by setting the analysis of them within an objective finite scientific understanding. Even accepting that there are many Biblical ethics that have not stood the test of time, such as the endorsement of slavery and sexism in the ten commandments, the effort to deconstruct biblical morality still comes up against an enduring core.

So I would not accept that my marriage of mainstream science and 'liberal Christianity' is somehow 'floundering'. To me it is a coherent way to accept the truth in the various sources and reject the error, although the word 'liberal' is yet another term that stands in need of deconstruction. Murdock's argument in Christ in Egypt reflects a rational fury at church deception, and she implies at many points that she thinks Christianity as a whole is discredited by these findings. I prefer to say that even understanding that Christ is a myth does not detract from the essential ideals within the myth of a transformation of the world into a community of love and peace and truth and justice.

It wouldn't be fair for me to toss around the term "Liberal Christian" without clarifying what I mean by that. What I mean is that as long as I've known you, you've presented yourself as raised Christian, still attending church services, but also pantheist and atheist too. You were not raised in a conservative fundamentalist Christian environment from what I understand, or at least you never really subscribed the fundy views. Some one who professes Christianity but also rejects the supernaturalism of the mythology, is necessarily "liberal" about their Christianity. This should be plainly clear.

The only reason I say "floundering" around with one foot in liberal Christianity is because it's as if you're not confident enough to take that last step and remove yourself from the religion entirely. Instead this philosophical deconstruction seems like some type of way of trying to cling on for dear life to something, anything, that can be claimed as valid and scientific with regards to Christianity. This whole "mythos" verses "logos" is nothing but just that: 'Oh yes folks, the "logos" is in error for sure, but now the "mythos", that's entirely valid...' lol

Everyone has to follow their own path. And I accept this as you're personal journey. It's really interesting. And you have a lot of courage to make the stands that you do for what you believe in. As we read along I'll just chime in if I think you've gone beyond what Murdock has written and crossed over into what could be called "Tulipism." lol There's nothing wrong with Tulipism BTW, it's just best to be clear on where it parts ways with basic mythicism...

it's as if you're not confident enough to take that last step and remove yourself from the religion entirely

It is not about confidence, it is a view that rejection achieves far less than reform. My view is that mythicism presents a path for the reform of Christianity to make it compatible with science, for example in understanding that the Christ Myth has its origins in older heritage and in observation of the stars. Given that the original source of the Christian ideas appears to be astrotheological, a return to these sources offers far more prospect of changing people's opinions than the rather forlorn idea that we can abandon religion completely. It is better to be inside the tent pissing out than outside the tent pissing in. What do you see as replacing the social function of religion?

Insert: Can, or would, the social function of religion continue anyway if based on astrotheology? It seems much more intellectualized than what people are after in religion. Human nature seems to dictate that people roll more toward the concrete, literalistic meanings that we do see in most religions. How would funerals work under astrotheological Christianity, e.g.?

Robert Tulip wrote:

it's as if you're not confident enough to take that last step and remove yourself from the religion entirely

It is not about confidence, it is a view that rejection achieves far less than reform. My view is that mythicism presents a path for the reform of Christianity to make it compatible with science, for example in understanding that the Christ Myth has its origins in older heritage and in observation of the stars. Given that the original source of the Christian ideas appears to be astrotheological, a return to these sources offers far more prospect of changing people's opinions than the rather forlorn idea that we can abandon religion completely. It is better to be inside the tent pissing out than outside the tent pissing in. What do you see as replacing the social function of religion?

The whole reason that it went from these old astrotheological roots to literalism we see today is simply because the astrotheological structure wasn't for the average joe. In order to gather the sort of following that it did, the mythology, while very astrotheological, had to be viewed as world history and fantastic events promising an individual everlasting life if they simply believe and have faith in the surface storyline. And many people rushed in to take the proselytizers up on their offer. And those who did not come willingly were beat into submission, killed, or tortured. The Jews would not buy it. It seems oriented in such a way as to try and appeal to the Jews so that they would go along with the new religion and accept it as an extension of their own. But they refused. Why would they refuse? Probably because they knew good and well that this was not historical in the first place. It was obvious that the writers had quote mined the OT from the Septuagint, not the Hebrew OT, in order to piece work prophetic fulfillment claims like we find in Matthew. I feel that the Jews were too smart to fall for such evidence nonsense about their own scriptures and homeland which was so errant throughout, basically. The NT was a scholarly effort at religious hybridizing (much of this effort taking place in Alexandria, the center of Old World knowledge) and the evidence is all there for the taking.

The original format when stripped of all of the nonsense down to the sacred science of the ancients is basic: Keep society in accord with the natural cycles of the earth and cosmos.

