Posts Tagged ‘mythology’

ag•nos•tic -noun

Definition from Dictionary.com:

1.	a person who holds that the existence of the ultimate cause, as God, and the essential nature of things are unknown and unknowable, or that human knowledge is limited to experience.

2.	a person who denies or doubts the possibility of ultimate knowledge in some area of study

Word History: An agnostic does not deny the existence of God and heaven but holds that one cannot know for certain whether or not they exist. The term agnostic was fittingly coined by the 19th-century British scientist Thomas H. Huxley, who believed that only material phenomena were objects of exact knowledge. He made up the word from the prefix a-, meaning “without, not,” as in amoral, and the noun Gnostic. Gnostic is related to the Greek word gn?sis, “knowledge,” which was used by early Christian writers to mean “higher, esoteric knowledge of spiritual things”; hence, Gnostic referred to those with such knowledge. In coining the term agnostic, Huxley was considering as “Gnostics” a group of his fellow intellectuals—”ists,” as he called them—who had eagerly embraced various doctrines or theories that explained the world to their satisfaction. Because he was a “man without a rag of a label to cover himself with,” Huxley coined the term agnostic for himself, its first published use being in 1870.

(more…)

So, I was driving to work and a few things occurred to me about the subject matter and authors of stories in the bible.

Firstly, there was no separation between politics and religion in ancient times. They were one and the same. Governments, ethnic groups, tribes, etc all were governed by the laws of their religions. Therefore, isn’t it a reasonable assumption that motivation for the stories and traditions set forth in the bible were political in nature?

Politics: The art or science of government or governing, especially the governing of a political entity, such as a nation, and the administration and control of its internal and external affairs.

(more…)