Harry Potter Is A Symptom Of Western Civilisation's Slide Back Into Paganism
Sound of Trumpet
http://www.mercatornet.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=522
Death stalks the halls of Hogwarts
Written by Joe Woodard
Friday, 13 April 2007
The tragedy to be unveiled in the last Harry Potter is a mirror for
our age.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is scheduled for release July 21.
And barring possible plot surprises, heroic Harry is doomed to die in
this seventh and last book of J.K. Rowling's hugely popular teen
sorcerer series. He will follow wise and self-sacrificing Hogwarts
School of Witchcraft and Wizardry headmaster Albus Dumbledore and a
half-dozen fellow students into some vague though presumably
comfortable afterlife, apparently as a disembodied spirit.
Given that the Potter books now rank second only to the Bible in their
popularity, what are we to make of Harry's pending death?
Boasting solid five-star Amazon ratings and over 300 million sales,
Potter is a clear symptom of Western civilisation's slow slide back
into naturalistic mythic paganism. Despite our electronic heart
monitors and computerised intravenous drips, modern technological
optimism is finally colliding with the unavoidable reality of death.
In a banal mockery of Nietzsche's "Eternal Recurrence," Western
civilisation is reverting to an epoch of tragedy, a worldview that
virtually defined the Ancient Greeks and Romans -- and which they then
rejected some 1,500 years ago, voting with their feet in favour of the
Christian comedy.
The Potter books encapsulate three cultural temptations that have
undercut the once Christian West ever since the philosophers of the
17th century Enlightenment launched their insurgency against
Christendom. In historical order, those trends are: first, the
reduction of human reason to mere practical technique or "problem-
solving"; second, the rejection of rational metaphysics or theology in
favour of self-conscious myth-making (now glorified as post-
modernism); and now, last and most clearly with Harry's death, the
slowly-dawning realisation that human mortality still punctures all of
our idiosyncratic "realities" and renders human technology (even
genetic engineering and sorcery) mere distraction and vanity.
Banal pragmatism
Harry's education at Hogwarts rivals modern medical schools in its
philistine pragmatism. Whether studying spells and potions, dark arts
or magical beasts, the sorcery students learn only how to "do" things,
like flying on brooms, de-gnoming gardens or creating gluttonous
feasts. Magic is just another craft. What they should "be", what sort
of character they should cultivate, never becomes a topic of
instruction or conversation. Harry is encouraged only to be true to
himself. And one of the four school "houses," Slytherin, is explicitly
dedicated to the nasty kids, presumably because that's just the way
they are, and they have a right to an education sharpening their nasty
skills.
It's unclear whether Rowling is deliberately parodying modern "self-
affirming" schooling here. But the pedigree of her stunted
understanding of education and human reason includes the likes of
Enlightenment philosophers Spinoza, Descartes, Bacon and Locke. In
their quarrel with Ancient metaphysics and Christian theology, early
modern philosophers sought to harness reason to the "relief of the
estate of man" and the creation of a "heaven on earth" through
technology. So they rejected any sort of metaphysical speculation and
therein the contemplative intellect as essentially useless, asserting
(in Thomas Hobbes's words) , "We know only what we make."
Whatever the differences among the Enlightenment savants, they agreed
that reason is not a mirror of an independent reality, mundane and
divine, to which human beings must conform themselves. Rather, they
redefined reason as a human construct, obedient to human purposes. Yet
any definition of those purposes, beyond the endless increase in human
powers, has remained up for grabs.
The result of this philosophic lobotomy we see today in a medical
profession fully committed to expanding its techniques, but oblivious
to any distinction between its legitimate and illegitimate purposes.
We see it in accountants and engineers who work themselves to death,
because doing is all they know, because no one has taught them that
happiness is found in contemplation and worship. And we see it in the
Hogwarts (and Springfield Elementary) school faculties, dedicated to
empowering students, but deliberately recusing themselves from
training characters in righteousness and nobility.
The modern technological ambition to reconstruct both material and
human nature has naturally culminated in the post-modern presumption
that we can all construct our own personal, virtual realities. In
contrast, the claims of Christendom stood or fell on issues of
historical fact, like whether that tomb was really empty. But these
days, we'll deliberately commit to any likely story that will
temporarily make us feel good.
In this context, author Rowling is symptomatically post-modern, not in
the obvious fact that she is creating a new myth (as did Tolkien), but
in her blithe assumption that whatever reality lurks behind the mythic
is basically benign. For all the murder and soul-sucking in the Potter
books, Rowling pokes hardly at all into questions of what lies beyond
the veil. Spirits haunting Hogwarts, like Nearly Headless Nick and the
Fat Friar, provide reassurance of some sort of commodious afterlife,
despite the cutthroat will to power in this life, so it really doesn't
matter who's won when the whistle blows.
Modernity's Achilles' heel
And yet... and yet, death remains a problem -- a serpent Rowling has not
avoided but rather tried to domesticate. And the viper cannot long
imitate the garter snake. The culture of ancient Greece and Rome, the
world of Homer, Sophocles and Virgil (and most of the world besides),
was virtually defined by their awareness that human beings would
always strive for a nobility rendered ephemeral and pointless by their
mortality, and the more noble the human, the more tragic the death.
Life itself is the undeserved misfortune suffered by noble characters
-- the classic definition of tragedy.
For this tragic epoch, the Good News of the Christian Gospel (as
pundit Chesterton said) was original sin, the revelation that life
wasn't pointless cruelty, that the universe wasn't stacked against
man, but rather that man was simply his own worst enemy. Conjoined
with the promise of the "resurrection of the flesh" and eternal life,
this meant that life was basically the undeserved good fortune enjoyed
by ignoble characters -- the very definition of comedy. So Christendom
was expressed in the farces of Dante, Chaucer and Cervantes. And the
joys of contemplation were opened to the meanest intellects in the
church's endless parade of feastdays.
After a thousand years of Christendom, however, the insurgents of the
Enlightenment found the idleness of worship and the reign of clerics
an affront to human pride. They believed that unleashing all the
potential of human technology alone would render mankind healthy,
wealthy and wise. Some thought, with Hobbes, that life made commodious
and safe would become reconciled to quiet death in old age. Others,
with Descartes, believed that the development of medical technology
would bring practical physical immortality. Either way, man the worker
would emerge as the happy master of his own house.
It hasn't turned out that way, of course. First, the modern obsession
with conquering human suffering has made Western man pathologically
soft and sensitive, discombobulated by daily irritants our
grandfathers would have simply ignored. Second -- confirming the
Christian hypothesis of original sin -- the expansion of man's power
over nature has meant (as others observed) the expansion of some men's
power over other men. Given today's malignant public administration,
economic interdependency and mass media, almost no one now pretends to
be the master of his own house.
And third, technology itself has developed a credibility bubble; its
promises of happiness have outstripped its delivery, and with every
further development of medicine, death looms larger as the final
frontier -- unknowable, implacable and unavoidable. So the last man's
ideal life has become perfect fitness until 75 or 85, then a little
poison for a comfortable death. And to this he dedicates life-
coaching, organic cooking and treadmilling.
Colliding with the inevitable
This is where Harry's death comes in, as yet another symptom (like
Columbine High) of where we're heading. It took 400 years for the
Enlightenment buzzards to roost. For four centuries, Western
pragmatism has coasted on its reserves of Christian optimism. But the
tipping point was reached when the sexual revolution threw off the
last of Christian "oppression", and then raised a next generation of
deracinated barbarians.
Kids today have far fewer self-serving illusions than their baby
boomer parents. Death has always been the staple of adolescent
literature; but today the hero dies. So they can again understand
Achilles's complaint, "Do you not see what a man I am? How huge? How
splendid?... Yet even I also have my death and strong destiny; there
shall be a dawn or afternoon or noontime when some man in the fight
will take the life from me also."
So there is a silver lining to the pagan cloud, descending over the
land. Modernism was a kind of naive vanity, predicated on an immature
bracketing of the big questions of life -- like the businessman who
resolves to spend time with his family once his bundle is made. But
kids now are realising that, even if you're a technological wizard,
you still die in the end. Culturally they feel the heart flutter, the
shooting pain down the left arm, the memento mori. The now-manifest
spiritual vacuity of the pragmatic epoch means they're now open to
something, almost anything.
Joe Woodard is former editor of the Canadian conservative magazine
Western Standard, now teaching in Calgary.
Elocutus
the hatch and pleaded:
> http://www.mercatornet.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=522
>
>
>
<snip pasted article>
So, what are your thoughts on this, SOT?
--
David Silverman AA#2208
"If you are informed by God, you can be misinformed by nobody" - Osama Bin
Laden
Ron Hunter
meandering might serve some useful purpose. As it is, the power to
bring it to my screen was wasted.
Vinnie Venomous
> Boasting solid five-star Amazon ratings and over 300 million sales,
> Potter is a clear symptom of Western civilisation's slow slide back
> into naturalistic mythic paganism.
if only that was true!
interesting though, that christians can even feel threatened by a mere
work of fiction.
> In a banal mockery of Nietzsche's "Eternal Recurrence," Western
> civilisation is reverting to an epoch of tragedy, a worldview that
> virtually defined the Ancient Greeks and Romans -- and which they then
> rejected some 1,500 years ago, voting with their feet in favour of the
> Christian comedy.
a common claim in christian propaganda. in fact nobody "voted with his
feet" as the introduction of christianity only took place through
violence and oppression. the great achievements of ancient times were
then replaced by the primitivity of the middle ages.
a return to the nobility of paganism would be a wonderful step in
overcoming the christian tragedy, but potter won't contribute anything
to that.
Martin Kaletsch
> Boasting solid five-star Amazon ratings and over 300 million sales,
> Potter is a clear symptom of Western civilisation's slow slide back
> into naturalistic mythic paganism. Despite our electronic heart
> monitors and computerised intravenous drips, modern technological
> optimism is finally colliding with the unavoidable reality of death.
> In a banal mockery of Nietzsche's "Eternal Recurrence," Western
> civilisation is reverting to an epoch of tragedy, a worldview that
> virtually defined the Ancient Greeks and Romans -- and which they then
> rejected some 1,500 years ago, voting with their feet in favour of the
> Christian comedy.
"Christian Comedy" You just have to love this expression. Finally someone
gave me the clue to what the christian religion is all about - pity most
followers took it seriously!
--
Martin Kaletsch
John Baker
<brain_e...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>Sound of Trumpet schrieb:
>
>
>> Boasting solid five-star Amazon ratings and over 300 million sales,
>> Potter is a clear symptom of Western civilisation's slow slide back
>> into naturalistic mythic paganism.
>
>if only that was true!
>interesting though, that christians can even feel threatened by a mere
>work of fiction.
Interesting, but hardly surprising. Fundamentalist Christians are by
and large a pretty insecure lot, as evinced by their obsessive need to
force their beliefs onto everyone else by any means necessary, and as
a general rule, the louder their protests, the weaker their faith.
>
>
>> In a banal mockery of Nietzsche's "Eternal Recurrence," Western
>> civilisation is reverting to an epoch of tragedy, a worldview that
>> virtually defined the Ancient Greeks and Romans -- and which they then
>> rejected some 1,500 years ago, voting with their feet in favour of the
>> Christian comedy.
>
>a common claim in christian propaganda. in fact nobody "voted with his
>feet" as the introduction of christianity only took place through
>violence and oppression. the great achievements of ancient times were
>then replaced by the primitivity of the middle ages.
I don't think Strumpet even bothers to read his copy-and-paste drivel
before he posts it. Not that he'd be likely to understand much of it
if he did....
