Philosophy Now Forum

A much more reasonable question, here, would be,
'What definition would you accept for 'human evolution'?

Now, when, and if, these human beings start answering this question, instead, then, and only then, will these human beings, here, start moving along, and progressing.

Will Bouwman wrote: ↑Mon Mar 24, 2025 10:24 am

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Mar 22, 2025 12:22 am

Will Bouwman wrote: ↑Fri Mar 21, 2025 10:52 pm
Well, at best, it says so in a book.

So also say all the moralists and the environmentalists...by logical implication, even if they are Atheists. They all are accepting a special status for human beings; they just usually don't think about what they are implying when they do it.

What special status for human beings do even atheist moralists and environmentalists accept, by logical implication, other than the fact that we are the only creatures that unambiguously has the means to contemplate the consequences of our action, and to consciously manipulate our environment.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Mar 22, 2025 12:22 am So, for example, the environmentalist will insist that human beings have a unique responsibility to tend to the welfare of the planet. But why?

For the simple reason that, as far as we know, only we have any sense of responsibility.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Mar 22, 2025 12:22 am Likewise, morality. Lions, canaries and microbes do not have a thing called "morality," and no duty to it if they ever did. Why say that mankind, alone of all species, had to observe the special responsibility to follow moral codes...

I don't.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Mar 22, 2025 12:22 am Maybe, like bacteria, our destiny is to overwhelm the planet and consume it...who is to say us nay, if that's what we wish to do? And if it suits one man to do it, who's to say he's wrong, too?

Certainly not any god who would send a flood to destroy nearly every living creature. Nor one who for whom our destiny is the apocalypse.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Mar 22, 2025 12:22 am

Will Bouwman wrote: ↑Fri Mar 21, 2025 10:52 pm So you believe the difference between you and I is how we interpret a feeling deep in our hearts. How do you explain that difference?

Actually, "we" is a plural. I was saying we all know it, all human beings. I wasn't singling you out.

Well, something you feel in your heart is what some of us can see quite clearly using our head. Yes we have a specific range of skills that is unique to our species, but it is not certain that any one of those skills is unique to us, even if there are those which are more developed in us than any other animal. That is entirely consistent with evolution, as it is with creation. In my view, the evidence for evolution is more compelling, in no small part because it doesn't rely on having to deny what is quite clearly evidence for evolution as a conspiracy. Nor does it rely on a bogus argument about billions of fossils. Where are the billions of fossils of creatures you do accept once lived?

Not reproducible? Not able to be experienced by others?


Not God.

Alexiev wrote: ↑Tue Mar 25, 2025 8:33 pm As usual, you take Hamlet out of context,

You're very, very funny. Did you not notice that his despairing speech is in Act 2? Do you think that's the end of the "context"?

Read his speech in Act 5: "There's a divinity that shapes our ends, Rough-hew them how we will." Figure out what that means, and you'll realize that H's declaration in Act 2 is far from his final, heroic realization.

Of course your moral positions are determined by your culture

My culture is secular. Why am I not secular? You say yours is Christian. Why are you not Christian?

There's a big difference between "shaped by" and "determined by." There's miles and miles of territory between the two, in fact. The phenomenon of conversion to a different worldview demonstrates that culture is not at all determinative. So let's cut the nonsense: culture influences, but only in cases in which the influence is not consciously resisted and something different chosen. You and I are both demonstrations of the truth of that.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Mar 25, 2025 10:35 pm

Alexiev wrote: ↑Tue Mar 25, 2025 8:33 pm As usual, you take Hamlet out of context,

You're very, very funny. Did you not notice that his despairing speech is in Act 2? Do you think that's the end of the "context"?

Read his speech in Act 5: "There's a divinity that shapes our ends, Rough-hew them how we will." Figure out what that means, and you'll realize that H's declaration in Act 2 is far from his final, heroic realization.

Once again 'these people', here, BELIEVE that their own personally chosen opinions are what others MEANT and/or INTENDED.

There is one person ONLY who KNOWS what 'that' MEANS, and LOL it CERTAINLY is NOT ANY person within this forum.

And, the fact that 'these people', here, are ARGUING and FIGHTING OVER 'that' MEANS that 'the one' who WROTE 'that' was ALSO NOT VERY CLEAR in 'their WRITINGS, and INTENTION/S'.

But, ONCE AGAIN, 'the message', here, is VERY CLEAR, AGAIN -

ASSUMING things or ASSUMING what 'another' MEANS, or MEANT, WILL LEAD you human beings COMPLETELY ASTRAY, and thus FURTHER LOST and CONFUSED.

