Christian subversion and missionary activities -2

[dhu]

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->in christian theology animals don't have souls and don't go to heaven and so there's no point in 'converting' them).<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

Husky, this is not christian theology per se, rather it is a greco-roman conceptualization ( which is what I have been trying to say over the past few threads). This type of thinking arose specifically within the context of the greco-roman rule. That it was a jewish pagans who were thus transformed is just a coincidence, it could very well have been caananites, manasehites, or any any group in the euro-semitic contact zone.. See this:

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Three peripheral remarks are in order.

1. We do describe, even in our models, people as ‘good’ or ‘evil’. But these descriptions abbreviate actions and relations: ‘dutiful son’ abbreviates actions performed by one of the relata in its relation-ship with the other.

2. The ‘doctrine of Karma’ is a component of a theory of ‘self-identity. Because the ‘self’ is the set of actions performed by the organism (if we leave out its representations) and <b>because all organisms (including animals, insects etc.) do act, it is not possible to restrict ‘selves’ to human beings alone. </b>Such a doctrine must perforce be applicable to all organisms capable of performing actions, as is indeed the case.

3. Because of the essential relationship between the ‘self’ and actions, the moral life of an organism includes all kinds of actions performed by it during its life-time. This has an additional conse-quence that a human organism’s relationship to the Natural world becomes an essential aspect in the construction of a ‘self’. By the same token, man’s relationship to Nature becomes a moral re-lationship as well.

The contrast with Western ethical thought is again instructive in this regard. <b>Ever since Homer, it has been a rather characteristic trait of Western thinking that moral phenomena pertained only to the domain of human intercourse. </b><b>The relation of Man to Nature fell outside the scope of moral life: </b>where it does enter into discussion at all, it does so derivatively in terms of, say, the consequences of such actions on future generations. Inanimate Nature, non- and quasi-sentient animals, on their part, could not enter into any moral relationship with human beings because they lacked the faculty or the capacity to ‘reason’ (or whatever) by exercising which moral choices and decisions could be made. Morality came into play only when both the relata in the relationship were moral agents and Nature disqualified herself from being one. In the best of cases, Nature was indifferent to man’s striving to realize a moral world. At worst, she was hostile to such an endeavour.

We shall not cease, link<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->