>
>a return to the nobility of paganism would be a wonderful step in
>overcoming the christian tragedy, but potter won't contribute anything
>to that.
Nope. But love him or hate him, Harry Potter got a lot of kids to shut
down the computer, put away the X-Box and open a book. In this day and
age, that's as close to magic as you're likely to get. <G>
cla...@comcast.net
wrote:
> It hasn't turned out that way, of course. First, the modern obsession
> with conquering human suffering has made Western man pathologically
> soft and sensitive, discombobulated by daily irritants our
> grandfathers would have simply ignored. Second -- confirming the
> Christian hypothesis of original sin -- the expansion of man's power
> over nature has meant (as others observed) the expansion of some men's
> power over other men. Given today's malignant public administration,
> economic interdependency and mass media, almost no one now pretends to
> be the master of his own house.
>
>
master of his own house. ? see
http://www.lneilsmith.org/
http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/
Genius is not knowing everything. Genius is knowing where to find it.
- Uncle Al.
At this point in time and to the extent that my income is limited to a
VA disability pension, I am master of this computer keyboard and a
bedroom in my brother's house. Is that good enough ?
On the other hand you have a point, baby boomers are less masters of
our own houses than our parents, and trends suggest that generations
after ours may be even less masters under the burden of oppressive
government. See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G.I._Generation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_Jones
The population of older people will steadily increase as a percentage
of the total (barring catastrophe).
http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/ageing/agewpop1.htm
> the expansion of man's power
> over nature has meant (as others observed) the expansion of some men's
> power over other men.
The rich are getting richer, the poor are increasing as a percentage
of population, and big government has grown huge see :
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2008/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distribution_of_wealth
http://www.lcurve.org/
http://www.cooperativeindividualism.org/wealth_distribution1999.html
http://www.urban.org/economy/income.cfm
http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html
My thoughts in 1997 on what to do about it, see
http://groups.google.com/group/misc.invest.marketplace/browse_thread/thread/e557bb977e028a7d/e037243d0460eb76?lnk=st&q=tc5526%40aol.com&rnum=10&hl=en#e037243d0460eb76
That is playing with fire!
Lonnie Courtney Clay
Hatter
wrote:
His usual biased newssource nonsense. I'm tired of doing anything more
than scanning them.
If anything a return to Paganism wouldn't be a "slide back" but making
up for two millenia of lost ground. I've been reading a very
interesting book called "the Closing of the Western Mind" and how the
triumph of Christianity over Pagan thought in late Antiquity was very
clearly a triumph of irrationality and intolerance over reason.
Despite still being silly myths, pagan though was open to new
experiences and was not incompatable to rationity and science, as
opposed to Christian "closed" thinking which must, by definition,
eschew anything that may conflict with Dogma.
Once your done with the very light reading of Harry Potter, I recomend
it. However, it has taken me weeks to read.
Hatter
bill.m...@gmail.com
wrote:
> http://www.mercatornet.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=522
>
> Death stalks the halls of Hogwarts
>
> Written by Joe Woodard
>
> Friday, 13 April 2007
>
> The tragedy to be unveiled in the last Harry Potter is a mirror for
> our age.
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is scheduled for release July 21.
> And barring possible plot surprises, heroic Harry is doomed to die in
> this seventh and last book of J.K. Rowling's hugely popular teen
> sorcerer series. He will follow wise and self-sacrificing Hogwarts
> School of Witchcraft and Wizardry headmaster Albus Dumbledore and a
> half-dozen fellow students into some vague though presumably
> comfortable afterlife, apparently as a disembodied spirit.
The book in which Dumbledore met his demise is the only one of the
series that I have read. ISTM that the author set it up in such a way
that the death was faked. One option is that Snape and Dumbledore
planned the whole thing to convince Voldemort that Snape was
unquestionably back on his side. The rest of the article SOT posted
appears to be a giant strain at a tiny gnat. Not worth any other
comment.
Bill
<SNIP>
DanielSan
> http://www.mercatornet.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=522
>
>
>
>
> Death stalks the halls of Hogwarts
>
A ficton book.
--
******************************************************
* DanielSan -- alt.atheism #2226 *
*----------------------------------------------------*
* "In every country and every age, the priest had *
* been hostile to Liberty." --Thomas Jefferson *
******************************************************
T Guy
[a load of stuff cut'n'pasted from somewhere or other]
(T Guy):
Well, the Christers had a good run for their money.
T G
ravenlynne
>> Joe Woodard is former editor of the Canadian conservative magazine
>> Western Standard, now teaching in Calgary.
>>
> If the writer of this article had read the Harry Potter books, his
> meandering might serve some useful purpose. As it is, the power to
> bring it to my screen was wasted.
And yet you felt the need to waste ours by not snipping.
--
"I'm thinking that if this dilemma grows any more horns, I'm going to
shoot it and put it up on the wall."
- Harry Dresden
Jon Schild
I always wonder at the inability of some people, apparently highly
educated, to comprehend simple ideas like fiction and entertainment.
--
An opinion should be the result of thought, not a substitute for it.
Jon Schild
I think he means the original meaning of comedy, as whatever isn't tragedy.
Hatter
> Sound of Trumpet wrote:
> >http://www.mercatornet.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=522
>
> > Death stalks the halls of Hogwarts
>
> A ficton book.
>
Hatter
tirebiter
> >http://www.mercatornet.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=522
>
> > Death stalks the halls of Hogwarts
>
> A ficton book.
>
> --
> ******************************************************
> * DanielSan -- alt.atheism #2226 *
> *----------------------------------------------------*
> * "In every country and every age, the priest had *
> * been hostile to Liberty." --Thomas Jefferson *
> ******************************************************
---
a.a. #2273
Dorothy J Heydt
Dante's, e.g.
Dorothy J. Heydt
Albany, California
djh...@kithrup.com
Ron Hunter
> Ron Hunter wrote:
>
>>> Joe Woodard is former editor of the Canadian conservative magazine
>>> Western Standard, now teaching in Calgary.
>>>
>> If the writer of this article had read the Harry Potter books, his
>> meandering might serve some useful purpose. As it is, the power to
>> bring it to my screen was wasted.
>
> And yet you felt the need to waste ours by not snipping.
>
discussion.
Mike Painter
> The tragedy to be unveiled in the last Harry Potter is a mirror for
> our age.
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>
>
> Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is scheduled for release July 21.
> And barring possible plot surprises, heroic Harry is doomed to die in
> this seventh and last book of J.K. Rowling's hugely popular teen
> sorcerer series. He will follow wise and self-sacrificing Hogwarts
> School of Witchcraft and Wizardry headmaster Albus Dumbledore and a
> half-dozen fellow students into some vague though presumably
> comfortable afterlife, apparently as a disembodied spirit.
But three days later he will come back for graduation.
nys...@cs.com
Hatter wrote:
> On Apr 19, 4:19 am, Sound of Trumpet <sound_of_trum...@warpmail.net>
> wrote:
>
> His usual biased newssource nonsense. I'm tired of doing anything
> more than scanning them.
The article is indeed not worthwhile. It is based on too many
questionable assumptions, most especially the author's assumptions
about how Book 7 will end.
I sometimes wonder about the motive behind the posting of such
articles. Is the author (or the poster) really pro-Chrisitan? Or
does he merely aim to give others an opportunity to anti-Christian
bigots for a little jolly Christian bashing, while making actual
Christians too embarrassed to fight back.
> If anything a return to Paganism wouldn't be a "slide back" but
> making up for two millenia of lost ground.
Ho hum, ho hum. Same old same old. Let's go back to worshipping
Pharoah as a god. The Pharoahs would like that.
> I've been reading a very
> interesting book called "the Closing of the Western Mind" and how
> the triumph of Christianity over Pagan thought in late Antiquity
> was very clearly a triumph of irrationality and intolerance over
> reason.
I'm sure you will find plenty of books like that if you are determined
to read only that kind of book.
> Despite still being silly myths, [...]
Right. Quite a flaw in your little theory.
> [...}pagan though was open to new
> experiences and was not incompatable to rationity and science, as
> opposed to Christian "closed" thinking which must, by definition,
> eschew anything that may conflict with Dogma.
One wonders why, therefore, it was in the Christian West that science
and the expanding of human progress really took off.
In order to believe ANYTHING, one must reject competing ideas. If I
conclude, at some point, that OJ killed Nicole, I must "close my mind"
to the belief that he did not kill Nicole. Complete openmindedness is
the suicide of thought. Pagans, as a group, are not defined by their
specific beliefs, whereas Christians are. Nonetheless, Pagans do have
specific beliefs.
Government has long been hostile to groups with a firmly held moral
outlook that is not subject to government control. Governments want
obedient subjects, not ones who stand in judgment of their Leaders, on
the basis of a set of Rules that the Leaders did not invent. Hence,
Hitler's hostility to Jews, Jehovah's Witnesses, and Catholics (and
ultimately to almost all religion, though he was never open about
it). In the Soviet Union, of course, all religion was anathema. In
the West, some positive attitude towards religion, among Elites,
lasted as long as it was conventient to bash the Soviets for religious
intolerance. But after the Soviet Union collapsed, elite hostility to
religion increased.
In the US for instance, we have two branches of the business party.
One Party has their own Christians (loosely called "The Religious
Right"), which by and large, are a party controlled and/or influenced
group, at least to the extent that they have access to the media. The
other party is largely anti-religious. Besides being hostile to each
other, both groups are extremely hostile to any independent religious
force (such as Catholics or Muslims).
> Once your done with the very light reading of Harry Potter, I
> recomend it. However, it has taken me weeks to read.
Have not read it, but it does not sound worthwhile.
Dorothy J Heydt
I'm going to quote a poem by C. S. Lewis in its entirety. He
would understand.
A Cliche Came Out of Its Cage
You said 'The world is going back to paganism'. Oh bright
Vision! I saw our dynasty in the bar of the House
Spill from their tumblers a libation to the Erinyes,
And Levis with Lord Russell wreathed in flowers, heralded with
flutes,
Leading white bulls to the cathedral of the solemn Muses
To pay where due the glory of their latest theorem.
Hestia's fire in every flat, rekindled, before
The Lardergods. Unmarried daughters with obedient hands
Tended it. By the hearth the white-arm'd venerable mother
_Domum servabat, lanam faciebat._ Duly at the hour
Of sacrifice their brothers came, silent, corrected, grave
Before their elders; on their downy cheeks easily the blush
Arose (it is the mark of freemen's children) as they trooped,
Gleaming with oil, demurely home from the palaestra or the dance.
Walk carefully, do not wake the envy of the happy gods,
Shun Hubris. The middle of the road, the middle sort of men,
Are best. Aidos surpasses gold. Reverence for the aged
Is wholesome as seasonable rain, and for a man to die
Defending the city in battle is a harmonious thing.
Thus with magistral hand the Puritan Sophrosune
Cooled and schooled and tempered our uneasy motions;
Heathendom came again, the circumspection and the holy fears ...
You said it. Did you mean it? Oh inordinate liar, stop.
Or did you mean another kind of heathenry?
Think, then, that under heaven-roof the little disc of the earth,
Fortified Midgard, lies encircled by the ravening Worm.
Over its icy bastions faces of giant and troll
Look in, ready to invade it. The Wolf, admittedly, is bound;
But the bond will break, the Beast run free. The weary gods,
Scarred with old wounds, the one-eyed Odin, Tyr who has lost a
hand,
Will limp to their stations for the last defence. Make it your
hope
To be counted worthy on that day to stand beside them;
For the end of man is to partake of their defeat and die
His second, final death in good company. The stupid, strong
Unteachable monsters are certain to be victorious at last,
And every man of decent blood is on the losing side.
