At 01:45 01.12.98 -0500, Bryan Hyden wrote:
>We are made up of the exact same stuff as God.
>That's what the bible means when it says that God made us in his/her image.
now THAT'S preposterous! While I'm ready to agree that there are different
interpretations, depending on one's personal background, I'd strongly argue
against this as "what the bible means".
Let me propose another interpretation: we're not made of the same STUFF as
God, but of the same STRUCTURE, namely relational. God wanted to have a
"you" as a vis-à-vis, since s/he is in a personal, i.e. relational way.
So we exist only as relating to you's and it's. They form us, biologically
as well as culturally. And since "I" is fundamentally dependent on "you" in
order to become "I", one could in a certain sense say that altruism really
is egoism.
But there always is an other.
Everything being me would be awfully boring. And besides, this has been
critizised by ecofeministic writers as the male, dominating, imperialistic
way of doing environmental ethics: you're nothing but me.
Christina
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Christina Aus der Au
Institut fuer Sozialethik
Zollikerstrasse 117
8008 Zuerich
phone: 01/634 85 14
fax: 01/634 85 07
http://www.unizh.ch/sozialethik
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