minsocal

In agreement, yes. I do not think there is only one formula for a healthy, thriving human being.

George, Yes. Spinoza admired the teaching of Jesus, as a person of Jewish ancestry. Spinoza wrote the basic outline of what would become the explanation of Darwinian evolution. A. N. Whitehead made that very clear in Process and Reality. Myron

I believe in G-d, but have grown weary of the theist versus anti-theist arguments. It is an old and now useless battle. It fails to connect with anything I FEEL. It assumes that philosophical categories made thousands of years ago are immutable and no human since has transcended those categories.

Norm, As a long time progressive, I agree with your stance that is about what on does. You are talking about what many consider to be one of the greatest ethical systems ever devised, despite bad press from some circles. Myron

Can mind evolve from no-mind? Yes, that is what happened, according to Darwin. We are finite beings. We are heroes in our birth, and heroes in our death.

Thank you. That is exactly the view of Jung and Campbell. Both take a developmental or constructive view of what it takes to be human.

Thank you. I am trained in Bowen Theory and it is based on the Gestalt Doctrine. Murray Bowan uses the phrase "non summatization of parts." That is the theory. In your quote, Bowan is saying that we often mimic the only model available to us, the family system. That fits better into learning theory. The goal is to learn more adaptive responses appropriate to the individual. Sure, you could say it reduces to the only option the person had to learn. So what?

Where does Campbell say this? Just curious.Campbell often talks about more than one interpretation of a myth, and that it is often the case that case that the authors of a myth intended more than one interpretation.

In The Mythic Image (p. 194), Campbell expounds on the full story found in Genesis. He states: "Now it is the essence of the axial point or pole that it should symbolize the way or place of passage from motion to rest, time to eternity, seperation to union; but then also, conversely, rest to motion, eternity to time, unity to multiplicity. Hence in the Biblical Eden the image is of two trees: "the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledsge of good and evil." (Genesis 2:9) ... Adam and Eve were expelled forn the garden lest they should "take also of the the tree of life, and eat, and live forever" (Genesis 3:22)." For those familiar with A. N. Whitehead and C. G Jung, this is a familiar concept. Whitehead called it "the method of adjusted contrasts" and Jung called it "complementarity".

Please note the source, I have most of Campbell's work in my library. His wiriting on the subject in Mythic Image does not seem to relate to your interpretation.

Joseph Campbell was As a student of C. G. Jung and his editor Joseph Campbell, this will take some explanation on your part.

Psychologists almost always balk at the word "we".

Paul, Sorry for the delays here. Responsibilty is a difficult topic. It is often associated with the term "intentionality" (in the technical sense). Much of human behavior is over-determined. That is, any specific behavior might have more than one cause behind it. When pressure is placed upon people to be accountable for the conscious and uncounscious causes of their behavior, they sometimes become avoidant simply because they do not know the answer themselves. Myron

Campbell stated that to follow your bliss means "The experience of life as a self responsible individual."

In cognitive science the entire body of work presented by Dr. John Searle. In psychology, take your pick. C. G. Jung, Gestalt, Bowen Family Sytems Theory. Any theory that subscribes to one of the many forms of holism.

Life is what it is and not something else. If we could live as long as we wished, there would be little need to procreate. We can cooperate and help each other through the transition from birth to death, or compete to live as long as possible at the expense of the other. That's about it. The Jesus I grew up with saw the need to move to cooperation, the movement towards compassion as a proper goal of evolution.

This might come as a shock to you, but many psychologists doing therapy are trained to avoid the "why" question. It only leads in the direction of the theory one might be trained in, but not always the experience of the client. That is the real point. There are many theories, reductionist or not. They all compete for the grand prize of being "right". The causal connection sought by many therapists is "what helps my client." I think Jesus had a similar view.

Do you deny there are such things as human desires? What is the difference in causation between a belief and a desire?

A great deal depends on which branch of science enters into the hall of fame.

If you wish to say that science is reductionism, then you must first deal with scientists that say it is not.

The idea of a "fall" is avoidance of responsibility.

George, That seems to be where we divide. Myron

George, We have the cognitive capacities to evaluate processes. Avoidance or neglect is important to the teachings of Jesus, or not? Myron

George, It is possible that a tornadoe is the result of collective human neglect. Humans struggle with the concepts of self and collective responsibilty. In my opinion, this is where we need to focus attention. Myron

With the introduction of consciousness, we have the possibility of error (Whitehead, 1929). Without consciousness, evil is not intrinsic to nature. Instead of talking in terms of "good" or "evil", we migh talk about self-responsibilty (Campbell).