I've mentioned some etymology that I use, whether correct or not to some standards of those writing dictionaries. Those are 'guides' only and, as I said, are devoloped with reflection of politics involved too.Sculptor1 wrote: ↑March 3rd, 2020, 12:02 pmWords are signifiers only and do not encapsulate meaning. When a homonym branches off the meaning is not preserved but separates along a different branch. You cannot learn deeper meanings by an assumed evolution since the emptiness of signification is not pressured by selection - it is the concept itself which undergoes the selective pressure - so that for two distinct words carrying the same meaning the persistence of each of the words is not directly related to the sound or the spelling but by the persistence of the word's concept's usage and usefulness.Scott Mayers wrote: ↑March 3rd, 2020, 9:59 am
I used it as 'supporting' case to demonstrate speculation on religious origin-claims that CAN be more rationally be interpreted as secular writings and/or passed-on contemporary politics and education of the day when they were recorded that gets distorted from their origin in an evolutionary manner.
Perhaps you could expand upon what you mean by my supposed "abuse of etymology". This is a philosophy forum. CAn you express what this is and what it is not to help me understand what you mean?
In this way it matters not a jot what you call an idea, its about the persistence of the idea regardless of the word used to describe it.
This is empirically obvious since other languages have different words to express the same thing other languages also have.
And whilst different cultures may use the same word, its meaning for each of those cultures can be utterly different.
The signifier is arbitrary. The signified is everything.
As to my own self-studies regarding religious writings that use words, there is way too much coinciding relationships of words from the ancients records that have the same type of correspondence to logical meanings I notice.
For example, the "Nile" is a name for the river in Egypt and you can presume its label related uniquely to special cause for being named such. Note that the 'god of the water' is called, "Nil" and that the 'god of the sky' is 'Nut'.
When you learn from chemistry the classification of matter as solids, liquids, or [/i]gases (plus now, plasma), these means of describing things in a most general description originates even long before formal classification schemes were even recorded. To the ancients, the first classication scheme was to think of things as "fluids" versus "solids". Water and Air were both treated as types or NOTHINGs, because people then thought that only what was graspable literally could be understood.
Both terms, "Nil" and "Nut" are LITERALLY the source roots that we get, "nil", "not", "nothing", "note", "nut", etc. Was the labels given to these supposed gods then a mere exclusive concept? How coincidental is it that the river, "Nile" could come about distinctly from the 'god of water'?
Note that the "waters above and the waters below" in Genesis is an intentional imposition to hide the meaning of the chaos or fluidity of what solids can move through ("Chaos", by the way, is another word we get the word 'gas' later on).
"Adam" DOES link to a meaning related to 'solids' but is specific to Earthly solids (versus those up in the sky or 'heavens'). The word, "atom", gets eymologically credited to the Greeks with a kind of intentional disconnect to the Egyptian or Judaic roots so that others DON'T link the two.
The word, "heaven", is actually an alternative to "even(s)" and "Eve" and suggests in means whatever follows.
I also notice how the 'n' versu 'm' are used at the end of terms. The 'n' is used at the end to signify universal subject and 'm' for the reflective objects of those universals. So the word, "Aten" and "Eden" are the universal or absolutes or 'sources', while "Adam" and "atom" and "item, all with common ancestral links are receiving or objective relatives to the universals.
The perfect ideal 'solid' to the ancients was that SOLitary thing up in the sky that provides light (rays) and has a perfect spherical/circular containment (a thing ....."aten). Further coincident is to the "SOL" I emphasized and has to relate to where we get "solid" (for single thing-like) and "Solar" (for that ideally perfectly isolated thing in the sky) and likely the reason for the supposed first named King of Isreal as, "Solomon" (for solo-man, or first man).
The supposed other 'gods' of the sun are Ptah and Amen-ra. But note that the "Ptah" is the sound of a fire crackle and suggests it is a phonetic mimic of a spark that ignites a fire? "Amen-ra" would actually mean, "the source of light", where "Ra" is literally the light (as rays) themselves.
So you can rationally link these corresponding words of religious origins to secular ones and is my position about the origins of them. I CAN demonstrate a lot more but this thread is not mine to go further on it. My etymological choice is spoken here without concern for literal proof nor do I expect it to concord with the select etymology of other references. I think you get my point and will stop for your relection.
I am NOT 'abusing' etymology though. I respect other interpretations but don't default any faith in them as more authoritatively correct given they are people too who would have had to think the way I was when interpreting from collections of sources themselves. Politics and religious biases have to be also respected as most probable where roots are blurred or end in interpretations that appear to be most arbitrary. We are somewhat blinded today to assume people or characters written in the past (fictional or real) were arbitrarily assigned from BIRTH as we name our kids today. Rather, names were given AFTER one is born and related to some secularly understood term, like how we discovered North American names of their Indians were/are like this.