Atheism

A full uninterupted Götterdämmerung was on Sky Arts from 2 pm to 7 pm today.

The Twilight of the Gods or the Fate of the Gods.

Astounding!!.

It's one way of identifying who the real misogynists are.

Nietzsche's announcement of the death of God is followed by the insistence on the Dionysiac project which Prof. Leavis said "had better be dispensed with; at the best it introduces a disturbing vibration." At the best eh?

When you preach something you must want everybody to adopt it (that's Kant) and when you denigrate something you must want everybody to abandon it. Anything less is sheer egotistical self-indulgence and we all know how President Kennedy deplored that from his inauguration rostrum.

If some people cannot come to terms with the use of language not as a means in which to put previously definite ideas but as a means to exploratory creativity it does not mean that everybody is as limited.

It matters now what past philosophers or people have said about the bible or god. I made up my own mind about atheism, because I have grown up in a "christian" home, and saw the contradictions of how their dogma was discriminatory against other people. That never made any sense to me, and it never will.

It doesn't matter to a philosophical argument what happened in your Christian domesticity.

It's as daft as thinking the broth Shakespeare's three witches stewed up was the cause of Macbeth's downfall instead of his wife's desire to be Queen and his going along with it like a donkey being led on a halter.

I found the video and the article interesting, although i suspect this has been the case with the clergy for many a century. The Jesuits, especially--them boys know too much . . .

If the cap doesn't fit Francois don't wear it.



I an not providing any valid reasons for anything. I am holding up for examination the supposedly valid reasons others have for what they assert. A number won't even look at it. And when they advise others not to look at it I'll hold that up for examination as well.

If the secularists get their way we will end up with a much slimmed down dictionary and no figures of speech. And minds to match.

Wow, Spendi, don't you think it's a bit quite Cassandresque?

Don't slander Kassandra by comparing her to that gobshite. And a big difference is that Kassandra happened to have been right.

Closer to home there are a bunch of Pacific Island nations would become environmental refugees, most likely relocated to Australia and New Zealand. I wonder how big a detention centre we'd need to lock them up.

I loved Venice - they do 'touristy' so classily. I worry about the Netherlands, Bangladesh and New Orleans.

Actually what I really worry about is the bottom of the food chain.

I've got Spendi on ignore largely because of this willful asininity. But this one made me laugh out loud, on three prongs.
1) I wasn't aware of any great contribution to the dictionary the bible had made in the last couple of centuries.
2) We don't believe in Roman or Greek gods, but they still contribute to our language and figure of speech - as Francis kindly demonstrates with his use of 'Cassandra'
3) The bible is still being translated and the theist translators are removing words used in older translations, does not thou knowest this?

Then there's the Shavian view . . . God obviously speaks English, and only English, so i say, how can we trust a translation, since it ought to have been in English in the first place? Very suspicious to me.

Cassandra wasn't a Greek god. She was the daughter of Priam & Hecuba, King and Queen of Troy.

As the Jesuits know God speaks Latin.

Well, if you're going to get all nit-picky, there was no "C" in the Greek alphabet, so her name is more properly rendered Kassandra. Don't come in here spreading your Jesuitical propaganda, O'George.

Which reminds me, Thomas has linked some interesting stuff about preachers who have lost their faith. I suspect the Jesuits never had much to lose. Whaddaya think, O'Geoge?

I am unperturbed.

BTW, I just finished Joseph Frank's marvelous biography of Fyodor Dostoevsky. There is a wonderful analysis of Book 5 of the Brothers Karamazov, the dialogue between Ivan and Alyosha, starting on p869. It (or the original) would make very good reading for either you or Thomas.

Ole Fyodor didn't like the Jesuits, but he did like God.

It's easy to see the dictionary shrinking from Setanta's small range of insults. Even when he manages to stretch to a figure of speech it is one everybody has heard as many times as I've had pints.

And all they mean is that he's right.

I first read that novel as a callow youth. When i was about 30, a guy i knew who was at university asked me to comment on it, so i read it again. Having already read a bio of Dostoevsky, i had notions about how he viewed society. I laughed my way through the novel, i really don't think Dostoevsky took his characters seriously. Whether or not he did, i found the novel good fun. One of his novels which was really a hoot was The Friend of the Family--i think you'd enjoy it.

J. Lempriere, D.D. gives Cassandra. There are no entries under "K" of any sort.

She was given the gift of foresight by Apollo in exchange for rumpy-pumpy. She renaged on the deal and Apollo licked her lips, by which action he destined that nobody would believe her prophecies. But they all came true.

Hi George, in my defence I did do some minor background checking before posting:



I think having Apollo give her the gift of prophecy makes her part of the theist array. Otherwise it's like saying Moses is not a religious figure.

hh, The best summary on Cassandra so far - IMHO.

Set

Yer what???? When hinge is too coy to mention the rumpy-pumpy. You don't think Apollo would grant such a gift unless he was on a promise do you? And you give me lectures on reality.

Shades of the blushing on the monkey ******* video eh? (A metaphor for the Sex Pistols tour of the US.)

Oooooooweee!! Aren't you evolutionists demure or what? Do you think the electricity is not generated? I hope you have the piano legs properly attired.