Re: Mitanni and Matsya

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Patrick Ryan" <proto-language@...>
wrote:

> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "David Russell Watson" wrote:
>
> I guess English is a problem for you, too.

You would first have to have shown that I have a problem
before you can claim "a problem ... too".

What you wrote is:

> > David, one must first have an original thought before someone
> > like yourself can characterize it as "irrational".

In English this would be taken, before anything else, to
mean that you're denying having had an original thought.

> You characterized MY ideas as "irrational"; not 'wrong'
> but 'irrational'.

They're both, the former as a result of the latter.

So what?

> I claim most of the thoughts I have been expressing are original,
> at least to my knowledge.

Yes, they are. Thank goodness!

> > The development of Varuna after the period of the Rig Veda
> > points the way to a better understanding of what he might
> > have been before the Rig Veda.
>
> > Development involves change, and so, if we are trying
> > to determine the _original_ meaning of a god's name,
> > then no, we do not place greater value on late sources
> > than on the earliest ones available which are closer
> > to the time and circumstances in which he received that
> > name.
>
> That is, again, simple logic.
>
> Simple, yes. Logic, no.

You'll forgive us if we don't take too seriously any claims
of _yours_ about what is and what is not logical.

> Who would suspect from the size and shape of an acorn, a loft
> oak would grow?

When it's the acorn we're trying to reconstruct, what's the
difference?

> In the case of Varuna, this means that his core function,
> though obscured by the syncretism of the Rig Veda, was
> allowed to re-assert itself after that period.

You can't claim a reassertion until you have evidence that
the function you claim for him was the earliest, but which
you do not have. Otherwise we can't regard the supposedly
"reasserted" function as anything but completely new.

It's also silly to refer to the obscuring "syncretism of
the Rig Veda" when the Rig Veda provides us the earliest,
and thus by logical necessity, the _least_ syncretized
view available of ancient Indo-Aryan religion.

You're under some sort of bizarre self delusion that you're
a seer and can speak authoritatively about times unrecorded.

> Development often means bring the unobvious potential inside
> something to mature exhibition.

The "unobvious potential inside"? What exactly do you think
a god is? A god is no more than an imaginary character in
the human minds of his believers. He's no more or less to
him than what his human worshippers imagine him to be at the
time.

> > Where do you find evidence of Varuna earlier than the Vedas,
> > that you can claim he existed so long before?
>
> In his name.

His name provides no such evidence.

> > Not a fact, but merely an assertion of your faith, and
> > obviously illogical, because every god started somewhere
> > and at some point in time, and there's no agency working
> > in our universe to prevent one from being documented as
> > soon as he is invented.
>
> Tell that to the Egyptians, David. Horus was around for perhaps
> 4000 years of which we have records - and how long before that?

LOL! We don't _know_ how long before that, which is the very
point. You couldn't think logically to save your life, could
you?

> > Ah yes, just as I suspected. It's still more personal
> > speculation of yours being presented as if it were fact.
> >
> > You have no real idea at all, and not a shred of actual
> > evidence for how long Varuna has existed, but regardless
> > have no shame at all about throwing such claims about in
> > an argument as if facts.
> >
> > You're dishonest.
>
> And you are doing a splendid job of revealing just who you are,
> David.

Well I certainly hope so, but more than that, I hope I am
revealing just who _you_ are.

David