Ritva,

I understand what you are saying, but mashing observing the stars and writing observations with believing that you could summon nature to do your bidding with words is two different things.

Snakes don't have souls.
Cows don't have souls.
The sky does not have a soul.

Those are "magical" beliefs not intellectual observations.

Generalizing Egyptian thought as being of one sort and not involving "magical" elements with "intellectual" elements is what I am against.

Magic in Egyptian thought had to do with words and sayings that could summon the powers of the "gods". That is not the same as writing down star observations or performing the calculations needed to construct monuments. I don't recall the Egyptians ever considering writing down star observations or calculating math as being "magic", even though both involved writing. Therefore, I cannot agree that they thought both were the same thing.





Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/17/2007 08:53AM by Doug M.