Thanks Bill. You were disparaging the OT account of Abraham by comparing
him to Norman Bates in PSYCHO. Fair enough. (My most admired philosopher
remains Schopenhauer, an atheist, though he respected religion's 'parables',
for his immense honesty about how the world goes. He tried to become 'the
clear eye of the world'.)
I did, though, jot down the following:
>I would have thought that we all have 'voices in our head' telling us, or
at least suggesting to us, what to do. They are the voices of our society
plus the promptings of Will. Many people choose to add the voice of God.
Read on.
> Abraham certainly added the voice of God (which might of course be seen as
a special case of the 'voice' of Abraham's monotheist society, speaking to
him personally).
Arguably, Abraham was a wise man, who had programmed himself to 'hear' God.
(The author Dickens reportedly heard all of his characters when he was
writing his fiction.) But in a faith-based society he found himself in deep
perplexity when God told him to sacrifice his son, Isaac.
But isn't this a disguised archetypal situation of all of us: e.g., when our
society tells us to go to war? Or to play whatever life-roles (e.g.,
professor, husband, father, regular guy) we find ourselves cast in at a
particular moment?
Norman Bates 'was never all Norman'. However, when he killed, he actually
'was' his mother. At such times, he was an outright nut-case. A bit
different from Abraham. Abraham never 'was' God.
Nonetheless, Norman Bates is an archetype in himself. Of the rest of us.
Divided without knowing it. Yet essentially Will, or Will-driven. (I see
the birds in THE BIRDS as Will, putting humans in their place.)
- Ken M
http://www.labyrinth.net.au/~muffin/news-home_c.html
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