As PROVED True, ONCE MORE, by this very thread itself.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Mar 25, 2025 10:35 pm

Alexiev wrote: ↑Tue Mar 25, 2025 8:33 pm As usual, you take Hamlet out of context,

You're very, very funny. Did you not notice that his despairing speech is in Act 2? Do you think that's the end of the "context"?

Read his speech in Act 5: "There's a divinity that shapes our ends, Rough-hew them how we will." Figure out what that means, and you'll realize that H's declaration in Act 2 is far from his final, heroic realization.

Of course your moral positions are determined by your culture

My culture is secular. Why am I not secular? You say yours is Christian. Why are you not Christian?

There's a big difference between "shaped by" and "determined by." There's miles and miles of territory between the two, in fact. The phenomenon of conversion to a different worldview demonstrates that culture is not at all determinative. So let's cut the nonsense: culture influences, but only in cases in which the influence is not consciously resisted and something different chosen. You and I are both demonstrations of the truth of that.

You have a bizarre and unrealistic view of what culture comprises. Your culture -- like mine -- is shaped by Christianity. In Act 5. "divinity" means "fate". Nothing more. Shakespeare was a very secular writer.

Alexiev wrote: ↑Tue Mar 25, 2025 11:37 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Mar 25, 2025 10:35 pm

Alexiev wrote: ↑Tue Mar 25, 2025 8:33 pm As usual, you take Hamlet out of context,

You're very, very funny. Did you not notice that his despairing speech is in Act 2? Do you think that's the end of the "context"?

Read his speech in Act 5: "There's a divinity that shapes our ends, Rough-hew them how we will." Figure out what that means, and you'll realize that H's declaration in Act 2 is far from his final, heroic realization.

Of course your moral positions are determined by your culture

My culture is secular. Why am I not secular? You say yours is Christian. Why are you not Christian?

There's a big difference between "shaped by" and "determined by." There's miles and miles of territory between the two, in fact. The phenomenon of conversion to a different worldview demonstrates that culture is not at all determinative. So let's cut the nonsense: culture influences, but only in cases in which the influence is not consciously resisted and something different chosen. You and I are both demonstrations of the truth of that.

You have a bizarre and unrealistic view of what culture comprises.

Your problem is you don't know what "my culture" is, and you don't know that it's secular now.

In Act 5. "divinity" means "fate". Nothing more. Shakespeare was a very secular writer.

Shakespeare? I see you don't know him at all. Do you know that he quoted or alluded to the Bible some 1,350 times in his plays? And did you know that there was no such thing as "secular," in his day? The guy was, by all accounts, a sort of Anglo-Catholic. Do you know that Act 1 explicitly refers to the Catholic belief in Purgatory?

I am thy father's spirit,
Doom'd for a certain term to walk the night,
And for the day confin'd to fast in fires,
Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature
Are burnt and purg'd away.

Accident? The kind of thing a "secular" person would put in his play? You don't know Shakespeare.

Will Bouwman wrote: ↑Sat Feb 22, 2025 4:05 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Feb 22, 2025 3:10 pm

Will Bouwman wrote: ↑Sat Feb 22, 2025 1:00 pm What evidence would you accept for human evolution?

We're going to move this topic to a new thread, Will, and leave this one for its original purpose. You'd be welcome to pose this question there.

So I have.

That is an easy one, it is found in both the Bible and in Science, It works on the Law of Identity, What may be predicated of anything, anything at all, is wholly determined by the definition of that thing.
As the only power a mind can recognize, is grammar, that by which we form all judgments is binary, It is the recognition and employment of binary information processing, intimated in the Bible, Called Dialectic by Plato, and proven today by the computer.
Man is not defined in terms of his body, but his mind. A mind is potentially the most power life support system possible, i.e., it denotes, in Darwinian evolution, the fitness of being a man.

Phil8659 wrote: ↑Wed Mar 26, 2025 1:10 am

Will Bouwman wrote: ↑Sat Feb 22, 2025 4:05 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Feb 22, 2025 3:10 pm
We're going to move this topic to a new thread, Will, and leave this one for its original purpose. You'd be welcome to pose this question there.

So I have.

That is an easy one, it is found in both the Bible and in Science,

IF 'evidence' for 'human evolution' is, supposedly, found in both 'the bible' and in 'science', then WHERE, EXACTLY, and WHAT, EXACTLY, IS 'the evidence' IN BOTH?

If 'it' is THERE in both, then link 'us' TO 'it'.

And, AGAIN, if you do NOT, then your OWN personal OPINION, here, is NOTHING, REALLY.