So now, here we are in the modern era with some of us knowing this to the smallest detail. We have the ability to deconstruct this mythology down to a natural core. It gives you the sense that 'nature religion' should continue reformed so that everyone openly knows that their Christian religion is addressed to the natural cycles of the earth when all is said and done. What about the promise of eternal afterlife passed down from Egypt to Christianity in these evolving "Resurrection Religions"? We know that it was unscientific in Egyptian times, unscientific during Christian times, and unscientific now during our advancing secular era. The ancient astrotheological Pagans believed in afterlife. That is what kept all of these religions going along. Now what? Strip the general public of this fantasy and expect them to continue along with religious devotion with no ultimate "carrot-on-a-stick" reward concept to be sought after? How many will join such a reformation?

If we want to question what happens when religion eventually peter's out on it's own accord, we need only look to secular Denmark and other era's in northern Europe which have let it drop off as it were. From what I understand it's much better there than over here in the States where religion is still hanging on. I know from first hand experience that spiritual feelings carry on without any institutional religious structure to attach them to. I feel spiritual about the natural world, the seasons, life and existence, but in an atheist framework. The last thing I'd ever do is join some astrotheological version of Christianity. And I say that from years of reading about and understanding the astrotheology of the ancients. In those days they basically thought that they had to revere the sun in order that it would continue to rise. Or life on the planet would be doomed. And that's essentially why the priests led the people in ritual and festival to honor the sun. That's the Horus festivals of the rising sun. That continued for years and became such a strong tradition and it continued right on through the Christian era, although much more masked during the Christian era. It turned into a game of the priests leading the people to honor sun while telling the people that it isn't the sun they are honoring, rather this real god-man, which, just happens to possess all of these solar attributes. Even after it became obvious that the sun is not a god, the people have been led to honor the sun just for the sake of the ancient tradition to continue along.

As we're philosophizing, I must say that I have contemplated this in-depth over the years. Taking another perspective hinging on the evolution of a planet and the technological stages of an advancing society, it occured to me that the ancient reverence for the sun could possibly have something to do with the fact that one day it will be necessary to better harness the power of the sun, as an advanced technological society. Perhaps there has always been some type of primal urge to honor the sun which is built into our DNA from the long process of life evolving around the seasons, and precession of the equinoxes as you have pointed out time and again. This has to do with Sagan and other factors all mixed in together. We start out drawn to the power of the sun and form religions around it. These religions eventually give way to the separation of religion and science during advancing times, but the necessity of the sun continues. My question in all of this speculation is whether or not such an advancing society would continue to hold religious reverence for the sun or whether it will slowly become fully secular and science oriented? And I feel that religion is falling to rubble around us because that's simply the general trend of the evolution of life on this planet. Perhaps we are meant to grow out of it and move on to these proposed higher technological stages of harnessing the power of our local star. And from there perhaps space travel opens up and becomes possible. I don't know, I don't pretend to know in any absolute sense. But I have my speculations based on deducing a logical progression and outcome. Now as a Natural Pantheist I understand what it means to have a certain reverence for the universe of which we are all an interconnected part. But this is not something that needs institutionalization. It's personal. It's individualistic. There is no afterlife belief in Natural Pantheism. There's nothing to draw in the masses. Some people leaving behind religions like Christianity find themselves here, somewhere between theism and atheism. That's probably a stepping a stone in the direction of a fully secular world. I see it in progress all around us. People are waking up and realizing that organized religion is esssentially unnecessary and the pews are growing empty. I don't mean that to be too harsh, it's just what's happening. I am one of the many results of this wave sweeping the nation. I was once in those pews and I'll never return. There's no good reason to return. So I have this world view contrary to Christian astrotheological reform efforts.

That's really well said, tat. Hitchens said that the direction for religion in the current age was for it to be "optional and private," just as you said "religion" is for you. Others I think try to make of their own religious thinking something that should be adopted and followed in the same way that the old religions were. But that's going to be doomed to failure.

I had a related point to bring up with you concerning evemerism. I hadn't even heard of the word before you replied to a post of mine some months ago. I think I understand its intended use, but I see a problem with applying it any time someone says that Jesus, Mohammed, or Buddha were people who lived. To make such a statement isn't to indicate that one thinks that religious characters in general are deified real people. It's to say that in a particular case one thinks the evidence points to their existence. There can be a legitimate distinction to make between Jesus and Thor, looking at the merits of each case. If the reply to this is, "Well, you're favoring certain religious figures over others," my answer would be "Yes, but why is that wrong?"

It also can be a bit sketchy when someone implies that the fact that he/she used to hold a position means that the position held now must be more advanced and right. There should be a logical fallacy called "So once was I." Being in one camp and moving to another doesn't in itself mean that that the direction is from incorrect to correct. It might just be a direction of change. People move to less idealistic positions as they age, e.g.

