L Cooper Wrote:
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> No, it's not "the same thing from a different
> angle". Not even close.
A square is a pyramid viewed from the bottom. A spinning pyramid looks like a triangle. 2 + 2 = 4 is exactly the same thing as 2 x 2 = 4. There are boundless ways to see, say, or interpret anything.
> While I appreciate that any given text can be
> interpreted in somewhat different ways, any
> interpretation that one chooses to put forward
> needs to be based on detailed and substantiated
> reasonings. Assuming a context that one fails to
> substantiate, and even fails to try to
> substantiate (other than by circular reasonings),
> leaves one's arguments with "all belch and no
> body", I'm afraid.
That I have no Egyptologists to quote doesn't prove the authors couldn't have meant everything they said literally. No Peer has ever suggested that there were really "gods", merely that the ancients believed in them. This is the circular argument and the simple fact that the "god" "shu" is always associated with "upward", "ascension", "lifting", "rising", etc is simple observation that no Egyptologist has said so I can quote him. You are simply assuming this is my failing rather than yours or theirs.
Substitute "upward" everywhere you see "shu" in the PT and let me know what you think. I predict you would soon see patterns emerging.
How is it possible for the literal meaning to make sense through coincidence? I think I understand your position pretty well but asking me for "research" shows you must not understand mine at all. My position is built on logic and observation and not at all on Egyptological research or scholarship. I find the subject of this scholarship more interesting all the time but I don't believe its assumptions and premises. I don't believe it is in any way legitimate to translate and interpret the Pyramid Texts in terms of the "book of the dead".
It is my opinion that our species can be defined as "humans who engage in circular reasoning". Egyptologists are not any more immune than I am. I started with the assumption the PT made sense in terms of its premises and was amazed to find that it also made sense in terms of logic and physical law.
To each his own.
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Man fears the pyramid, time fears man.
