<html><body><div style="color:#000; background-color:#fff; font-family:arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:10pt"> <div style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> <div style="font-family: times new roman, new york, times, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> <div dir="ltr"> <font face="Arial" size="2"> <hr size="1"> <b><span style="font-weight:bold;">From:</span></b> James Wynn <crushtv@gmail.com><br> <b><span style="font-weight: bold;">To:</span></b> The Urth Mailing List <urth@lists.urth.net> <br> <b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sent:</span></b> Monday, March 19, 2012 4:23 PM<br> <b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Subject:</span></b> Re: (urth) Oannes<br> </font> </div> <br>On 3/19/2012 2:57 PM, DAVID STOCKHOFF wrote:<br>> OTOH, perhaps the Roman household gods were like that---not the family ancestors, but the little guys you'd nod to as you stepped over the threshold or stoked the fire in the hearth. Nobody
expected them to speak, but the domain of each was limited to a few square feet. <br><br>And Dan'l Danehy-Oakes also wrote:<br>> It seems to me that the God of Deism is pretty close to an impersonal<br>> finite God.<br><br>I don't think this is what is meant by an "impersonal god" when comparing it with, say, Zen Buddhism.<br>I think "impersonal" doesn't mean a Person who is uncommunicative. It means a Person who is "not a personality"...a person who is not "aware" at any time in any sense as we would define it.<br>Deism only argues that the Creator doesn't respond to personal requests or is even absent. I think the hearth gods were conceived as actual persons even though they had no prophets.<br>_______________________________________________<br><br><br>Yes, I suppose they were persons in a way, and yet perhaps also like pet animals: creatures with personality but weak objective individuality. Which only muddies the waters, since pets are just
such beings, granted personality only by their owners' powers of projection. <br><br>At any rate, if one were to worship one's cat, it would probably be a lot like worshiping an impersonal, finite god.<br> </div> </div> </div></body></html>