Re: They _don't_ have a word for it!

* John Cowan said on 2001-09-04 20:09:08 +0200
> taliesin the storyteller scripsit:
>
> > > Consequently there is no redemption or salvation.
And the gentleman who said that was Roger Mills.

> But this only means that your concultures contain (as yet?) no
> Christians.  The words "redemptio" and "salvatio" existed in Latin
> long before Christianity was heard of (with the primary meanings
> "ransom" and "preservation"), and were consciously applied as
> metaphors (or more realistically, calques of corresponding Greek
> metaphors).
Conculturally speaking, once upon a time there was this ruler, who
published a dictinary, grammar, book of abbreviations, dictionary of
slang, tech. dictionary, cultural dictionary etc. It was decreed that
anything containg words or meanings or metaphors etc. not already
described (though analyzed to death/dissected is closer to the truth)
was not written in the One True Language(tm). Hence, all words and
meanings that have entered the culture since, have not entered the
language, but have been placed in their own sub-languages, or ghettos if
you will.

If you write something and use something from such a sub-language,
you have to state which sub-languages explicitly (usually in its own
line just below the header). This is so that people can find the right
sub-language book set. If there are/were christians there, their terms
will thus never be a part of the One true Language(tm) but wind up in
"The Books of Christianity" or such like, and everything containing
christian terms or imagery would have that extra line in the header (or
on the title-page if a book, or in yet another field for meta-data if on
a machine/network), so that the reader could look up "valley of death",
an explanation of what good and evil is, what sheperds and sheeps are
and their relationship etc. etc...

I'd expect the book-set of a religion that tries to attract new
followers to be a user-friendly affair and contain the canon (or at
least a compromise), an analysis of the things in the canon, an OED-size
dictionary of terms etc.

The book-set of groups that don't want to attract new members might even
be classified.

> > And then there's the entire "God-as-sheperd" imagery. Try to explain
> > why a shepherd is a symbol for a good, supreme god to people with a
> > hunter-gatherer/gardener mindset: "so you say you worship something
> > that kill off your males, decide where you get to go and what to do,
> > fatten you up, then kill you to eat you or sell the flesh and/or use
> > your hides for clothes?" :)
>
> With the exception of excess lambs, the primary product of shepherds
> is wool, the removal of which does not harm the sheep.  Sheep are
> usually perceived as individuals to be cared for, like dairy cattle.
"You mean if we dump 'em on a compatible planet they won't be able to
fend for themselves and when we stop by a couple of generations later
there might not be any to hunt? Twins what worthless animals, I'll stick
to our traditional ones! If you want to care for stuff, why don't you
apply for a job monitoring a nano-plant, or get work at a hospital or
daycare? And what is this dairy-cattle-thing?"


t., who admits that thinking like a native can be hard for an Earther