Take as your model the tall women with yellow hair in plaits
Who walked back into burning houses to die with men,
Or him who as the death spear entered into his vitals
Made critical comments on its workmanship and aim.
Are these the Pagans you spoke of? Know your betters and crouch,
dogs;
You that have Vichy-water in your veins and worship the event,
Your goddess History (whom your fathers called the strumpet
Fortune).
Dorothy J Heydt
<nys...@cs.com> wrote:
>
>> [...}pagan though[t] was open to new
>> experiences and was not incompatable to rationity and science, as
>> opposed to Christian "closed" thinking which must, by definition,
>> eschew anything that may conflict with Dogma.
>
>One wonders why, therefore, it was in the Christian West that science
>and the expanding of human progress really took off.
OfSF: Martin Padway goes to Sunday Mass in sixth-century Rome
and sings a hymn with the rest of the congregation:
"'Imminet, imminet, (He is coming, he is coming,
Recta remuneret, He will reward the just,
Aethera donet, He will give heavenly gifts,
Ille supremus!' He, the Most High.)
He reflected that there was this good in Christianity: By its
concepts of the Millennium and Judgment Day it accustomed people
to looking forward in a way that the older religions did not, and
so prepared their minds for the conceptions of organic evolution
and scientific progress."
Hatter
> Hatterwrote:
> > On Apr 19, 4:19 am, Sound of Trumpet <sound_of_trum...@warpmail.net>
> > wrote:
>
> > His usual biased newssource nonsense. I'm tired of doing anything
> > more than scanning them.
>
> The article is indeed not worthwhile. It is based on too many
> questionable assumptions, most especially the author's assumptions
> about how Book 7 will end.
>
> I sometimes wonder about the motive behind the posting of such
> articles. Is the author (or the poster) really pro-Chrisitan? Or
> does he merely aim to give others an opportunity to anti-Christian
> bigots for a little jolly Christian bashing, while making actual
> Christians too embarrassed to fight back.
>
opinions. However, that's just a guess.
> > If anything a return to Paganism wouldn't be a "slide back" but
> > making up for two millenia of lost ground.
>
> Ho hum, ho hum. Same old same old. Let's go back to worshipping
> Pharoah as a god. The Pharoahs would like that.
>
Yeah that God made flesh thing is certainly a laughable aspect
> > I've been reading a very
> > interesting book called "the Closing of the Western Mind" and how
> > the triumph of Christianity over Pagan thought in late Antiquity
> > was very clearly a triumph of irrationality and intolerance over
> > reason.
>
> I'm sure you will find plenty of books like that if you are determined
> to read only that kind of book.
>
Just like any viewpoint. However, this is one of the most well
researched book I've read on the details of thought and philosophy in
late antiquity and the shift from rationalism to religous thought as
epitomized in the painting "The Triumph of Faith"
I am certainly not thinking Pagan religons any closer to the
truth...that requires atheism.
> > Despite still being silly myths, [...]
>
> Right. Quite a flaw in your little theory.
Not a flaw so much as a completion...a "warts and all"
perspective....and by the way you prove a bias when you use the word
"little"
>
> > [...}pagan though was open to new
> > experiences and was not incompatable to rationity and science, as
> > opposed to Christian "closed" thinking which must, by definition,
> > eschew anything that may conflict with Dogma.
>
> One wonders why, therefore, it was in the Christian West that science
> and the expanding of human progress really took off.
>
It was the rediscovery of said "Pagan" texts and modes of thought
eschewed by the early church fathers during the reinessance and the
Enlightenment. The church often did it best...as a great deal of
Christian leaders are still doing there best....to suppress any
progress.
> In order to believe ANYTHING, one must reject competing ideas. If I
> conclude, at some point, that OJ killed Nicole, I must "close my mind"
> to the belief that he did not kill Nicole. Complete openmindedness is
> the suicide of thought. Pagans, as a group, are not defined by their
> specific beliefs, whereas Christians are. Nonetheless, Pagans do have
> specific beliefs.
Yes. None the less it was comopolitan Pagans exposed to a plethora of
ideas, which had the ability and mindset to make advance in the realms
of rational thought. While Christianity considered rationalism as
anathema, except the rather flawed Platonic realm of forms meme, which
served Christianity well.
>
> Government has long been hostile to groups with a firmly held moral
> outlook that is not subject to government control. Governments want
> obedient subjects, not ones who stand in judgment of their Leaders, on
> the basis of a set of Rules that the Leaders did not invent. Hence,
> Hitler's hostility to Jews, Jehovah's Witnesses, and Catholics (and
> ultimately to almost all religion, though he was never open about
> it). In the Soviet Union, of course, all religion was anathema. In
> the West, some positive attitude towards religion, among Elites,
> lasted as long as it was conventient to bash the Soviets for religious
> intolerance. But after the Soviet Union collapsed, elite hostility to
> religion increased.
>
> In the US for instance, we have two branches of the business party.
> One Party has their own Christians (loosely called "The Religious
> Right"), which by and large, are a party controlled and/or influenced
> group, at least to the extent that they have access to the media. The
> other party is largely anti-religious. Besides being hostile to each
> other, both groups are extremely hostile to any independent religious
> force (such as Catholics or Muslims).
>
> > Once your done with the very light reading of Harry Potter, I
> > recomend it. However, it has taken me weeks to read.
>
> Have not read it, but it does not sound worthwhile.
>From the perspective of,Christian irrationality, that is quite
understandable
Hatter
nys...@cs.com
Hatter wrote:
> On Apr 19, 12:16 pm, nyst...@cs.com wrote:
> > Ho hum, ho hum. Same old same old. Let's go back to worshipping
> > Pharoah as a god. The Pharoahs would like that.
>
> Yeah that God made flesh thing is certainly a laughable aspect
Laughable or not, it is not something that distinguishes the Christian
from the pagan, which I thought was your theme. The distinction that
occured to my mind is that the pagan version is rather more convenient
to current rulers, and the Christian versian rather less so.
Your thesis was not the superiority of modern rationalism, but the
superiority of paganism.
> > Have not read it, but it does not sound worthwhile.
>
> From the perspective of,Christian irrationality, that is quite
> understandable
I wasn't aware of any point in the discussion where you pointed out a
flaw in my reasoning. Or are you already so convinced of this
writer's thesis that you are convinced I must be irrational because
you suppose I am Christian? And is this an example of pagan
openmindedness?
The book you describe is the kind that sounds remarkably easy to
write, by selective interpretation of sources. Sounds vaguely similar
to Gibbon's thesis. And yet, virtually every advanced culture
abandoned paganism: The east in favor of Hinduism and Buddhism, the
Middle East & North Africa in favor of Islam, and the West in favor of
Christianity.
Michael Stemper
>Sound of Trumpet wrote:
>If the writer of this article had read the Harry Potter books, his
>meandering might serve some useful purpose. As it is, the power to
>bring it to my screen was wasted.
Yet you felt compelled to re-post it, in its entirety, not omitting
a single word.
--
Michael F. Stemper
#include <Standard_Disclaimer>
A preposition is something that you should never end a sentence with.
John Baker
Oh? Got any evidence that religion is anything *other* than silly
myths, Skippy?
>
>> [...}pagan though was open to new
>> experiences and was not incompatable to rationity and science, as
>> opposed to Christian "closed" thinking which must, by definition,
>> eschew anything that may conflict with Dogma.
>
>One wonders why, therefore, it was in the Christian West that science
>and the expanding of human progress really took off.
Just as one wonders why today's "Christians" seem to be doing all they
can to *destroy* science and human progress.....
But then, men like Newton, Galileo, Copernicus, Mendel et al. didn't
accomplish what they did *because* they were Christians, but rather in
*spite* of it.
Not to mention that much of the foundation of modern science was
actually laid by the ancient Greeks and Arabs - who were hardly
Christians.
I'd wager it's a far more worthwhile read than a book of ancient
Middle Eastern folklore.
David Johnston
<sound_of...@warpmail.net> wrote:
>
>http://www.mercatornet.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=522
>
>
>
>
>Death stalks the halls of Hogwarts
>
>Written by Joe Woodard
>
Who is an idiot. What's Dumbledore's familiar? What bird's feather
is in Harry's wand?
Richard R. Hershberger
> On Thu, 19 Apr 2007 11:55:04 +0200, Vinnie Venomous
>
> >Sound of Trumpet schrieb:
>
> >> Boasting solid five-star Amazon ratings and over 300 million sales,
> >> Potter is a clear symptom of Western civilisation's slow slide back
> >> into naturalistic mythic paganism.
>
> >if only that was true!
> >interesting though, that christians can even feel threatened by a mere
> >work of fiction.
>
> Interesting, but hardly surprising. Fundamentalist Christians are by
> and large a pretty insecure lot, as evinced by their obsessive need to
> force their beliefs onto everyone else by any means necessary, and as
> a general rule, the louder their protests, the weaker their faith.
Thank you for inserting that "Fundamentalist" bit. The previous
poster was using an overbroad brush. This non-fundamentalist
Christian didn't feel threatened by Harry Potter. I felt
uninterested. I read the first one while visiting my brother and his
family over Christmas some years ago. I thought it pretty decent
children's fiction: over-hyped, but most people have never read
decent children's fiction, so I was willing to cut some slack. I
started the second one the following Christmas visit, but didn't have
time to finish it. By this time I had observed that the mass of
succeeding volumes was increasing, and I this is rarely a good sign of
things to come. I never really felt the need to finish the second
volume, and have not opened the later ones. Life is too short to
spend reading books which provoke a "meh" response.
But that's just me.
Richard R. Hershberger
ravenlynne
>> And yet you felt the need to waste ours by not snipping.
>>
> And you chose to waste more by a pointless post adding nothing to the
> discussion.
I did. I pointed out the irony of your post.
Glass houses and all that.
Hatter
> Hatterwrote:
> > On Apr 19, 12:16 pm, nyst...@cs.com wrote:
> > > Ho hum, ho hum. Same old same old. Let's go back to worshipping
> > > Pharoah as a god. The Pharoahs would like that.
>
> > Yeah that God made flesh thing is certainly a laughable aspect
>
> Laughable or not, it is not something that distinguishes the Christian
> from the pagan, which I thought was your theme. The distinction that
> occured to my mind is that the pagan version is rather more convenient
> to current rulers, and the Christian versian rather less so.
>
Christianity has an orthodoxy the support divine right, providence,
eschewing rationality, a docile populace(render unto Ceasar), and
certainly a "my god is better than your god" mindset.
> Your thesis was not the superiority of modern rationalism, but the
> superiority of paganism.
I must admit, the superiority of paganism is pretty minute compared to
that of rationality compared to Christianity. I was simply that Pagan
thought seemed to be more compatable with rationality is a
cosmopolitan aspect because it must be accomodating of multiple gods
and multiple modes of thought. That is why the great advances of
rationality came from cosmopolitan pagans but the rise of Christianity
clearly marked a decline in rational thought.
>
> > > Have not read it, but it does not sound worthwhile.
>
> > From the perspective of,Christian irrationality, that is quite
> > understandable
>
> I wasn't aware of any point in the discussion where you pointed out a
> flaw in my reasoning. Or are you already so convinced of this
> writer's thesis that you are convinced I must be irrational because
> you suppose I am Christian? And is this an example of pagan
> openmindedness?