Thanks Dwill. I appreciate your participation and input. And if I have offended you with the way I presented evemerism and the way I tend to use it in a derogatory sense of my own past, I should expand on that a little more. I'm actually not closed off to evemerism in individual cases like you mention. It's just that I've come to see this problem in the way that Interbane sees agnosticism, in terms of if there isn't enought evidence to move from a position of uncertainty to certainty, I prefer to stay with the uncertain position.

Evemerism is the position that the ancient Gods were based on a core of ancient deified ancestors. It can also apply individually however, such as in the case of viewing the Jesus myth as based on a human later deified. That is an evemerist view of the Christ myth and it's raised by Murdock in her initial work "The Christ Conspiracy: the greatest story ever sold." So it's a term we throw around often. It's probably the most popular position aside from the believer position.

The thing is that being born into belief I never bothered to even question whether or not there were extant trial records from Jesus crucifixion, lots of writers writing about the goings on in Jerusalem at the temple and such, historians writing much about this ground breaking new philosophy coming from the Son of God walking the earth in real time. As I aged into my teens I couldn't help but compare our myths to the myths of the Greeks and others who are equally fantastic and fantasy-like. Jonah in the belly of the fish bothered me especially, because I was raised in the Islands and am quite familiar with how ridiculous it is to take the story literally. The axe head floating in the river, the donkey that spoke, Elisha going up to Heaven, Enoch going to heaven, and an assortment of other tales began to come back to mind as the flood gates of reason opened in my mind. I decided to cross over to atheism after wrestling with this for a while and loosing in debate with one particular atheist. I was done with religion at the point and decided to put my interests in science instead, hoping to find something absolute by taking that direction (big surprises were ahead)... Through all of this I still just assumed that there was a plethora of credible evidence for the life of Jesus, how could there not be? Just as the apologists claim nowadays, I just assumed that Jesus life was one of the best attested in history and it didn't even occur to me that it should be questioned in the first place. The miracles and mythology, yeah, but not his very existence.

Even later yet, I struck up interest in comparative mythology and religion after being introduced to a lecture by Joseph Campbell. Previously I hadn't bothered to have anything to do with religion for a while. Something about Campbell's lecture struck a nerve when I began to see how the biblical tales have their counterparts in pagan mythology. I regarded the pagan myths and eastern religions as inferior and never really paid them any attention growing up, or after moving to atheism either. As Campbell went over the myth of Jonah and the fish, and the myth of Moses coming in behind the older myth of Sargon I whose story had him put in a river as a baby, and so on, and so on, I was taken right back into religious interests again just like that. And so I began a long journey to try and deconstruct, for lack of a better term, the Judeo-Christian mythology for the sake of my own personal inquiry. I realized that there was a lot going on that I had been unaware of and there was a mountain of information to learn.

As I was getting into how much the life of the Buddha and the life of Christ correspond to one another in Campbells works, I began to suspect that the myth of Christ could possibly be entirely mythological. The reason being is because I was eventually exposed to the knowledge of the late dates for the gospels and how there's no court record of Jesus's trial and crucifixion. A lot of this came from a book entitled "Gospel Truth" where the author was highlighting the Jesus Seminar and some of the various perspectives on the Christ myth - believer, evemerist, and mythicist, the mythicist being cast aside as a fringe minority opinion. But there was no careful attention paid to the mythicist argument, just brief mention of the fact that some people question whether Jesus even existed at all. I found another book called "The Gospel Truth" by Alexander S. Holub Ph.D, which, exposed me to a lot more of the puzzle. This literally all started popping up just shortly after I first began to suspect that the gospel tales could be pure mythology. So I was progressing along in terms of, at the minimum, a progression of awareness. Still later yet, I came across the mythicist works and begin to take focus on the brunt of it all. And I found the argument to be worthy of throwing myself head long into for the time being...

Dwill, my only position right now is that I question authority. I question whether or not Jesus as described in the gospels had any historical existence to begin with as an appeal to authority would have it. You may feel that you have enough information to move from an agnostic position of uncertainty to a position of certainty on the historical existence of Jesus, but I have not been able to get to that point in life by taking the issue from point A to point B. I could possibly get to that point provided that the evidence presented for making such a conclusion of certainty wins me over. And if so, it wouldn't really be a back track despite the way I may have presented it previously. It would be an advancement in terms of a progression of awareness when all is said and done. But I must ask, what evidence do you find so convincing to move from uncertainty to certainty?

Star stuff, in turn harvesting star light...

BBT, our modern creation myth...

Robert, let's have it. What do you propose the fixed meaning of life is by focusing on precession and the local observable natural cycles that are symbolized in Christian myth?