Mac wrote-
Quote:Scratch the surface, I think the Pagan is there in all of us.
During Mr Gibbon's description of the elegant Pagan temple consecrated to Apollo near Antioch during the reign of Julian there are these sentences concerning the ceremonials which took place there-
Quote:A thousand streams of the purest water, issuing from every hill, preserved the verdure of the earth and the temperature of the air; the senses were gratified with harmonious sounds and aromatic odours; and the peaceful grove was consecrated to health and joy, to luxury and love.
The vigorous youth pursued, like Apollo, the object of his desires; and the blushing maid was warned, by the fate of Daphne, to shun the folly of unseasonable coyness. The soldier and philosopher wisely avoided the temptation of this sensual paradise; where pleasure, assuming the character of religion, imperceptibly dissolved the firmness of manly virtue.
So now you know Mac the explanation of the "weepies" whilst watching a propaganda movie.
It might be worth noting that the persuasion of the blushing maids with threats of being transformed into a laurel bush is the ground in which Germaine Greer planted her "All men are rapists" slogan. Or part of it at least.
As Christianity falls into desuetude the primacy of emotion over reason in human nature will inevitable lead to an upsurge in paganism. And modern biolological science, soon to be taught at a school near you, claims to have evidence that displays of "unseasonable coyness" by blushing maids transforms them into withered bats and encourages the onset of certain pathological conditions of the psycho/soma.
Paganism is a hopeless religion in the presence of "unseasonable coyness" in maids either blushing or otherwise. Pious pagan maidens are voracious sexually.
:wink: 