>
> The book you describe is the kind that sounds remarkably easy to
> write, by selective interpretation of sources. Sounds vaguely similar
> to Gibbon's thesis. And yet, virtually every advanced culture
> abandoned paganism: The east in favor of Hinduism and Buddhism, the
> Middle East & North Africa in favor of Islam, and the West in favor of
> Christianity.
Because when orthodoxy is introduced it can be more easily harnessed
to serve a power structure of any despot. Orthodoxy is the key, but a
singular Orthodoxy could also be Pagan. It is just harder.
Hatter
David Johnston
>Laughable or not, it is not something that distinguishes the Christian
>from the pagan, which I thought was your theme. The distinction that
>occured to my mind is that the pagan version is rather more convenient
>to current rulers, and the Christian versian rather less so.
>
How do you figure that?
il...@rcn.com
> concepts of the Millennium and Judgment Day it accustomed people
> to looking forward in a way that the older religions did not, and
> so prepared their minds for the conceptions of organic evolution
> and scientific progress."
I find this a very strained claim. Christianity is neither only nor
first religion which regards the universe as non-static and/or
promises better future. If anything, Hindu Cycles of the Universe
(which happen to be on the timescale to satisfy any modern
cosmologist) are better suited to the notion of steady progress (as
opposed to sudden Rapture at the end).
Lisbeth Andersson
news:1176970760.8...@n76g2000hsh.googlegroups.com:
>
> Given that the Potter books now rank second only to the Bible in
> their popularity, what are we to make of Harry's pending death?
>
No, the Bible might sell better (although I'm not going to take your
word for it, and I'm not interested enough to check) but the Harry
Potter books are more popular. People are actually eager to learn how
to read so they don't have to wait for somebody to read it to them,
and that does not happen with the Bible.
Lisbeth.
----
The day I don't learn anything new is the day I die.
*What we know is not nearly as interesting as *how we know it.
--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com
John VanSickle
say, "shut up already!"
Regards,
John
~consul
Every moment can become a teaching moment.
--
"... respect, all good works are not done by only good folk. For here,
at the end of all things, we shall do what needs to be done."
--till next time, Jameson Stalanthas Yu -x- <<poetry.dolphins-cove.com>>
Dan Goodman
No, for two reasons.
1) I gather we're in the Kali Yuga -- the worst of all times, remedied
only by the end of time.
2) It's _cycles_, with no opportunity for _permanent_ progress.
--
Dan Goodman
All political parties die at last of swallowing their own lies.
John Arbuthnot (1667-1735), Scottish writer, physician.
Journal http://dsgood.livejournal.com
future http://dangoodman.livejournal.com
Links http://del.icio.us/dsgood
ike milligan
"Sound of Trumpet" <sound_of...@warpmail.net> wrote in message
news:1176970760.8...@n76g2000hsh.googlegroups.com...
>
> http://www.mercatornet.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=522
>
>
Damn!
Hatter
> http://www.mercatornet.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=522
>
> Death stalks the halls of Hogwarts
>
> Written by Joe Woodard
>
>
> The tragedy to be unveiled in the last Harry Potter is a mirror for
> our age.
>
Imagine a popular fictional novel series came out, lets say The Harry
Potter Series.
Now imagine that people everywhere started talking about said series
and started forming organizations about discussing it. The
organizations declare that Magic and Hogwarts really exist.
Everywhere
you go there are people handing out flyers about "defence from the
dark
arts." They even wake you up Saturday morning to try to convince you
to
join house Hufflepuff.
These organizations lobby for tax free status, and insist that
schools
acknowlege the existence of magic...and politicians who are part of
the
organizations grant it to them. Magic is added to school textbooks.
In
order for anyone to be taken seriously in polotics they have to
declare
there allegience to Hogwart's. Now when things happen, said
politicians
say "Its Dumbledore's will." Wars are fought over the followers of
House Gryffindore versus the followers of House Slytherin. People die
for their faith in the books.
People regularly forsake medicine for magic. And whomever declares
themselves a wizard and gets a wizard liscence is granted societal
respect. They ask for donations for the further promotion of magic
and
get them. Billions of dollars worth.
When you tell them "it is just well written fiction" people snort
about
you being just a muggle, and some even declare you a dark wizard
posing
as a muggle. You even get slightly discriminated against, and find it
hard to find a mate who doesn't think the books are real.
Now...imagine this going on for decades.
Would you hate the followers of the Harry Potter books? Make fun of
them?
Of course you would.
Hatter
William December Starr
Sound of Trumpet <sound_of...@warpmail.net>
violated the copyright of
http://www.mercatornet.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=522:
> Death stalks the halls of Hogwarts
> Written by Joe Woodard
> Friday, 13 April 2007
> ...three cultural temptations that have undercut the once
> Christian West ever since the philosophers of the 17th century
> Enlightenment launched their insurgency against Christendom. In
> historical order, those trends are: first, the reduction of human
> reason to mere practical technique or "problem- solving"; second,
> the rejection of rational metaphysics or theology in favour of
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Ha ha ha ha ha! Seriously, stop it, you're killin' me.
> self-conscious myth-making (now glorified as post- modernism); and
> now, last and most clearly with Harry's death, the slowly-dawning
> realisation that human mortality still punctures all of our
> idiosyncratic "realities" and renders human technology (even
> genetic engineering and sorcery) mere distraction and vanity.
--
William December Starr <wds...@panix.com>
William December Starr
djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) said:
> I'm going to quote a poem by C. S. Lewis in its entirety. He
> would understand.
>
> A Cliche Came Out of Its Cage
>
> You said 'The world is going back to paganism'. Oh bright
> Vision! I saw our dynasty in the bar of the House
> Spill from their tumblers a libation to the Erinyes,
> And Levis with Lord Russell wreathed in flowers, heralded with
> flutes,
> Leading white bulls to the cathedral of the solemn Muses
> To pay where due the glory of their latest theorem.
I'm sorry, I don't speak Poetry. Is an English version available?
Dwib
wrote:
>And barring possible plot surprises, heroic Harry is doomed to die in
>this seventh and last book of J.K. Rowling's hugely popular teen
>sorcerer series.
I thought the prophesy was that Harry OR Voldermort would die. So if
Harry dies then, logical speaking, Voldermort wins!
Dwib
Paracelsus
In general, Lewis is saying don't idealize the paganism. Paganism, in
both its ancient and modern forms, can be as bloodthirsty and intolerant
as Christianity.
There may also be a political subtext to the poem in which he accuses
the critics of Christianity he is addressing of being Nazi or Communist
sympathizers.
Dorothy J Heydt
Why, no, neither one.
He's saying that there were some good things about paganism, and
he lists what some of them would be like in a modern context.
But what the fellow to whom he's replying is complaining about is
something else.
nys...@cs.com
John Baker wrote:
> Oh? Got any evidence that religion is anything *other* than silly
> myths, Skippy?
No, I don't. Is your penchant for non-sequiturs a symptom of
dementia? It was my opponent, not I, who expressed the opinion that
one type of belief system (specifically pagan religion) was more
rational than another (specifically Christianity).
> Just as one wonders why today's "Christians" seem to be doing all
> they can to *destroy* science and human progress.....
Even today, there are many kinds of "Christians," and many kinds of
"Atheists," and even many kinds of pagans. Being an atheist is no
guarantee of the tolerance of diverse views that is required for the
advancement of human knowledge.
> But then, men like Newton, Galileo, Copernicus, Mendel et al.
> didn't accomplish what they did *because* they were Christians,
> but rather in*spite* of it.
Yes, and I suppose you will also say that Communist rulers and other
secular autocrats suppressed knowledge not because of their atheism,
but in spite of it. With formulations like this, it is easy to make
facts fit your ideology.
> Not to mention that much of the foundation of modern science was
> actually laid by the ancient Greeks and Arabs - who were hardly
> Christians.
The Greeks were hardly atheists, and the Arabs (when they began to
advance beyond the level of their neighbors) were neither atheists nor
pagans.
> I'd wager it's a far more worthwhile read than a book of ancient
> Middle Eastern folklore.
I'm not sure why you are saying this. Unlike you, I do not
automatically assume that any work of purported nonfiction is
automatically more valuable that The Book of 1001 Nights, or any other
book of folklore, middle-eastern or otherwise.
nys...@cs.com
Because the pagan version of the god-man theme is that the current
ruler IS god.
Christopher Adams
> David Johnston wrote:
>> nys...@cs.com wrote:
>
>>> Laughable or not, it is not something that distinguishes the
>>> Christian from the pagan, which I thought was your theme. The
>>> distinction that occured to my mind is that the pagan version is
>>> rather more convenient to current rulers, and the Christian
>>> versian rather less so.
>>
>> How do you figure that?
>
> Because the pagan version of the god-man theme is that the current
> ruler IS god.
Curiously false definition of paganism you have there.
--
Christopher Adams - St Ives, New South Wales
-------
What can change the nature of a man?
-------
Sydney-based gamers - Get in touch with
SUTEKH at the University of Sydney!
http://forum.sutekh.info/
Quadibloc
> Hatter wrote:
.
> > I've been reading a very
> > interesting book called "the Closing of the Western Mind" and how
> > the triumph of Christianity over Pagan thought in late Antiquity
> > was very clearly a triumph of irrationality and intolerance over
> > reason.
.
> I'm sure you will find plenty of books like that if you are determined
> to read only that kind of book.
It certainly is true that eventually - certainly by the Victorian Era
and the 1950s, and likely much earlier - Western civilization became
something far superior to the Classical world in the areas of reason
and tolerance.
That ancient Greece was, however, superior to mediaeval Europe, is
also generally accepted.
Given that Christianity didn't *cause* the collapse of the Roman
Empire, though, despite some negative impacts on occasion, its
contribution might have been largely positive, in leading to saving
that of the Classical world which was worth saving.
John Savard
nys...@cs.com
Christopher Adams wrote:
> nys...@cs.com wrote:
> > David Johnston wrote:
> >> nys...@cs.com wrote:
> >
> >>> Laughable or not, it is not something that distinguishes the
> >>> Christian from the pagan, which I thought was your theme. The
> >>> distinction that occured to my mind is that the pagan version is
> >>> rather more convenient to current rulers, and the Christian
> >>> versian rather less so.
> >>
> >> How do you figure that?
> >
> > Because the pagan version of the god-man theme is that the
> > current ruler IS god.
>
> Curiously false definition of paganism you have there.
I was not defining "paganism", but describing the pagan variant of the
man-god theme. If you think the statement is inaccurate, why don't
you enlighten us.
Alex Clark
your replies to all groups before posting.
nys...@cs.com wrote:
> Hatter wrote:
> > On Apr 19, 4:19 am, Sound of Trumpet <sound_of_trum...@warpmail.net>
> > wrote:
> >
> > His usual biased newssource nonsense. I'm tired of doing anything
> > more than scanning them.
>
> The article is indeed not worthwhile. It is based on too many
> questionable assumptions, most especially the author's assumptions
> about how Book 7 will end.
Fortunately, most of that speculation will be pre-empted in just three
more months. :-)
> I sometimes wonder about the motive behind the posting of such
> articles. Is the author (or the poster) really pro-Chrisitan? Or
> does he merely aim to give others an opportunity to anti-Christian
> bigots for a little jolly Christian bashing, while making actual
> Christians too embarrassed to fight back.
If so, it doesn't work that easily. Some of us Christians are not so
easily embarrassed by the rantings of right-wing loonies.
> > If anything a return to Paganism wouldn't be a "slide back" but
> > making up for two millenia of lost ground.
