Digest urth.v022.n047

David Wells · 19 Feb 1999, 17:33 · from urth-v0023.mbox · original

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From: David Wells <ADW at ovum.com>
Subject: (urth) RE: Digest urth.v022.n047
Date: Fri, 19 Feb 1999 17:33:59
Message-ID: <urth-v0023-0083 at digest.urth.net>
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> From: Jack Lyons <revjack at Radix.Net>
>=20
>My wife likes to use the term "Beatlesque" sometimes, when
>describing a piece of music, because it reminds her of a
>Beatles song.=20

[wise words about the Beatles deleted :-]

>Likewise Christian/Trinity imagery and metaphor. The Bible
>has so many stories, lessons, admonitions, hints, rules,
>quotes and narrative situations that one could concievably
>apply a Christian interpretation to anything one cares to.
>Name a story - any story - and I'll detail the Christian
>metaphor within.

>(This tends to be where Theists and Atheists part ways,
>with Theists declaring that this means that everything is
>special, and Atheists saying that if everything is special,
>then nothing is special.)

One of the most stimulating and insightful paragraphs I have ever read on
the 'net in more years than I care to recall.

I would quibble slightly with the exact wording, however. I would suggest
that instead

	- Theists see "non-religious" analogs of Christian (etc.) themes and
ideas as "Platonic echoes" - i.e. based in the fundamental ideas at the root
of their belief
	- Atheists see things the other way around - i.e. that religions
purloin concepts and stories from "the real world" and integate them
(sometime with Really Big Nails :) into their own world view.

I must say that the second of these still seems more plausible to me - as an
atheistic admirer of both Wolfe and Lafferty - but the distinction is, at
least in our lifetimes, purely metaphysical.=20

newt


*More Wolfe info & archive of this list at http://www.urth.net/urth/

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