#ancient

Ancient metaphysics underwent many changes at the hands of medieval thinkers who brought it in line with the dominant religious and theological movements of their day. ↗

— Wilhelm Dilthey

#brought #changes #day #dominant #hands

For a long time on Earth humans didn't worship good gods; that's a new idea. The ancient Greek gods, the Hindu gods, are fairly amoral, most of them. We get stuck when we insist that God be both good and all-powerful. ↗

— Barbara Ehrenreich

#amoral #ancient #both #earth #fairly

Ancient Rome was as confident of the immutability of its world and the continual expansion and improvement of the human lot as we are today. ↗

— Arthur Erickson

#ancient rome #confident #continual #expansion #human

We find Japan a little more difficult to understand because it has proven its 20th century prowess though the ancient traditions still persist. ↗

— Arthur Erickson

#ancient #because #century #difficult #find

All good fortune is a gift of the gods, and you don't win the favor of the ancient gods by being good, but by being bold. ↗

— Anita Brookner

#being #bold #favor #fortune #gift

Some foolish men declare that Creator made the world. The doctrine that the world was created is ill-advised, and should be rejected. If god created the world, where was he before creation? If you say he was transcendent then, and needed no support, where is he now? No single being had the skill to make the world - for how can an immaterial god create that which is material? How could god have made the world without any raw material? If you say he made this first, and then the world, you are face with an endless regression. If you declare that the raw material arose naturally you fall into another fallacy, for the whole universe might thus have been its own creator, and have risen equally naturally. If god created the world by an act of will, without any raw material, then it is just his will made nothing else and who will believe this silly stuff? If he is ever perfect, and complete, how could the will to create have arisen in him? If, on the other hand, he is not perfect, he could no more create the universe than a potter could. If he is formless, actionless, and all-embracing, how could he have created the world? Such a soul, devoid of all modality, would have no desire to create anything. If you say that he created to no purpose, because it was his nature to do so then god is pointless. If he created in some kind of sport, it was the sport of a foolish child, leading to trouble. If he created out of love for living things and need of them he made the world; why did he not make creation wholly blissful, free from misfortune? Thus the doctrine that the world was created by god makes no sense at all. Know that the world is uncreated, as time itself is, without beginning and end. ↗

— Jinasena

#creation #eternity #god #guru #jainism

The world owes all its onward impulses to men ill at ease. The happy man inevitably confines himself within ancient limits. ↗

— Nathaniel Hawthorne

#confines #ease #happy #happy man #himself

The Ancient Games are relatively obscure to most Olympians, but to understand just what the Games are about, it is really necessary to investigate the roots and the meaning that has transformed culture and society for so many years. ↗

— Bill Toomey

#ancient #culture #games #investigate #just

Hubbard set up the Church of Scientology in Hollywood in 1954 for a reason. He understood that celebrity was increasingly a feature of American public life, and celebrities themselves were going to be worshiped as minor deities were in the ancient world. The idea was: if you could get them, think how many people would follow. ↗

— Lawrence Wright

#american public #ancient #celebrities #celebrity #church

To become aware of what is constant in the flux of nature and life is the first step in abstract thinking. The recognition of regularity in the courses of the heavenly bodies and in the succession of seasons first provides a basis for a systematic ordering of events, and this knowledge makes possible a calendar. ... Simultaneously with this concept, a system of relationships comes into the idea of the world. Change is not something absolute, chaotic, and kaleidoscopic; its manifestation is a relative one, something connected with fixed points and a given order. ↗

— Hellmut Wilhelm

#archaeology #i-ching #the-occult #change