Tuesday 10 February 2015

Axor's Quest

Major Premises

(i) "'...every oxygen-breathing species ever encounter-ed is in no state of grace, but prone to sin, error, and death.'" (Flandry's Legacy, p. 209)

(ii) "If science can show that the gospel account of Christ is not myth but bio-graphy...'" (p. 210)

(iii) "'...if it then finds that his ministry was, in empirical fact, universal...'" (ibid.)

Minor Premise

(iv) The Builders must have been too widespread, numerous, learned, powerful and wise to be destroyed by anything material.

Conclusions

The Foredwellers went on to a higher plane of existence but would have left inscriptions with messages, including information about any previous Incarnations. Thus, strangely familiar religions would be neither coincidences nor parallel developments but a deeper mystery and even "...the very revelation of Christ's universality, that will in time bring all sentient beings into his church...'" (p. 403).

Problems

(i) Would impeccability and inerrancy overcome the laws of physics and entropy to generate immortality?

(ii) I think that the gospels are neither myth nor biography but propaganda.

(iii) Surely a universal ministry would have to be to all, not just some, inhabited planets?
 How can Axor distinguish between evidence for an Incarnation and evidence for belief in an Incarnation?
An empirical fact would no longer be a matter of faith.

(iv) "The Builders must have..." is a hope, not a certainty.

Alternative World-View

Many unenlightened beings are born and die motivated by "...Ignorance, Anger, and Lust..." (Kim, p. 274), also translated as "greed, hate and delusion." Such beings can hear the Buddha Dharma and begin to cleanse their karma.

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