- 07 Feb 2021 05:12
#15155333
I have with this thread hopefully begun a conversation about how radical even the most traditionalist and conservative interpretations of Monotheism are regarding Time, and the conception of how Time as we know it coming to an End is the most liberating and progressive insight ever in the history of mankind.
Time in the true Pagan conception is eternal in duration, and cyclic, with the same basic events happening over and over again, a rigid Fate which even the gods themselves much less mortal men cannot change in the slightest. Man is always what he is and cannot change his nature or have his nature changed. The social order rises and falls from perfection to failure and degeneration back to perfection again and then another fall, on in an infinite series. in an eternal universe with finite human souls, reincarnation and transmigration of souls makes sense, and only do so under that system. Again, a Wheel that basically cannot be escaped (the issue of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism and the Dharmic religions will be discussed in this thread).
But in the Monotheist religions, whether a particular one is true or false, all have the idea that Time is not Cyclic but Linear, and the Cosmos is not eternal, but has a beginning, a middle, and an end. That events have a meaning which leads to a culmination towards the end of time as we know it, and are therefore unrepeatable and unique. This means that persons are unrepeatable and unique. All these factors are Liberation to adherents of Monotheistic religions, but are precisely that cyclic failure and degeneration to keen Pagan minds throughout history.
With this in mind, there are therefore two ways to perceive and interpret events of the past and present and future, looking at the same events very different reactions and actions can be elicited from different people.
Time in the true Pagan conception is eternal in duration, and cyclic, with the same basic events happening over and over again, a rigid Fate which even the gods themselves much less mortal men cannot change in the slightest. Man is always what he is and cannot change his nature or have his nature changed. The social order rises and falls from perfection to failure and degeneration back to perfection again and then another fall, on in an infinite series. in an eternal universe with finite human souls, reincarnation and transmigration of souls makes sense, and only do so under that system. Again, a Wheel that basically cannot be escaped (the issue of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism and the Dharmic religions will be discussed in this thread).
But in the Monotheist religions, whether a particular one is true or false, all have the idea that Time is not Cyclic but Linear, and the Cosmos is not eternal, but has a beginning, a middle, and an end. That events have a meaning which leads to a culmination towards the end of time as we know it, and are therefore unrepeatable and unique. This means that persons are unrepeatable and unique. All these factors are Liberation to adherents of Monotheistic religions, but are precisely that cyclic failure and degeneration to keen Pagan minds throughout history.
With this in mind, there are therefore two ways to perceive and interpret events of the past and present and future, looking at the same events very different reactions and actions can be elicited from different people.