Phil8659 wrote: ↑Wed Mar 26, 2025 1:10 am It works on the Law of Identity,

Just CLAIMING that 'the evidence' works on some so-called 'law of identity', is, AGAIN, NOT REALLY SAYING ANY thing.

Do you have ANY examples, or better still, ANY proof?

If yes, then will you PROVIDE 'it/them', this time?

If no, then, AGAIN, WHY NOT?

Also, and by the way, OBVIOUSLY, if 'the evidence' WORKS ON the 'law of identity', then one just has to IDENTIFY 'the, so-called, evidence' as 'NOT evidence', and therefore the PERCEIVED TO BE 'evidence', by some, becomes 'NOT evidence' AT ALL.

Phil8659 wrote: ↑Wed Mar 26, 2025 1:10 am What may be predicated of anything, anything at all, is wholly determined by the definition of that thing.

Which is, EXACTLY, WHY I MENTION and POINT OUT that UNTIL you human beings come together, peacefully, in order to FIND OUT what 'definitions' WILL BE AGREED UPON and ACCEPTED, BEFORE you even BEGIN TO DISCUSS things like, 'whether 'it' exists or not', then you human beings WILL REMAIN STUCK, where you HAVE BEEN for the last few thousand years or so, in regards to questions raised in this thread.

AGAIN, you people can NOT MOVE FORWARD and PROGRESS, or even 'EVOLVE', UNTIL you DECIDE UPON the DEFINITIONS you are USING, here.

Phil8659 wrote: ↑Wed Mar 26, 2025 1:10 am As the only power a mind can recognize, is grammar, that by which we form all judgments is binary, It is the recognition and employment of binary information processing, intimated in the Bible, Called Dialectic by Plato, and proven today by the computer.

1. If ANY one WANTS TO talk ABOUT the 'mind', then FIRST they HAVE TO KNOW what 'it' IS, EXACTLY.

2. If ANY one WANTS TO talk ABOUT the 'mind', itself, or ANY thing ELSE for that matter, and WANTS TO PROCEED IN MOVING FORWARD, then they, FIRST, HAVE TO FIND and REACH AGREEMENT, and ACCEPTANCE, ABOUT 'the DEFINITION' in regards to what IS being talked ABOUT, or DISCUSSED.

3. The Mind, Itself, recognizes OTHER powers than just 'grammar', itself.

4. If 'this one' REALLY WANTS TO KEEP CLAIMING that ABSOLUTELY EACH and EVERY 'judgment' formed by you human beings is so-called 'binary', then WHY, EXACTLY? What would it REALLY matter either way?

Phil8659 wrote: ↑Wed Mar 26, 2025 1:10 am Man is not defined in terms of his body, but his mind.

1. Why NOT 'woman' and 'children' as well?

2. 'Men', nor 'woman' and 'children', also, do NOT 'have' bodies nor minds. Instead what there ACTUALLY ARE is human bodies, and One Mind, ONLY.

3. 'Things' can NOT be, SUCCESSFULLY, 'defined' BY what 'they' have and/or posses, but rather BY what 'they' ARE, EXACTLY.

Phil8659 wrote: ↑Wed Mar 26, 2025 1:10 am A mind is potentially the most power life support system possible,

Are you, here, suggesting that earth, itself, or that even the Universe, Itself, could not possibly exist if there was NOT A so-called 'mind'?

And, WHY do you USE the 'potentially' word, here? Are you NOT YET SURE IF A 'mind' IS the most powerful life support system possible, or not?

Phil8659 wrote: ↑Wed Mar 26, 2025 1:10 am i.e., it denotes, in Darwinian evolution, the fitness of being a man.

Here, 'we' have ANOTHER one who has TAKEN the 'FIT' word OUT OF CONTEXT, AS WELL. The 'fittest' word, in evolution context, has absolutely NOTHING AT ALL to do with 'power' nor 'strength'.

The term or phrase, 'survival of fittest', is just in reference to FITTING IN, (WITH the 'current environment around 'it/something').

The words, 'survival of the fittest', does NOT have absolutely ANY thing to do with 'fitness', itself, NOR with 'strength nor power'.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Mar 25, 2025 3:59 amWhy should we expect better for mankind than comes to lower creatures naturally?

Indeed! Why should we?

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Mar 25, 2025 3:59 amDorian Gray is also interesting, but for a slightly different reason. He is Wilde's own realization that man CANNOT live without morality, much as many would like to think they can. Wilde himself, no doubt, must have had moments when he wanted to do something quite "beyond good and evil." But even he realized that he could not escape the objective truth of moral obligation.

