misc lexeme morpholgy and semantic theory

This is my only contribution:Thea was the Goddess of sight. At some time, the word 'thea' may have become synonymous with 'viewing'. If that is true, then one must distinguish a difference between words which have this derivitive as a root, and words which use 'thea' in the form of a god or goddess concept.I can not answer why the masculine 'theos' appears to be used in 'theory' except that perhaps in the original Greek the word itself calls for the masculine. Edited by anastasia, : No reason given.Edited by anastasia, : No reason given.

Entirely possible. I only made an assumption/deduction, because I would imagine the goddess was in 'existence' and pretty well-known for quite some time in Greek culture. I was thinking about our word 'god' and how it is used for both a proper name, and for gods in general. The morphology of words can be strange and surprising at times.It is also possible that 'thea' and 'thea' are simply homonyms. It was just coincidental that they could be linked.I believe Rob is mistakenly assuming that 'thea' is the female of 'theos', as if the word derived from 'theos'. I feel it is the other way around, that 'theos' paralleled 'thea', but that this could only happen a long time after the proper name of the goddess had become a catch-all for deities in general. I hope that makes sense.

This is the root of the issue then, Rob. You are looking for the etymological acceptability of your argument as ground-work for a much larger claim.Scratch the admin mode for now, I want to ask you a question or two.Here is one question:If the disciplines both began with the same assumptions, so what?Is it not simply human fallibility to assume that God is knowable, or that reality is knowable? Is this not just a human trait, to look for answers with the notion that they may be found? I did not think it was a top-secret that theologians study God, and scientists study the universe, with the same belief that they might find useful answers. Edited by Adminastasia, : No reason given.Edited by anastasia, : No reason given.Edited by anastasia, : No reason given.

I understand what you are saying, but I don't completely agree.Even if I do share some of your beliefs, the coherent picture you paint is no more 'real' or objectively logical that a poem may be. The job of a preacher or a poet is to make connections, paint mental pictures, and inspire. I may say they are the same discipline...aimed at reaching the soul of man through subjective sensorial allegory. They 'prove' to the listener only so much as he or she already believes, and do not rely ultimately on logic, but on the illusion of coherence.Design inference is not necessarily more 'real' or logical than the moon being made of green cheese. When we are presented with new information to consider, the most logical common sense answer may no longer be valid.

Just so you know, my post was not the usual complaint about your 'preachiness'. I am still trying to make the mental leap from 'theory' and 'theology', to inferred design. What I can make out reminds me of the technique of sermonizing or story telling, where the stage is set with little details that allow the grand finale more believability. My girl is a few days shy of 14 months, and I know the feeling well.I will let you go on with Nosy.

Maybe you got what I meant? Coherence is a page turner which provides the build up to a 'logical' conclusion. I probably read too many mysteries, but I think it is important as a Christian not to begin writing our own 'reality' script just because science is looming like a big, bad crow.Rob is getting near to the pantheistic concepts I mentioned in my 'Immanance' thread. ID verges on deism or a God detached from creation. I predict that Christianity will lose it's core altogether at the hands of its own proponants, or at the least, we will see new sects arise which identify themselves more by their scientific views than their theology.

Thanks for the reply Rob, and I hope you enjoy your vacation. I am not any kind of politician, Mr. Scottness, and I don't have an agenda. I know what you are thinking, and it is not true. In many ways I believe in design. The problems arise when I try to guess where the design figures in in. Is it all conceived of at once, in some moment of creation, or is it guided in an unfolding process which is observed?I won't even bother to differentiate between creation and ID, as they are essentially the same minus whatever specifics come along with Biblical creationism. The point is not that you, Rob, are a pantheist. Rather, IMO, a belief that God started at A and got to B, without special creation and using science as we know it, can only result in the extremes of pantheism or deism. To maintain the integrity of the Christian tradition, the only logical option is to favor a panentheistic view. At least, that is my tentative conclusion. So, my next step was to rehash what we know of God's nature, Biblically or doctrinarily. Christianity has the unfortunate role of making it nearly impossible to comprehend God without Jesus. Christ is trememdous obviously in personal spirituality, but the current conflicts with science illustrate, to me anyway, how genuinely inadequate our picture of God is.I hope I don't get in trouble for mentioning the G word, but please understand that my comments are not repetitions of Paul's, or intended to slight your beliefs. I just see what I see, and I am not done looking yet.

Decisions, decisions. Nothing is certain, and although this is horribly off topic, we don't know for sure that Genesis is even concluded. That is one which I am undecided on...the devolving part, as I am leaning toward life being 'started' rather than created. I didn't get you wrong, as I had no information about this part of your belief.Maybe I will make a creationist only topic to discuss specifics? Or, a Genesis-of-the-future topic? You know as well as I do that Genesis goes both ways.