It’s just a con game. "Give me money or that guy around the corner you can’t see is going to beat you up!’
Asking why the unseen thug isn’t appearing, visible, or existing just gets you another “Uh, he’s around the next corner! Now give me the money/believe the thing I tell you to/do the religious thing I want you to!”
Behavior rules my ass, they’re common thugs. Stop treating them as if they had empathy, morality, or conscience - and start giving that extra effort to those sane, rational people that deserve it.
This is a good point, and symbolically speaking, lying is almost like playing god considering that God is “all-knowing”, and the liar is distorting knowledge. The liar assumes the power to know what others are thinking. Also, liars assume the power to change reality or perception of reality. Generally, lying is a power, which resembles god because he is all powerful. Using power to ill-ends is obviously undesirable. In the Adam & Eve story, snakes, generally, are symbols of lies, and the apple was a symbol of desire / knowledge / becoming god-like. So coming back to your point, conjuring up a boogieman, or conning someone, is diety-like because you are using the realm of imagination (i.e., god) to change reality, but it’s snake-like or satan-like to manipulate imagination to harmful ends. Notably, imagination is also “timeless, spaceless, and immaterial” and in my opinion i think god is imaginary. “God is imaginary” is very atheist sounding, but It’s also religious from a platonic forms perspective.
It’s just a con game. "Give me money or that guy around the corner you can’t see is going to beat you up!’
Asking why the unseen thug isn’t appearing, visible, or existing just gets you another “Uh, he’s around the next corner! Now give me the money/believe the thing I tell you to/do the religious thing I want you to!”
Behavior rules my ass, they’re common thugs. Stop treating them as if they had empathy, morality, or conscience - and start giving that extra effort to those sane, rational people that deserve it.
This is a good point, and symbolically speaking, lying is almost like playing god considering that God is “all-knowing”, and the liar is distorting knowledge. The liar assumes the power to know what others are thinking. Also, liars assume the power to change reality or perception of reality. Generally, lying is a power, which resembles god because he is all powerful. Using power to ill-ends is obviously undesirable. In the Adam & Eve story, snakes, generally, are symbols of lies, and the apple was a symbol of desire / knowledge / becoming god-like. So coming back to your point, conjuring up a boogieman, or conning someone, is diety-like because you are using the realm of imagination (i.e., god) to change reality, but it’s snake-like or satan-like to manipulate imagination to harmful ends. Notably, imagination is also “timeless, spaceless, and immaterial” and in my opinion i think god is imaginary. “God is imaginary” is very atheist sounding, but It’s also religious from a platonic forms perspective.