In fact, it would be consistent with one of the most important forms
of progress in modern history: freedom of religion. Paganism is
approximately the same thing as acceptance of religious pluralism,
though it still has a history of involving extensive limits on the
freedom of religion.
> Ho hum, ho hum. Same old same old. Let's go back to worshipping
> Pharoah as a god. The Pharoahs would like that.
When you base your objection on a very narrow and stereotypical view
of paganism, you discredit your argument. Besides, it isn't just pagan
religions that have been co-opted by politicians.
. . .
> > [...}pagan though was open to new
> > experiences and was not incompatable to rationity and science, as
> > opposed to Christian "closed" thinking which must, by definition,
> > eschew anything that may conflict with Dogma.
>
> One wonders why, therefore, it was in the Christian West that science
> and the expanding of human progress really took off.
That was under way centuries before Christianity. Many Christians have
been trying for centuries to suppress it, not because Christianity is
inherently opposed to free thought (in its origin it was just the
opposite), but because Christianity was corrupted by association with
Rome's authoritarian and militaristic government.
This progress took place in Europe, in spite of Christianity, because
of Europe's combination of such advantages as a robust trade network
(supported by a plethora of natural waterways), numerous competing
governments, and access to most of the other more developed regions of
the world.
> Government has long been hostile to groups with a firmly held moral
> outlook that is not subject to government control.
That is a very simplistic view, and not particularly consistent with
historical fact. Very often government makes a show of acquiescence to
prevalent religious belief in order to gain an advantage for itself
(e. g. the Spanish Inquisition), or religionists try to control the
government in order to promote their own agenda. And in the latter
case, opposition to the religion is just part of a struggle for power
*within* the government.
> Governments want
> obedient subjects, not ones who stand in judgment of their Leaders, on
> the basis of a set of Rules that the Leaders did not invent. . . .
So do some religions. Sometimes the religion even becomes the
government for this very purpose: to ensure that government is not
used to make laws or uphold principles other than those of the
religion.
--
Alex Clark
Lord, am I Voldemort! (an anagram used by Tom Riddle on his worse days)
Sean O'Hara
Kaletsch declared:
> Sound of Trumpet wrote:
>
>> Boasting solid five-star Amazon ratings and over 300 million sales,
>> Potter is a clear symptom of Western civilisation's slow slide back
>> monitors and computerised intravenous drips, modern technological
>> optimism is finally colliding with the unavoidable reality of death.
>> In a banal mockery of Nietzsche's "Eternal Recurrence," Western
>> civilisation is reverting to an epoch of tragedy, a worldview that
>> virtually defined the Ancient Greeks and Romans -- and which they then
>> rejected some 1,500 years ago, voting with their feet in favour of the
>> Christian comedy.
>
> "Christian Comedy" You just have to love this expression. Finally someone
> gave me the clue to what the christian religion is all about - pity most
> followers took it seriously!
>
You know, "comedy" means more than just "funny". In this context,
it's clearly referring to the eucatastrophe that ends the Christ myth.
If you're going to be an advocate of atheism, know what you're
talking about so you don't embarrass the rest of us.
--
Sean O'Hara <http://diogenes-sinope.blogspot.com>
Dr. Zoidberg: I'm feeling less nuts, thank you, because tomorrow I
will be depositing my jelly in the cloacal vents of a female. If you
catch my drift.
-Futurama
Karnak17
William December Starr wrote:
> In article <1176970760.8...@n76g2000hsh.googlegroups.com>,
> Sound of Trumpet <sound_of...@warpmail.net>
> violated the copyright of
> http://www.mercatornet.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=522:
>
> > Death stalks the halls of Hogwarts
> > Written by Joe Woodard
> > Friday, 13 April 2007
>
> > ...three cultural temptations that have undercut the once
> > Christian West ever since the philosophers of the 17th century
> > Enlightenment launched their insurgency against Christendom. In
> > historical order, those trends are: first, the reduction of human
> > reason to mere practical technique or "problem- solving"; second,
> > the rejection of rational metaphysics or theology in favour of
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> Ha ha ha ha ha! Seriously, stop it, you're killin' me.
Seriously, it is a masterpiece of obfuscatory drivel. I have read it
three times with great attention, and I barely have a clue what Mr.
Woodard thinks he means, assuming he is bothering to mean anything at
all.
Karnak17
I will give it a shot.
The author is addressing those who complain that "the world is going
back to paganism". He thinks this would be cool -- "Oh bright
vision", and promptly starts imagining a pagan England where "our
dynasty" pours libations to the Gods in Parliament. "Heathenism come
again, the circumspection and the holy fears" would be an improvement,
the author thinks. But at the end of the first stanza, he complains
that the Complainers didn't really mean it, and is angry at them for
lying to him and raising his hopes. Because of course England isn't
like that.
In stanza two, he asks if the Complainers meant something different by
paganism. He goes on to describe heathenism in the terms that the Mr.
Woodard in OP article was going on about -- as an essentially tragic
view of the world. Midgard (that's us, I think) beseiged by the Wolf,
and are doomed to fall in the end. He suggests that when the Old
God's totter off to battle this monster, and die their second and
final deaths, that the Complainers should consider themselves honored
to stand and die beside them. And should take as their role models
the pagan women who walked into burning houses to die with their men.
If these are the sorts of pagans the Complainers are complaining
about, then the Complainers, who the author calls cowards and
collaborators with "Vichy-water in your veins" should be bowing down
to these valiant pagans instead of complaining about them.
***********
You said 'The world is going back to paganism'. Oh bright
Vision! I saw our dynasty in the bar of the House
Spill from their tumblers a libation to the Erinyes,
And Levis with Lord Russell wreathed in flowers, heralded with
flutes,
Leading white bulls to the cathedral of the solemn Muses
To pay where due the glory of their latest theorem.
Hestia's fire in every flat, rekindled, before
The Lardergods. Unmarried daughters with obedient hands
Tended it. By the hearth the white-arm'd venerable mother
_Domum servabat, lanam faciebat._ Duly at the hour
Of sacrifice their brothers came, silent, corrected, grave
Before their elders; on their downy cheeks easily the blush
Arose (it is the mark of freemen's children) as they trooped,
Gleaming with oil, demurely home from the palaestra or the dance.
Walk carefully, do not wake the envy of the happy gods,
Shun Hubris. The middle of the road, the middle sort of men,
Are best. Aidos surpasses gold. Reverence for the aged
Is wholesome as seasonable rain, and for a man to die
Defending the city in battle is a harmonious thing.
Thus with magistral hand the Puritan Sophrosune
Cooled and schooled and tempered our uneasy motions;
Heathendom came again, the circumspection and the holy fears ...
You said it. Did you mean it? Oh inordinate liar, stop.
Or did you mean another kind of heathenry?
Think, then, that under heaven-roof the little disc of the earth,
Fortified Midgard, lies encircled by the ravening Worm.
Over its icy bastions faces of giant and troll
Look in, ready to invade it. The Wolf, admittedly, is bound;
But the bond will break, the Beast run free. The weary gods,
Scarred with old wounds, the one-eyed Odin, Tyr who has lost a
hand,
Will limp to their stations for the last defence. Make it your
hope
To be counted worthy on that day to stand beside them;
For the end of man is to partake of their defeat and die
His second, final death in good company. The stupid, strong
Unteachable monsters are certain to be victorious at last,
And every man of decent blood is on the losing side.
Take as your model the tall women with yellow hair in plaits
Who walked back into burning houses to die with men,
Or him who as the death spear entered into his vitals
Made critical comments on its workmanship and aim.
Are these the Pagans you spoke of? Know your betters and crouch,
dogs;
You that have Vichy-water in your veins and worship the event,
Your goddess History (whom your fathers called the strumpet
Fortune).
Karnak17
Paracelsus wrote:
> William December Starr wrote:
>
> >In article <JGr7D...@kithrup.com>,
> >djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) said:
> >
> >
> >
> >>I'm going to quote a poem by C. S. Lewis in its entirety. He
> >>would understand.
> >>
> >>A Cliche Came Out of Its Cage
> >>
> >>You said 'The world is going back to paganism'. Oh bright
> >>Vision! I saw our dynasty in the bar of the House
> >>Spill from their tumblers a libation to the Erinyes,
> >>And Levis with Lord Russell wreathed in flowers, heralded with
> >> flutes,
> >>Leading white bulls to the cathedral of the solemn Muses
> >>To pay where due the glory of their latest theorem.
> >>
> >>
> >
> >I'm sorry, I don't speak Poetry. Is an English version available?
> >
> >
> >
> In general, Lewis is saying don't idealize the paganism.
Unless you read the actual poem. In which case what he is saying
comes closer to the exact opposite.
> Paganism,
> in both its ancient and modern forms, can be as bloodthirsty and
> intolerant as Christianity.
If you don't understand the poem, just say so. Don't pluck a generic
cliche from your brain at random and PRETEND that is what it means.
> There may also be a political subtext to the poem in which he
> accuses the critics of Christianity he is addressing of being Nazi
> or Communist sympathizers.
If he was addressing critics of Christianity in the poem. Which, of
course, he isn't. Sheesh!
Paracelsus
My initial response was written quickly. This is a more detailed commentary.
Internal evidence suggests that the poem was written during World War
II, sometime after the fall of France. He is addressing a class of
English intellectuals who, in addition to be anti-Christian were
generally hostile to the war effort, either on the basis of pacifist
conviction or sheer indifference.
In the first stanza of the poem, Lewis presents an idealized vision of
Greco-Roman paganism at its most refined. This was the religion of
Plato, Aristotle and Marcus Aurelius. The phrase "Lord Russell wreathed
in flowers" appears to be a reference to Bertrand Russell, a
philosopher, mathematician and critic of Christianity. While the vision
that Lewis presents is superficially attractive, the over all tone of
the stanza is ironic. Lewis does not find this form of paganism
appealing and, he insinuates, the people he addresses do not either.
The reference to the "freemen's children" is a reminder that ancient
Greece and Rome both depended heavily on slave labour.
The line
"..and for a man to die
Defending the city in battle is a harmonious thing."
is a dig against pacifism.
However, it should have been plain that the world was not going back to
that form of paganism or anything like it.
In the second stanza, Lewis describes a form of paganism which was
undergoing something of a revival -- Nordic paganism. This was a
warrior religion in which gods and men are locked in a losing battle
with the forces of chaos. The greatest glory a man could achieve was to
die fighting.
At the conclusion of the poem he suggests that his audience does not
have the stomach for this form of paganism either. They simply worship
fortune and bow down to whomever appears to be on the winning side.
"Vichy-water" is a reference to the Vichy Government of southern France
which collaborated with the German invaders.
Dorothy J Heydt
Paracelsus <petersim@_nospam_shaw.ca> wrote:
>
>"Vichy-water" is a reference to the Vichy Government of southern France
>which collaborated with the German invaders.
And also, it's naturally carbonated mineral water -- the
equivalent of Diet Coke or Perrier or something -- instead of
honest beer.
Gene Ward Smith
> nyst...@cs.com wrote:
> > Hatter wrote:
> .
> > > I've been reading a very
> > > interesting book called "the Closing of the Western Mind" and how
> > > the triumph of Christianity over Pagan thought in late Antiquity
> > > was very clearly a triumph of irrationality and intolerance over
> > > reason.
> .
> > I'm sure you will find plenty of books like that if you are determined
> > to read only that kind of book.
>
> .
> It certainly is true that eventually - certainly by the Victorian Era
> and the 1950s, and likely much earlier - Western civilization became
> something far superior to the Classical world in the areas of reason
> and tolerance.
