Fire sustains all life here on Earth. It was initiallly a symbol of warmth, comfort, and life. It later came to be associated with evil, Hell, and an eternity of suffering. What do you think this paradox implies?
2007-01-24 16:44:14 · 6 answers · asked by Billy Nostrand 3 in Arts & Humanities ➔ Philosophy
To randkl:
To me, I'm still very curious, and I do care about why we change our minds. If fire can stand for opposite things to us, it can reveal a lot about how we think and categorize.
2007-01-29 01:21:44 · update #1
You make it sound like Fire is no longer considered a symbol of warmth and comfort. The sun is a large ball of fire and we cannot live without the sun. A sunny day is represented in every picture as a gift from God as a warm, happy day. Fires are used to make the best food the world has to offer and give us the warmth we need to survive. This is an optimists view of fire.
Fire is also representative of Hell and everything that comes with it. It is hot and can burn a human to death. This is a pessimists view of Fire.
You're asking why people change their minds about Fire? They don't change their minds, they change their views. Experience is what changes peoples views. How they experience life. And because everyone's experience is inevitably different, so are their views.
2007-02-01 12:05:41 · answer #1 · answered by happybirthday 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
No entity has an entirely good or bad character. Its very subjective. One can judge only by thinking of the implications of involving that entity in a certain degree at a certain time. Often believers oversee this fact and decrees an entity as "Holy" or "Unholy". Thats pretty immature for a sensible person to do.
2007-02-02 00:01:11 · answer #2 · answered by Raj Narayan 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Anything that humans cannot understand or control beyond a certain point is compared to infinity.....either positive infinity or negative infinity. Positve infinity being God and the negative being Evil. Fire beyond a certain temparature or volume cannot be controlled by humans and hence compared with evil, because of the obvious damaging power it has within itself. While the temparature and volume can be controlled, it is a symbol of warmth, comfort and life.
2007-01-25 00:52:05 · answer #3 · answered by Phil 3 · 0⤊ 2⤋
That you can probably find better things to do than to question the will of "man".
There is no good answer for why a person thinks one way or another. Mankind was blessed with the ability to change his mind on a whim, and exercises that right often. There is no explaining it.
2007-01-25 01:40:07 · answer #4 · answered by randkl 6 · 0⤊ 1⤋
I don't think it's a paradox. Fire often symbolizes raw emotion, good and bad.
2007-01-25 05:26:30 · answer #5 · answered by Voodoid 7 · 0⤊ 1⤋
that every positive has a negative and that every negative has a positive.
2007-01-25 00:47:51 · answer #6 · answered by concernedjean 5 · 0⤊ 1⤋