Quote:
Originally Posted by lycan  How do you know it wasn't? |
It's not that I know it wasn't; it's that some are claiming to know it was!
Besides, it sounds like a contradiction in terms right there: how could there have been 24-hour periods before everything was created? Even allowing for "God" to be outside of that "everything"...and no, as a literalist/fundamentalist one shouldn't just cheat and then say oh *that's* just figurative there....
Quote:
Originally Posted by lycan That assumes I believe there is such a thing as great evil which you can cause others. |
It assumes that there is something you'd wish were different about people, either other individuals or all of us as a species. Are you saying "it's all good?"
Quote:
Originally Posted by lycan Parables are mnemonic devices. They are not a secret code. |
Zen parables seek to "induce reality" and are only "secret codes" insofar as we insist on reading them (often reading *into* them) instead of experiencing them, thereby making nonsense of things.
IOW, you can't be literal with them -- or, rather, must know when not to be!
And for that, it's like riding a bicycle...peddling for you on a tandem ain't the same as you riding and maintaining your own balance.