>
> That ancient Greece was, however, superior to mediaeval Europe, is
> also generally accepted.
It is? On what grounds? The Greeks had a worse slavery problem,
I suspect, and executing Socrates does not speak well for the
tolerance and appreciation of reason even by the Athenians. The
really bad thing which happened was the Albegensian Crusade,
but in a lot of ways the Renassiance was worse than the Middle
Ages, with such things as the witchcraft persecutions. These,
along with the wonderful Thirty Years War, extended into the early
modern period.
Mike Stone
> Sound of Trumpet wrote:
> >
http://www.mercatornet.com/index.php?option=
com_content&task=view&id=522
> >
> > Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is
scheduled for release July 21.
> > And barring possible plot surprises,
heroic Harry is doomed to die in
> > this seventh and last book of J.K.
Rowling's hugely popular teen
> > sorcerer series. He will follow wise and
self-sacrificing Hogwarts
> > School of Witchcraft and Wizardry
headmaster Albus Dumbledore and a
> > half-dozen fellow students into some
vague though presumably
> > comfortable afterlife, apparently as a
disembodied spirit.
> >
So who's been watching _Return of the Jedi_,
then?
--
Mike Stone - Peterborough, England
I can never understand how people fail to
grasp the need for ethnic diversity.
After all, how could we English ever truly
appreciate our own superiority, if there
were no foreigners around for us to be
superior to?
Martin Kaletsch
> In the Year of the Golden Pig, the Great and Powerful Martin
> Kaletsch declared:
>> Sound of Trumpet wrote:
>>
>>> Boasting solid five-star Amazon ratings and over 300 million sales,
>>> Potter is a clear symptom of Western civilisation's slow slide back
>>> into naturalistic mythic paganism. Despite our electronic heart
>>> monitors and computerised intravenous drips, modern technological
>>> optimism is finally colliding with the unavoidable reality of death.
>>> In a banal mockery of Nietzsche's "Eternal Recurrence," Western
>>> civilisation is reverting to an epoch of tragedy, a worldview that
>>> virtually defined the Ancient Greeks and Romans -- and which they then
>>> rejected some 1,500 years ago, voting with their feet in favour of the
>>> Christian comedy.
>>
>> "Christian Comedy" You just have to love this expression. Finally someone
>> gave me the clue to what the christian religion is all about - pity most
>> followers took it seriously!
>>
>
> You know, "comedy" means more than just "funny". In this context,
> it's clearly referring to the eucatastrophe that ends the Christ myth.
And in the context of my answer I thought it was obvious I was making a
joke!
> If you're going to be an advocate of atheism,
I'm not.
> know what you're
> talking about so you don't embarrass the rest of us.
Get a sense of humor, so you don't embarrass yourself further!
--
Martin Kaletsch
frisbie...@yahoo.com
Yeah, nothin' else quite like them rational metaphysics.
Dorothy J Heydt
<frisbie...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>Sound of Trumpet wrote:
>> http://www.mercatornet.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=522
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> dedicated to the nasty kids, presumably because that's just the way
>> they are, and they have a right to an education sharpening their nasty
>> skills.
>>
>
>Actually, the Slytherin kids are there because 1) if they didn't come
>to Hogwarts they'd have no civilizing influence in their lives
>whatsoever, so it is better than nothing, and 2) their parents are an
>excellent source of alumni contributions. It reminds me a lot of
>Skull & Bones.
Well, here I disagree. I think it's in the second book that the
Sorting Hat says of itself, "They [the founders] put some of
their brains in me...." in other words, they programmed the Hat
to react as they would have reacted. The kids who get into
Slytherin get into it not because it's the best place for them
(it isn't), not because it will civilize them (it won't), but
because if they had applied to Hogwarts back in the fourteenth?
century, Salazar Slytherin would have said, "Aha! A kid after my
own heart!" and grabbed them.
Dorothy J Heydt
<frisbie...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>Sound of Trumpet wrote:
>> http://www.mercatornet.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=522
>> civilisation is reverting to an epoch of tragedy, a worldview that
>> virtually defined the Ancient Greeks and Romans -- and which they then
>> rejected some 1,500 years ago, voting with their feet in favour of the
>> Christian comedy.
>>
>
>funny? Golly. You learn something new every day on Usenet.
Not *funny.* But it has a happy ending.
As you may know, Dorothy L. Sayers (creator of Lord Peter Wimsey)
did a series of radio plays on the life of Christ for the BBC in the
1940s. In one of her letters she summarizes for a friend the
reports from another friend, a schoolmistress with a largely
international, largely non-Christian student body, who had been
listening to the series week by week. After the Crucifixion,
some of the little girls were extremely upset, but one of them
said to the others, "Don't worry. I've *read ahead,* and it
comes out all right!"
It is in fact, as Tolkien pointed out, the greatest, grandest,
most earth-shaking (literally) eucatastrophe in the history of
humankind.
wuffa
wrote:
> http://www.mercatornet.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=522
>
> Death stalks the halls of Hogwarts
>
> Written by Joe Woodard
>
> Friday, 13 April 2007
>
> our age.
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is scheduled for release July 21.
> And barring possible plot surprises, heroic Harry is doomed to die in
> this seventh and last book of J.K. Rowling's hugely popular teen
> sorcerer series. He will follow wise and self-sacrificing Hogwarts
> School of Witchcraft and Wizardry headmaster Albus Dumbledore and a
> half-dozen fellow students into some vague though presumably
> comfortable afterlife, apparently as a disembodied spirit.
>
> popularity, what are we to make of Harry's pending death?
>
> Boasting solid five-star Amazon ratings and over 300 million sales,
> Potter is a clear symptom of Western civilisation's slow slide back
> into naturalistic mythic paganism. Despite our electronic heart
> monitors and computerised intravenous drips, modern technological
> optimism is finally colliding with the unavoidable reality of death.
> civilisation is reverting to an epoch of tragedy, a worldview that
> virtually defined the Ancient Greeks and Romans -- and which they then
> rejected some 1,500 years ago, voting with their feet in favour of the
> Christian comedy.
>
I can not see why that is a bad thing. GET OVER IT.
:-)
Sacerdos Templi Mercurius
Primus Sacerdotus Provincia America Boreoccidentalis
House Priest Patrician Gens Cornelia
Marcus Cornelius Felix
www.novaroma.org
Dorothy J Heydt
wuffa <mage...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>Well as the pagans are the one's who started Western Civilisation
>I can not see why that is a bad thing. GET OVER IT.
Distinguo.
The pagans started Classical civilization, and a fine thing it
was too.
Western civilization, however, came later and was started by
Christians.
Alun L. Palmer
news:1176970760.8...@n76g2000hsh.googlegroups.com:
> The Potter books encapsulate three cultural temptations that have
> undercut the once Christian West ever since the philosophers of the
> 17th century Enlightenment launched their insurgency against
> Christendom. In historical order, those trends are: first, the
> reduction of human reason to mere practical technique or "problem-
> solving"; second, the rejection of rational metaphysics or theology in
> favour of self-conscious myth-making (now glorified as post-
> modernism); and now, last and most clearly with Harry's death, the
> slowly-dawning realisation that human mortality still punctures all of
> our idiosyncratic "realities" and renders human technology (even
> genetic engineering and sorcery) mere distraction and vanity.
>
> Banal pragmatism
>
> Harry's education at Hogwarts rivals modern medical schools in its
> philistine pragmatism. Whether studying spells and potions, dark arts
> or magical beasts, the sorcery students learn only how to "do" things,
> like flying on brooms, de-gnoming gardens or creating gluttonous
> feasts. Magic is just another craft. What they should "be", what sort
> of character they should cultivate, never becomes a topic of
> instruction or conversation. Harry is encouraged only to be true to
> himself. And one of the four school "houses," Slytherin, is explicitly
> dedicated to the nasty kids, presumably because that's just the way
> they are, and they have a right to an education sharpening their nasty
> skills.
>
> It's unclear whether Rowling is deliberately parodying modern "self-
> affirming" schooling here. But the pedigree of her stunted
> understanding of education and human reason includes the likes of
> Enlightenment philosophers Spinoza, Descartes, Bacon and Locke. In
> their quarrel with Ancient metaphysics and Christian theology, early
> modern philosophers sought to harness reason to the "relief of the
> estate of man" and the creation of a "heaven on earth" through
> technology. So they rejected any sort of metaphysical speculation and
> therein the contemplative intellect as essentially useless, asserting
> (in Thomas Hobbes's words) , "We know only what we make."
>
> Whatever the differences among the Enlightenment savants, they agreed
> that reason is not a mirror of an independent reality, mundane and
> divine, to which human beings must conform themselves. Rather, they
> redefined reason as a human construct, obedient to human purposes. Yet
> any definition of those purposes, beyond the endless increase in human
> powers, has remained up for grabs.
>
> The result of this philosophic lobotomy we see today in a medical
> profession fully committed to expanding its techniques, but oblivious
> to any distinction between its legitimate and illegitimate purposes.
> We see it in accountants and engineers who work themselves to death,
> because doing is all they know, because no one has taught them that
> happiness is found in contemplation and worship. And we see it in the
> Hogwarts (and Springfield Elementary) school faculties, dedicated to
> empowering students, but deliberately recusing themselves from
> training characters in righteousness and nobility.
>
> The modern technological ambition to reconstruct both material and
> human nature has naturally culminated in the post-modern presumption
> that we can all construct our own personal, virtual realities. In
> contrast, the claims of Christendom stood or fell on issues of
> historical fact, like whether that tomb was really empty. But these
> days, we'll deliberately commit to any likely story that will
> temporarily make us feel good.
>
> In this context, author Rowling is symptomatically post-modern, not in
> the obvious fact that she is creating a new myth (as did Tolkien), but
> in her blithe assumption that whatever reality lurks behind the mythic
> is basically benign. For all the murder and soul-sucking in the Potter
> books, Rowling pokes hardly at all into questions of what lies beyond
> the veil. Spirits haunting Hogwarts, like Nearly Headless Nick and the
> Fat Friar, provide reassurance of some sort of commodious afterlife,
> despite the cutthroat will to power in this life, so it really doesn't
> matter who's won when the whistle blows.
>
> Modernity's Achilles' heel
>
> And yet... and yet, death remains a problem -- a serpent Rowling has
> not avoided but rather tried to domesticate. And the viper cannot long
> imitate the garter snake. The culture of ancient Greece and Rome, the
> world of Homer, Sophocles and Virgil (and most of the world besides),
> was virtually defined by their awareness that human beings would
> always strive for a nobility rendered ephemeral and pointless by their
> mortality, and the more noble the human, the more tragic the death.
> Life itself is the undeserved misfortune suffered by noble characters
> -- the classic definition of tragedy.
>
> For this tragic epoch, the Good News of the Christian Gospel (as
> pundit Chesterton said) was original sin, the revelation that life
> wasn't pointless cruelty, that the universe wasn't stacked against
> man, but rather that man was simply his own worst enemy. Conjoined
> with the promise of the "resurrection of the flesh" and eternal life,
> this meant that life was basically the undeserved good fortune enjoyed
> by ignoble characters -- the very definition of comedy. So Christendom
> was expressed in the farces of Dante, Chaucer and Cervantes. And the
> joys of contemplation were opened to the meanest intellects in the
> church's endless parade of feastdays.
>
> After a thousand years of Christendom, however, the insurgents of the
> Enlightenment found the idleness of worship and the reign of clerics
> an affront to human pride. They believed that unleashing all the
> potential of human technology alone would render mankind healthy,
> wealthy and wise. Some thought, with Hobbes, that life made commodious
> and safe would become reconciled to quiet death in old age. Others,
> with Descartes, believed that the development of medical technology
> would bring practical physical immortality. Either way, man the worker
> would emerge as the happy master of his own house.
