Turning the Tables

[Cino]

One pet peeve I have is when people appropriate scientific language in a (usually spiritual) context where it is ill-fitting, to my sensibilities at least.

"Energy" as in "this place has good/bad energy".

"Quantum entanglement" as in "this makes precognition/magic/faster-than-light communication work".

"Ether" (a very out-dated theory of light and electromagnetism) as in "ethereal body".

"Field" as in "morphogenetic field".

Nowadays I don't get upset about this any more, and some of the concepts are interesting in their own right. If only they didn't have such cringeworthy names!

So tonight I had an idea for a good-natured game of turning the tables.

Pick a secular concept, and come up with a witty name or explanation from religion, spirituality, esoterica - you get the idea. "Thunder is a deity being angry", only more clever and novel and interesting - and jarring, to someone "from the field" of theology. And not tasteless like Oppenheimer quoting the Gita ("now I am become Death...") on the occasion of the first nuclear bomb test.

Looking forward to your posts - er, the emanations of your divine sparks

 

[Namaste Jesus]

When I was a kid I made up a story for English class about space being God's pool table. The planets were the billiard balls and the moon was the cue ball. Don't recall what he used for a stick. Instead of grading it my teacher just wrote, "SEE ME" in red at the top of the page.

 

[Cino]

Nice one, NJ!

I realized what I was proposing has been happening for some time:

"Icon" made it into computer jargon. "Click/tap that icon" has a weird ring in the context of Orthodox Christianity, I suspect.

"Karma" has come to mean something like "fate" or "divine retribution" in everyday Western language.

"Philosophy" outside the confines of philosophy departments, usually means "set of beliefs" rather than "use of reason".

 

[wil]

I.always heard thunder was when G!d was bowling...which made me think snow was dandruff and I didn't want to think about rain.

Anthropomorphic analogies lead to trouble, as.does attempts to use religious texts to explain the natural world imo

 

[Ahanu]

I'll take secular concepts for 500, please.

Entropy/disorder.

What is the Native American trickster (Raven, Napi, and so on)?

To create order, disorder must be created somewhere else. So, in secular terms, entropy is really the Native American concept of the trickster. The trickster is always turning the table or doing something that overturns the rules.

 

[StevePame]

I.always heard thunder was when G!d was bowling...which made me think snow was dandruff and I didn't want to think about rain.

Anthropomorphic analogies lead to trouble, as.does attempts to use religious texts to explain the natural world imo

I heard the thunder part, too, and also had the snow thought. Oddly, I never thought about the rain.