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Re: Atlantean

From:Ray Brown <ray.brown@...>
Date:Saturday, January 10, 2004, 15:18
On Friday, January 9, 2004, at 11:54 AM, John Cowan wrote:

> Andreas Johansson scripsit: > >> I wouldn't say the identification is "unmistakable" - certainly alot >> of more- or-less clever people have made other identifications! - >> but I agree the Minoan hypothesis is the best one. > > To me the most plausible explanation is that Plato made the story up > in order to make a point.
Amen.
> Nobody bothers to try to discover whence > Thomas More got the story of Utopia, or what part of the Earth he > could possibly have been referring to, after all!
Very true - and if anyone thinks Plato wouldn't similarly make up a story of a utopian world, they don't know Plato. He wasn't just a philospher; he was a creative artist (despite what is said about poets in the Republic); and, of course, he used 'mythos' (his term) to make points in very much the same way that Jesus used parables (which IME is still a technique used by Jewish rabbis in order to make a point). Indeed, in view of Plato's common use of mythos/parable, one wonders why this particular one got single out for literalist treatment. Maybe..... as Gary Shannon wrote on Friday, January 9, 2004, at 05:38 PM, : [snip]
> Ah, but the important question is not "Is it true?" > but rather "Is it fun to believe?" > > If it's fun to believe then who cares if it's true or not?
Just like it's fun believing in the Donut Fairy :) Ray =============================================== http://home.freeuk.com/ray.brown ray.brown@freeuk.com (home) raymond.brown@kingston-college.ac.uk (work) =============================================== "A mind which thinks at its own expense will always interfere with language." J.G. Hamann, 1760

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Gary Shannon <fiziwig@...>