>
> It hasn't turned out that way, of course. First, the modern obsession
> with conquering human suffering has made Western man pathologically
> soft and sensitive, discombobulated by daily irritants our
> grandfathers would have simply ignored. Second -- confirming the
> Christian hypothesis of original sin -- the expansion of man's power
> over nature has meant (as others observed) the expansion of some men's
> power over other men. Given today's malignant public administration,
> economic interdependency and mass media, almost no one now pretends to
> be the master of his own house.
>
> And third, technology itself has developed a credibility bubble; its
> promises of happiness have outstripped its delivery, and with every
> further development of medicine, death looms larger as the final
> frontier -- unknowable, implacable and unavoidable. So the last man's
> ideal life has become perfect fitness until 75 or 85, then a little
> poison for a comfortable death. And to this he dedicates life-
> coaching, organic cooking and treadmilling.
>
> Colliding with the inevitable
>
> This is where Harry's death comes in, as yet another symptom (like
> Columbine High) of where we're heading. It took 400 years for the
> Enlightenment buzzards to roost. For four centuries, Western
> pragmatism has coasted on its reserves of Christian optimism. But the
> tipping point was reached when the sexual revolution threw off the
> last of Christian "oppression", and then raised a next generation of
> deracinated barbarians.
>
> Kids today have far fewer self-serving illusions than their baby
> boomer parents. Death has always been the staple of adolescent
> literature; but today the hero dies. So they can again understand
> Achilles's complaint, "Do you not see what a man I am? How huge? How
> splendid?... Yet even I also have my death and strong destiny; there
> shall be a dawn or afternoon or noontime when some man in the fight
> will take the life from me also."
>
> So there is a silver lining to the pagan cloud, descending over the
> land. Modernism was a kind of naive vanity, predicated on an immature
> bracketing of the big questions of life -- like the businessman who
> resolves to spend time with his family once his bundle is made. But
> kids now are realising that, even if you're a technological wizard,
> you still die in the end. Culturally they feel the heart flutter, the
> shooting pain down the left arm, the memento mori. The now-manifest
> spiritual vacuity of the pragmatic epoch means they're now open to
> something, almost anything.
>
> Joe Woodard is former editor of the Canadian conservative magazine
> Western Standard, now teaching in Calgary.
>
>
The telling part is that those of us who don't follow christianity are
'deracinated barbarians' to this author. Oddly enough, I can't take
seriously _anything_ written by someone who would say that! What a waste of
typeprint.
Alun L. Palmer
news:MYydne6bVrq6srrb...@giganews.com:
> Sound of Trumpet wrote:
>> http://www.mercatornet.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=52
>> 2
>>
>>
>>
>>
> If the writer of this article had read the Harry Potter books, his
> meandering might serve some useful purpose. As it is, the power to
> bring it to my screen was wasted.
>
More to the point, his gratuitous insults ensure that if he had any serious
point I would have no idea what it was, since it's all I can do to stop
myself from going up to Canada and delivering a firm sock to the jaw!
William December Starr
djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) said:
> As you may know, Dorothy L. Sayers (creator of Lord Peter Wimsey)
> did a series of radio plays on the life of Christ for the BBC in the
> 1940s. In one of her letters she summarizes for a friend the
> reports from another friend, a schoolmistress with a largely
> international, largely non-Christian student body, who had been
> listening to the series week by week. After the Crucifixion,
> some of the little girls were extremely upset, but one of them
> said to the others, "Don't worry. I've *read ahead,* and it
> comes out all right!"
>
> It is in fact, as Tolkien pointed out, the greatest, grandest,
> most earth-shaking (literally) eucatastrophe in the history of
> humankind.
I think there's a "fictional" missing between "(literally)" and
"eucatastrophe" there. And even then I don't think I'd agree with
the statement.
Dorothy J Heydt
William December Starr <wds...@panix.com> wrote:
>In article <JGw2t...@kithrup.com>,
>djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) said:
>
>> As you may know, Dorothy L. Sayers (creator of Lord Peter Wimsey)
>> did a series of radio plays on the life of Christ for the BBC in the
>> 1940s. In one of her letters she summarizes for a friend the
>> reports from another friend, a schoolmistress with a largely
>> international, largely non-Christian student body, who had been
>> listening to the series week by week. After the Crucifixion,
>> some of the little girls were extremely upset, but one of them
>> said to the others, "Don't worry. I've *read ahead,* and it
>> comes out all right!"
>>
>> It is in fact, as Tolkien pointed out, the greatest, grandest,
>> most earth-shaking (literally) eucatastrophe in the history of
>> humankind.
>
>I think there's a "fictional" missing between "(literally)" and
>"eucatastrophe" there.
You are entitled to think it's fictional. It's still a free
country.
And even then I don't think I'd agree with
>the statement.
You mean, if it were fictional? Or if it weren't?
Al Klein
Heydt) wrote:
>In article <1177244145.5...@o5g2000hsb.googlegroups.com>,
>wuffa <mage...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>Well as the pagans are the one's who started Western Civilisation
>>I can not see why that is a bad thing. GET OVER IT.
>
>Distinguo.
>
>The pagans started Classical civilization, and a fine thing it
>was too.
>
>Western civilization, however, came later and was started by
>Christians.
Actually by the Celts. They were civilized long before Christians
started going west.
Mike Stone
> In article <JGwMp4....@kithrup.com>,
> djhe...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > In article <1177244145.522150.282...@o5g2000hsb.googlegroups.com>,
> > wuffa <magewu...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > >Well as the pagans are the one's who started Western Civilisation
> > >I can not see why that is a bad thing. GET OVER IT.
>
> > Distinguo.
>
> > The pagans started Classical civilization, and a fine thing it
> > was too.
>
> > Western civilization, however, came later and was started by
> > Christians.
>
> > Dorothy J. Heydt
> > Albany, California
>
> Instesting. I understand when Mahatma Ghandi was asked what he thought
> of "western civilization", he said
>
> "I think it would be a good idea"
>
I've heard a similar (anonymous) one on the subject of "military
intelligence".
Mike Stone
> On Sun, 22 Apr 2007 14:53:28 GMT, djhe...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J
>
> Heydt) wrote:
> >In article <1177244145.522150.282...@o5g2000hsb.googlegroups.com>,
Mike Stone
>
> Heydt) wrote:
> >In article <1177244145.522150.282...@o5g2000hsb.googlegroups.com>,
> >wuffa <magewu...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >>Well as the pagans are the one's who started Western Civilisation
> >>I can not see why that is a bad thing. GET OVER IT.
>
> >Distinguo.
>
> >The pagans started Classical civilization, and a fine thing it
> >was too.
>
> >Western civilization, however, came later and was started by
> >Christians.
>
> Actually by the Celts. They were civilized long before Christians
> started going west.
But did their civiliation survive the Roman conquest (and the later
Barbarian invasions) in any recognisable form outside the present
"Celtic Fringe"?
Whilst I agree that Irish monks made an important contribution, I'd
have thought that Western Civ was essentially a marriage of _Germanic_
barbarians and the Roman Catholic Church, which, whatever its
shortcomings, was the only Roman institution durable enough to survive
the Empire's collapse.
Al Klein
>Whilst I agree that Irish monks made an important contribution, I'd
>have thought that Western Civ was essentially a marriage of _Germanic_
>barbarians and the Roman Catholic Church, which, whatever its
>shortcomings, was the only Roman institution durable enough to survive
>the Empire's collapse.
The Celts held civilization through the collapse. What's important is
that they held civilization from before the Roman invasion to after
the fall of the Roman Empire. Not very long after, but they kept the
remnants of civilization in trust until there were people to take it
over.
MajorOz
> Yes. None the less it was comopolitan Pagans exposed to a plethora of
> ideas, which had the ability and mindset to make advance in the realms
> of rational thought. While Christianity considered rationalism as
> anathema, except the rather flawed Platonic realm of forms meme, which
> served Christianity well.
Have you sat in on a Jesuit HS classroom lately? They may not have
invented rationality, but they certainly perfected it, while teaching
scholasticism at the same time.
cheers
oz
William December Starr
djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) said:
>>> It is in fact, as Tolkien pointed out, the greatest, grandest,
>>> most earth-shaking (literally) eucatastrophe in the history of
>>> humankind.
>>
>> I think there's a "fictional" missing between "(literally)" and
>> "eucatastrophe" there.
>
> You are entitled to think it's fictional. It's still a free
> country.
>
>> And even then I don't think I'd agree with the statement.
>
> You mean, if it were fictional? Or if it weren't?
I mean if it weren't. The official documentation doesn't make
God look like a very good person to me, which in turn doesn't
make "And so, God implemented Rules Version 2.0 of his
whether-you-like-it-or-not reign over humanity" look like the
greatest thing since sliced whatever either.
1: Jesus, on the other hand, might have had some good stuff
going for a while, but in the end he just couldn't break
away from "Must obey Dad..."
Chris Johnson
> Sound of Trumpet schrieb:
>
> > Boasting solid five-star Amazon ratings and over 300 million sales,
> > Potter is a clear symptom of Western civilisation's slow slide back
> > into naturalistic mythic paganism.
>
> interesting though, that christians can even feel threatened by a mere
> work of fiction.
They define their entire lives by one. It only stands to reason that
another could present a major threat.
<snip>
Karnak17
I thought that it would be fun to compare the Christ story, as
fiction, with other fictional "happy endings" which posit some sort of
triumph over human evil and death. STAR TREK, etc. I wrote a long
post doing so. Then I realized that this thread is crossposted to
Alt.Atheism, and such threads are the last place you want to have a
even peripheraly religious discussion. So I had to snip it. Darn.
Karnak17
MajorOz wrote:
> On Apr 19, 12:03 pm, Hatter <Hatte...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Yes. None the less it was comopolitan Pagans exposed to a plethora of
> > ideas, which had the ability and mindset to make advance in the realms
> > of rational thought. While Christianity considered rationalism as
> > anathema, except the rather flawed Platonic realm of forms meme, which
> > served Christianity well.
>
> Have you sat in on a Jesuit HS classroom lately?
Have you? How did you arrange it? Do they let chicks do it?
John Baker
Religious *discussion* is fine in alt.atheism. Preaching isn't.
Doesn't sound like your post could even remotely be considered
preaching, and I for one would be interested in reading it.
Mike Stone
"Karnak17" <karn...@cs.com> wrote in
message
news:1177400266....@n15g2000prd.goo
glegroups.com...
Why?
You aren't the one who cross-posted, and you
are in no way responsible for what others
may do in that line.
Dorothy J Heydt
The Jesuits are *not* male-only. I daresay the male-female ratio
approaches that for gamers, but for example I met a Jesuit nun
when I was in the hospital in 1998. She was wearing jeans and a
sweatshirt and I wouldn't have known she was a nun but for her
nametag. But then it was Berkeley.
Dorothy J. Heydt
Albany, California
Sirius Kase
> I thought that it would be fun to compare the Christ story, as
> fiction, with other fictional "happy endings" which posit some sort of
> triumph over human evil and death. STAR TREK, etc. I wrote a long
> post doing so.
Hey, that would be interesting. I'm looking forward to reading it.
> Then I realized that this thread is crossposted to
> Alt.Atheism,
doesn't have to be
>and such threads are the last place you want to have a
> even peripheraly religious discussion. So I had to snip it. Darn.
