These religious nutjobs who think that the creationism crap needs "equal time" in public classrooms.....
Should religion be taught on an equal basis as evolution in public schools?
The genius of Campbell is his ability to present and interpret myth after myth and interpret them as variations of a theme, the theme of consciousness, that all consciousness beings naturally create different stories expressing the enigma of life and consciousness.
gungasnake wrote:
...As a physical body: zero. As a spirit which would have appeared to witnesses AS IF in a physical body... If you go back far enough in time, say, a thousand years or so before the time of Christ, that was not uncommon.
One instance in the OT would be the story of Saul and the prophet Samuel and the witch of Endor, which is a sort of a ghost story.
Christ wasn't the first time anybody ever saw anything like that; he was the last.
So how is it that we know a "spirit" would appear to onlookers as a physical body? The bible is insufficient as proof here. Using the bible to support the story of the resurrection would be the same as allowing evolution to use itself as a basis of fact.
Attached to the body in some remarkable way was the KA, or "double," of a man; it may be defined as an abstract individuality or personality which was endowed with all his characteristic attributes, and it possessed an absolutely independent existence. It was free to move from place to place upon earth at will, and it could enter heaven and hold converse with the gods. The offerings made in, the tombs at all periods were intended for the nourishment of the KA, and it was supposed to be able to eat and drink and to enjoy the odour of incense. In the earliest times a certain portion of the tomb was set apart for the use of the KA, and the religious organization of the period ordered that a class of priests should perform ceremonies and recite prayers at stated seasons for the benefit of the KA in the KA chapel; these men were known as "KA priests." In the period when the pyramids were built it was firmly believed that the deceased, in some form, was able to be purified, and to sit down and to eat bread with it "unceasingly and for ever;" and the KA who was not supplied with a sufficiency of food in the shape of offerings of bread, cakes, flowers, fruit, wine, ale, and the like, was in serious danger of starvation.
The soul was called BA, and the ideas which the Egyptians held concerning it are somewhat difficult to reconcile; the meaning of the word seems to be something like "sublime," "noble," "mighty." The BA dwelt in the KA, and seems to have had the power of becoming corporeal or incorporeal at will; it had both substance and form, and is frequently depicted on the papyri and monuments as a human-headed hawk; in nature and substance it is stated to be ethereal. It had the power to leave the tomb, and to pass up into heaven where it was believed to enjoy an eternal existence in a state of glory; it could, however, and did, revisit the body in the tomb, and from certain texts it seems that it could re-animate it and hold converse with it. Like the heart AB it was, in some respects, the seat of life in man. The souls of the blessed dead dwelt in heaven with the gods, and they partook of all the celestial enjoyments for ever.
USAFHokie80 wrote:gungasnake wrote:
...As a physical body: zero. As a spirit which would have appeared to witnesses AS IF in a physical body... If you go back far enough in time, say, a thousand years or so before the time of Christ, that was not uncommon.
One instance in the OT would be the story of Saul and the prophet Samuel and the witch of Endor, which is a sort of a ghost story.
Christ wasn't the first time anybody ever saw anything like that; he was the last.
So how is it that we know a "spirit" would appear to onlookers as a physical body? The bible is insufficient as proof here. Using the bible to support the story of the resurrection would be the same as allowing evolution to use itself as a basis of fact.
The same theme runs through much of ancient literature. In particular, old-kingdom Egyptians appear to have regarded the idea of dying about the way we'd view moving from D.C. to Baltimore; i.e. it didn't mean you weren't going to see the other person any more, just less often.
The Egyptian conception of "ka" contains a good bit of the answer to this one.
Dr. E. A. Wallis Budge on Egyptian notions of an afterlife, including statements about ka:
Quote:
Attached to the body in some remarkable way was the KA, or "double," of a man; it may be defined as an abstract individuality or personality which was endowed with all his characteristic attributes, and it possessed an absolutely independent existence. It was free to move from place to place upon earth at will, and it could enter heaven and hold converse with the gods. The offerings made in, the tombs at all periods were intended for the nourishment of the KA, and it was supposed to be able to eat and drink and to enjoy the odour of incense. In the earliest times a certain portion of the tomb was set apart for the use of the KA, and the religious organization of the period ordered that a class of priests should perform ceremonies and recite prayers at stated seasons for the benefit of the KA in the KA chapel; these men were known as "KA priests." In the period when the pyramids were built it was firmly believed that the deceased, in some form, was able to be purified, and to sit down and to eat bread with it "unceasingly and for ever;" and the KA who was not supplied with a sufficiency of food in the shape of offerings of bread, cakes, flowers, fruit, wine, ale, and the like, was in serious danger of starvation.
The soul was called BA, and the ideas which the Egyptians held concerning it are somewhat difficult to reconcile; the meaning of the word seems to be something like "sublime," "noble," "mighty." The BA dwelt in the KA, and seems to have had the power of becoming corporeal or incorporeal at will; it had both substance and form, and is frequently depicted on the papyri and monuments as a human-headed hawk; in nature and substance it is stated to be ethereal. It had the power to leave the tomb, and to pass up into heaven where it was believed to enjoy an eternal existence in a state of glory; it could, however, and did, revisit the body in the tomb, and from certain texts it seems that it could re-animate it and hold converse with it. Like the heart AB it was, in some respects, the seat of life in man. The souls of the blessed dead dwelt in heaven with the gods, and they partook of all the celestial enjoyments for ever.
Julian Jaynes saw ka as a bicameral voice personna or avatar. Images of Khnum (the Egyptian god who created people) which we find show him creating a man and the man's ka at the same time and some of these show the ka pointing to his mouth to signify the association with voice:
Jaynes accepted an evolutionary model and viewed such bicameral phenomena as "auditory hallucinations"; nonetheless there is no way to picture entire societies being governed by systems of "auditory hallucinations" as Jaynes suggests. The phenomena were real.
There were several hundred witnesses who saw Jesus walking around for 40 days or so after he died on the cross. If Roman soldiers had seen a physical body of a crucifixion victim walking around a Roman province, and they would have, they'd have crucified him a second time and done whatever it took to ensure he stayed crucified.
