Combining Texts

Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Introduction to 'Virtues of Authenticity'' and 'A History of God'

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6 ideas

28. God / A. Divine Nature / 3. Divine Perfections
Stoics say that God the creator is the perfection of all animals [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius]
     Full Idea: Stoics say that God is an animal immortal, rational, perfect, and intellectual in his happiness, unsusceptible of any kind of evil, having a foreknowledge of the world; however, he is not the figure of a man, and is the creator of the universe.
     From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.1.72
28. God / A. Divine Nature / 4. Divine Contradictions
In the Bible God changes his mind (repenting of creating humanity, in the Flood) [Armstrong,K]
     Full Idea: In the Bible God changes his mind, as when he repents of having made man and decides to destroy the human race in the Flood.
     From: Karen Armstrong (A History of God [1993], Ch.1)
     A reaction: It becomes apparent that the most startling feature of Christian fundamentalism is its uncritical reading of the Bible, in which passages are wilfully lifted from context, and inconvenient inconsistencies are ruthlessly ignored.
28. God / A. Divine Nature / 6. Divine Morality / a. Divine morality
The origin of justice can only be in Zeus, and in nature [Chrysippus]
     Full Idea: One can find no other starting point or origin for justice except the one derived from Zeus and that derived from the common nature; for everything like this must have that starting point, if we are going to say anything at all about good and bad things.
     From: Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]), quoted by Plutarch - 70: Stoic Self-contradictions 1035c
     A reaction: [in lost 'On Gods' bk 3] This appears to offer two starting points, in the mind of Zeus, and in nature, though since nature is presumed to be rational the two may run together. Is Zeus the embodiment, or the unconscious source, or the maker of decrees?
28. God / A. Divine Nature / 6. Divine Morality / d. God decrees morality
The source of all justice is Zeus and the universal nature [Chrysippus]
     Full Idea: It is not possible to discover any other beginning of justice or any source for it other than that from Zeus and from the universal nature.
     From: Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE], fr 326), quoted by Plutarch - 70: Stoic Self-contradictions 1035c
     A reaction: If the source is 'universal nature', that could agree with Plato, but if the source is Zeus, then stoicism is a religion rather than a philosophy.
Stoics teach that law is identical with right reason, which is the will of Zeus [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius]
     Full Idea: Stoics teach that common law is identical with that right reason which pervades everything, being the same with Zeus, who is the regulator and chief manager of all existing things.
     From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.1.53
28. God / C. Attitudes to God / 1. Monotheism
Monotheism introduced intolerance into religious thinking [Armstrong,K]
     Full Idea: We have become so used to the intolerance of monotheism that we may not appreciate that its hostility towards other gods was a new religious attitude; paganism was an essentially tolerant faith.
     From: Karen Armstrong (A History of God [1993], Ch.2)
     A reaction: The comedian Dave Allen always signed off with "may your god go with you". To me the most striking feature of monotheists is frequently their barely controlled aggression, beneath a mask of strained compassion.