Combining Texts

Ideas for 'Topics', 'The Problem of the Soul' and 'Human, All Too Human'

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2 ideas

29. Religion / A. Polytheistic Religion / 2. Greek Polytheism
The Greeks saw the gods not as their masters, but as idealised versions of themselves [Nietzsche]
     Full Idea: The Greeks did not see the Homeric gods above them as masters and themselves below them as servants, as did the Jews. They saw, as it were, only the reflection of the most successful specimens of their own caste - an ideal, not a contrast.
     From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 114)
29. Religion / A. Polytheistic Religion / 3. Hinduism
The Hindu doctrine of reincarnation only appeared in the eighth century CE [Flanagan]
     Full Idea: The doctrine of a cycle of rebirths and reincarnations that are normally required before one achieve nirvana was only proposed in the eighth century CE, and then spread like wildfire among Hindus and, to a lesser extent, among Buddhists.
     From: Owen Flanagan (The Problem of the Soul [2002], p.166n)
     A reaction: Intriguing. Plato had proposed it in the fourth century BCE. Presumably Hindus had always been dualists, and then suddenly saw and exciting possibility that followed from it. The doctrine strikes me as (to put it mildly) implausible.