This is a good interpretation, though not the only one, regardless of whether truth be qualified objectively or subjectively.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Mar 25, 2025 3:59 amBut again, if we are animals, how? Why? Why would we suppose any such things?

...because our larger brains endow us with the capability to imagine such things.

------------

The open field of fate remains unknown to us humans; it's hard to see beyond the horizon where meaning is discovered...

What it means to be human has yet to unfold
No god can declare but by man must be told.

Let's hope there's still enough time for that saga to be successfully told...though I doubt it!

Dubious wrote: ↑Wed Mar 26, 2025 4:21 am

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Mar 25, 2025 3:59 amWhy should we expect better for mankind than comes to lower creatures naturally?

Indeed! Why should we?

Right. If Atheism were true, we should not. We should stop complaining, no matter what happens: for nothing promises us better. That's the upshot of that worldview.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Mar 25, 2025 3:59 amDorian Gray is also interesting, but for a slightly different reason. He is Wilde's own realization that man CANNOT live without morality, much as many would like to think they can. Wilde himself, no doubt, must have had moments when he wanted to do something quite "beyond good and evil." But even he realized that he could not escape the objective truth of moral obligation.

This is a good interpretation, though not the only one, regardless of whether truth be qualified objectively or subjectively.

Thank you. I think Wilde's point is that make-your-own morality doesn't work. Dorian thinks he gets away with doing evil, but evil takes its revenges. There are, for Wilde, objective moral truths one cannot escape.

One could say a similar point is made, in much more sophisticated fashion, by Dostoevsky, in Crime and Punishment. Raskolnikov is essentially Friedrich Nietzsche, and tries to live that sort of self-made morality. But the brilliance of Dostoevsky is to realize that there's something very horrible about getting away with evil...in a way, it's worse than being caught. It puts one in a moral zone where what one loses is not merely one's freedom or opportunities, but one's soul.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Mar 25, 2025 3:59 amBut again, if we are animals, how? Why? Why would we suppose any such things?

...because our larger brains endow us with the capability to imagine such things.

That doesn't tell us we have any justification in wanting or expecting to be any better than animals. All it means is we can imagine it. So we're really in bad shape: we can imagine better things, but things to which we have neither entitlement nor any justification to expect them at all. We're not tragic heroes...just defective animals, then.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Mar 25, 2025 3:59 am

Dubious wrote: ↑Tue Mar 25, 2025 3:44 am

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Mar 25, 2025 3:16 am
As Hamlet so powerfully opined:

What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! (2:2)

How does that come to be? That's the interesting question.

...and yet to poor Hamlet, what is this quintessence of dust?

...and how more potently was life explained in Macbeth...

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time.
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle.
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

The last line is truly a very accurate description of how man has made himself into a caricature and distortion. Nature's so-called of masterpiece of creation ending in the final version of the Picture of Dorian Gray to which theists also made a not inconsiderable contribution to its final image.

Both of Shakespeare's heroes were, of course, in despair at the time when they spoke: Hamlet, that such an exalted creature as man should amount to nothing, and Macbeth, because he had sold out everything worthwhile in his own life. As he put it, "my way of life is fall'n into the sere, the yellow leaf..." In both cases, the protagonists were keenly aware that life ought to be more for a man.

But why? Why should life "be more"? If man is just an animal, then what justification has man in not having to live and die like one? This is the point. Why should we expect better for mankind than comes to lower creatures naturally?

Dorian Gray is also interesting, but for a slightly different reason. He is Wilde's own realization that man CANNOT live without morality, much as many would like to think they can. Wilde himself, no doubt, must have had moments when he wanted to do something quite "beyond good and evil." But even he realized that he could not escape the objective truth of moral obligation.

But again, if we are animals,

LOL ' If 'we', human animals, are animals, ...'.

How UTTERLY BLIND and STUPID could this one BE?

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Mar 25, 2025 3:59 am how?

HOW 'you', humans, ARE animals IS THROUGH 'Creation', Itself, the 'human animal' 'evolved'. Or, conversely, THROUGH 'evolution', itself, the animal species, 'human', was 'created'.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Mar 25, 2025 3:59 am Why?

you human beings are still A ways off from FULLY COMPREHENDING the WHY, but, essentially, WHY ALL 'things' were CREATED, THROUGH EVOLUTION, is so that 'I' can BEAR WITNESS TO the BEAUTY, which 'I' AM CREATING, HERE, NOW.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Mar 25, 2025 3:59 am Why would we suppose any such things?

BECAUSE that is what Truly Intelligent animals, or species, DO, EXACTLY?

WHY would you NOT 'suppose', and CONSIDER, 'things'?