You can always snip the unwanted newsgroup out of the header instead.
But, the atheists might find it interesting, too, even though Bible as
Literature isn't really preaching.
Hatter
> > In article <JGxFJA....@kithrup.com>,
>
No actually, most atheists welcome anyone whom is willing to discuss
the bible in Jungian and mythological terms. Analysis of it as
Literature, not as LITERAL-SURE, is something I like.
Hatter
Hatter
at talking the rational game and at classic rhetoric, but ultimately
they still fail compared to pure rationalism. A modern Jesuit probably
could have given a classic Pagan a sound thrashing or at least a run
for the money.
Hatter
Sirius Kase
wrote:
> http://www.mercatornet.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=522
actually, Strumpet's complete comment is contained in his/her subject
linie. It may be a bit misleading as to the actual subject of the
article
>
> Death stalks the halls of Hogwarts
>
> Written by Joe Woodard
>
> Friday, 13 April 2007
>
> The tragedy to be unveiled in the last Harry Potter is a mirror for
> our age.
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- -----
>
> Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is scheduled for release July 21.
> And barring possible plot surprises, heroic Harry is doomed to die in
> this seventh and last book of J.K. Rowling's hugely popular teen
> sorcerer series. He will follow wise and self-sacrificing Hogwarts
> School of Witchcraft and Wizardry headmaster Albus Dumbledore and a
> half-dozen fellow students into some vague though presumably
> comfortable afterlife, apparently as a disembodied spirit.
Mostly, it's just an explanation of why he expect a "Harry Dies
scenario". The use of "pagan" in the context of this article isn't a
reference to Wicca or Witchcraft or even Satanism, but to classical
beliefs that life is a "tragedy", in the end, we all die, as opposed
to belief in a "happy ending", an afterlife, which in classical
language would be called a "comedy", not because it's funny, but
because it's the opposite of "tragedy". So pagan in this article
simply means the belief that this mortal world is all we will
experience.
>
> Given that the Potter books now rank second only to the Bible in their
> popularity, what are we to make of Harry's pending death?
I agree that a Harry dies Scenario would be earth shaking if Rowling
has written one. Considering that she has said several times that she
is a Christian, I don't think Harry dies. If he dies, she will have
to describe an afterlife, unless she writes an ending where he happily
anticipates his next adventure as he lies dying. Okay, she could do
that, he could die in the last sentence of the book without her
needing to describe an afterlife, but I'm not sure it would work.
>
> Boasting solid five-star Amazon ratings and over 300 million sales,
> Potter is a clear symptom of Western civilisation's slow slide back
> into naturalistic mythic paganism. Despite our electronic heart
> monitors and computerised intravenous drips, modern technological
> optimism is finally colliding with the unavoidable reality of death.
> In a banal mockery of Nietzsche's "Eternal Recurrence," Western
> civilisation is reverting to an epoch of tragedy, a worldview that
> virtually defined the Ancient Greeks and Romans -- and which they then
> rejected some 1,500 years ago, voting with their feet in favour of the
> Christian comedy.
Yeah, that Christian comedy. He's not poking fun at Christians, in
fact, he is one and is on that side. He's simply saying that
humankind rejected the tragic worldview of the Ancients in favor of a
belief in an afterlife, but now we seem to be going back.
<snip>
Okay, enough of that article. He uses too many big words. Rowling
does a much better job of discussing love and death and other big
ideas with simple language.
But, he does note that the wizards' attitude towards their abilities
resembles that of modern technologists who do stuff because they can
without any thought to the ethical side effects.
To conclude:
> So there is a silver lining to the pagan cloud, descending over the
> land. Modernism was a kind of naive vanity, predicated on an immature
> bracketing of the big questions of life -- like the businessman who
> resolves to spend time with his family once his bundle is made. But
> kids now are realising that, even if you're a technological wizard,
> you still die in the end. Culturally they feel the heart flutter, the
> shooting pain down the left arm, the memento mori.
Yeah, joe has his own points to make which aren't directly implied by
the Harry Potter story.
One more line and we are done:
>The now-manifest
> spiritual vacuity of the pragmatic epoch means they're now open to
> something, almost anything.
Of course, if you say so. You really should learn to speak in plain
language, ya know.
>
> Joe Woodard is former editor of the Canadian conservative magazine
> Western Standard, now teaching in Calgary.
I guess he was writing in Canadian English. I can deal with a
conservative bias, I'm a bit conservative myself, but dang, you can't
make good points with unintelligiible language. That's my main
problem with the article, the slip into a prechristian worldview part
is actually quite interesting.
Karnak17
Lsst time I crossposted there, I made the mistake of asking some
Conservative Christian to explain his religious position on a certain
issue. Responding to MY REQUEST, he did so, at which point he was set
upon by a pack of vicious Attack Poodles who accused him of
preaching. I tried in vain to distract them by saying it was all my
fault, but they persisted in ignoring me and attacking him. The guilt
lingers to this day.
> Doesn't sound like your post could even remotely be considered
> preaching, and I for one would be interested in reading it.
Thank you for being interested, but it's all snipped now. It was
boring anyway.
sanlo...@yahoo.co.uk
> On Sun, 22 Apr 2007 14:53:28 GMT, djhe...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J
> Heydt) wrote:
> >was too.
> >Western civilization, however, came later and was started by
> >Christians.
> Actually by the Celts. They were civilized long before Christians
> started going west.
Who are these 'Celts'? That word is used with so many different
meanings by so many diferent people that it is meaningless unless you
choose to explain how you're using it.
David Johnston
wrote:
>> Alt.Atheism, and such threads are the last
>place you want to have a
>> even peripheraly religious discussion. So
>I had to snip it. Darn.
>>
>
>Why?
>
>You aren't the one who cross-posted, and you
>are in no way responsible for what others
>may do in that line.
I'm just wondering if he realised it's possible to edit the newsgroups
line. But probably he's just making a joke.
Mike Stone
<sanlo...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
news:1177441201.5...@o40g2000prh.go
oglegroups.com...
Well, he's been talking about the Celts
preserving civilisation after the fall of
the Western Empire. I take this to be a
reference to the Irish monks who kept quite
a bit of scholarship going in the 6th and
7th Centuries. But of course they _were_
Christian, so I don't know how it ties in
with the remark quoted above.
If he's saying that _Pagan_ Celts (Irish or
other) in some way kept civilisation going,
then I'm at a complete loss as to the
context and which particular ones they would
have been.
Dubh Ghall
<sound_of...@warpmail.net> wrote:
>Given that the Potter books now rank second only to the Bible in their
>popularity,
That depends on how you define "popularity".
If you judge it by books sold, then yes, the bible may well still be
the leader.
However, if you judge it by books read, I would question that the
bible is even in the top thousand.
--
The spelling Like any opinion stated here
is purely my own
#162 BAAWA Knight.
Al Klein
>Who are these 'Celts'? That word is used with so many different
>meanings by so many diferent people that it is meaningless unless you
>choose to explain how you're using it.
People whose language is (or was) one of the Celtic languages, Breton,
Cornish, Irish, Manx, Scottish Gaelic and Welsh.
Dorothy J Heydt
Dubh Ghall <no_bugger@all> wrote:
>On 19 Apr 2007 01:19:20 -0700, Sound of Trumpet
><sound_of...@warpmail.net> wrote:
>
>>Given that the Potter books now rank second only to the Bible in their
>>popularity,
>
>That depends on how you define "popularity".
>
>If you judge it by books sold, then yes, the bible may well still be
>the leader.
>
>However, if you judge it by books read, I would question that the
>bible is even in the top thousand.
If, on yet another hand, you go by number of copies owned, the
Bible may come on top again. Followed closely, at least in the
US, by the collected works of the Readers' Digest.
Dubh Ghall
Ah yes;
Q: How do you deprive a WASP, of information?
A: Take away his Readers' Digest.
Q: How do you keep him mis-informed?
A: Give him back his Readers' Digest.
nys...@cs.com
> On Apr 23, 6:02 pm, MajorOz <Majo...@centurytel.net> wrote:
> > On Apr 19, 12:03 pm, Hatter <Hatte...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Yes. None the less it was comopolitan Pagans exposed to a
> > > plethora of ideas, which had the ability and mindset to make
> > > advance in the realms of rational thought. While Christianity
> > > considered rationalism as anathema, except the rather flawed
> > > Platonic realm of forms meme, which served Christianity well.
> >
> > Have you sat in on a Jesuit HS classroom lately? They may not
> > have invented rationality, but they certainly perfected it,
> > while teaching scholasticism at the same time.
>
> Not unless you count 20 years ago as recently. Jesuits are VERY
> good at talking the rational game and at classic rhetoric, but
> ultimately they still fail compared to pure rationalism.
EVERYONE fails compared to "pure rationalism", including you, dear
Hatter.
> A modern Jesuit probably
> could have given a classic Pagan a sound thrashing or at least a
> run for the money.
The mistake is in assuming the modern "rationalist" is any smarter
than either of them. Generally, he is not. He is merely part of a
bigger machine. That's what provides him the luxury of being assigned
to some Ivory Tower and being "rational" about some narrow subject,
thereby becoming a tiny cog in the wheel of this overpopulated Earth's
increasingly gigantic and interconnected brain.
norrin
> Hatter wrote:
> > On Apr 23, 6:02 pm, MajorOz <Majo...@centurytel.net> wrote:
> > > On Apr 19, 12:03 pm, Hatter <Hatte...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > Yes. None the less it was comopolitan Pagans exposed to a
> > > > plethora of ideas, which had the ability and mindset to make
> > > > advance in the realms of rational thought. While Christianity
> > > > considered rationalism as anathema, except the rather flawed
> > > > Platonic realm of forms meme, which served Christianity well.
>
> > > Have you sat in on a Jesuit HS classroom lately? They may not
> > > have invented rationality, but they certainly perfected it,
> > > while teaching scholasticism at the same time.
>
> > Not unless you count 20 years ago as recently. Jesuits are VERY
> > good at talking the rational game and at classic rhetoric, but
> > ultimately they still fail compared to pure rationalism.
>
> EVERYONE fails compared to "pure rationalism", including you, dear
> Hatter.
Rationalism, the philosophy of Spinoza and Ayn Rand, is not
a very popular philosophy on Earth, and would seem to be
less popular in other parts of the cosmos.
> > A modern Jesuit probably
> > could have given a classic Pagan a sound thrashing or at least a
> > run for the money.
>
> The mistake is in assuming the modern "rationalist" is any smarter
> than either of them. Generally, he is not. He is merely part of a
> bigger machine. That's what provides him the luxury of being assigned
> to some Ivory Tower and being "rational" about some narrow subject,
> thereby becoming a tiny cog in the wheel of this overpopulated Earth's
> increasingly gigantic and interconnected brain.
A Jesuit is a cog in a machine. The empiricism of the scientist
matches, but does not overwhelm, the neoplatonism of the monk.
Mike Schilling
"norrin" <adwe...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1177634518.5...@b40g2000prd.googlegroups.com...
>
> Rationalism, the philosophy of Spinoza and Ayn Rand, is not
> a very popular philosophy on Earth, and would seem to be
> less popular in other parts of the cosmos.
Realism is more popular, becasue it's denser.
norrin
wrote:
> > Rationalism, the philosophy of Spinoza and Ayn Rand, is not
> > a very popular philosophy on Earth, and would seem to be
> > less popular in other parts of the cosmos.
>
> Realism is more popular, becasue it's denser.
Rationals are countably dense, and reals are uncountably dense.
That doesn't make them more popular.