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Mar 25, 2025 5:40 pm

Will Bouwman wrote: ↑Tue Mar 25, 2025 3:03 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Mar 25, 2025 1:23 pm Then you are a Moral Nihilist?

A what now? My guiding principle is 'don't be a shit', with the caveat 'to anyone who doesn't deserve it'.

Well, let's try to take that seriously.

I already do. Moral theories, like scientific hypotheses, are underdetermined. Unlike scientific hypotheses, moral theories have no chance of being supported by evidence, even in principle. Hence one's position on ethics is even more an aesthetic choice than one's choice of underdetermined scientific hypotheses.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Mar 25, 2025 5:40 pm

Will Bouwman wrote: ↑Tue Mar 25, 2025 3:03 pmI really don't care if that is legitimate, nor do I care what you call me.

I wasn't being insulting.

I wasn't insulted. I really don't care what anyone calls my position.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Mar 25, 2025 5:40 pm

Will Bouwman wrote: ↑Tue Mar 25, 2025 3:03 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Mar 25, 2025 1:23 pm I'm not the one who's insisting there should be vastly more transitional-form fossils than fixed-species ones.

Yes you are.

No, I'm not. The Evolutionism story requires them.

Then what you call "The Evolutionism story" is not the theory of evolution. The latter requires no fossils at all.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Mar 25, 2025 5:40 pm

Will Bouwman wrote: ↑Tue Mar 25, 2025 3:03 pmIn evolutionary theory, all fossils, and in fact all living creatures, are transitional forms.

Well, basic observation, even today, disproves that. What we have is many species, but all fixed within their species boundaries. We have no cases at all of species-in-transition...

Well again, contrary to your assertion, all species are "species-in-transition". There is no observation you can make that could differentiate between a "fixed" species and a "species-in-transition"; you simply prefer to see it your way.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Mar 25, 2025 5:40 pmIf it takes millions or billions of years for one animal to turn into another, we should be neck deep in transitional forms all the time.

Which, according to the theory of evolution, is exactly where we find ourselves.

Will Bouwman wrote: ↑Wed Mar 26, 2025 9:38 am

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Mar 25, 2025 5:40 pm

Will Bouwman wrote: ↑Tue Mar 25, 2025 3:03 pm A what now? My guiding principle is 'don't be a shit', with the caveat 'to anyone who doesn't deserve it'.

Well, let's try to take that seriously.

I already do.

Sure. But what I mean is, "Let's try to make that explicit, so we can understand it in specific. "Deserve" and "don't be a shit" are not merely underdetermined but so vague as to be uninformative. I would like to understand what each means, in the context of your moral beliefs.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Mar 25, 2025 5:40 pm

Will Bouwman wrote: ↑Tue Mar 25, 2025 3:03 pm Yes you are.

No, I'm not. The Evolutionism story requires them.

Then what you call "The Evolutionism story" is not the theory of evolution. The latter requires no fossils at all.

It requires a billion stages and variations, for which the fossils are presented as if they are potential evidence, though the fossil record does not represent anything remotely close to the numbers of transitional phases posited by the theory.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Mar 25, 2025 5:40 pm

Will Bouwman wrote: ↑Tue Mar 25, 2025 3:03 pmIn evolutionary theory, all fossils, and in fact all living creatures, are transitional forms.

Well, basic observation, even today, disproves that. What we have is many species, but all fixed within their species boundaries. We have no cases at all of species-in-transition...

Well again, contrary to your assertion, all species are "species-in-transition".

The opposite is verifiably the case. What we observe is the fixity of species. Species are not interfertile, and remain genetically true to their kind.

There is no observation you can make that could differentiate between a "fixed" species and a "species-in-transition"; you simply prefer to see it your way.

Oh, there certainly is. "In transition" would imply multitudinous intermediate stages, none of which we do, in fact, observe. We should see vast numbers of these, given the Evolution story's insistence on progressive transformation over millions or billions of years. Genetic variation should be everywhere, and there should really be no remaining species boundaries at all, by the posited time.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Mar 25, 2025 5:40 pmIf it takes millions or billions of years for one animal to turn into another, we should be neck deep in transitional forms all the time.

Which, according to the theory of evolution, is exactly where we find ourselves.

Yes: but which we observationally do NOT find at all. We don't find ANY of the expected multitudinous transitional forms, but rather a world full of fixed species. This is one way we know the theory is rubbish.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Mar 26, 2025 1:04 am

Alexiev wrote: ↑Tue Mar 25, 2025 11:37 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Mar 25, 2025 10:35 pm
You're very, very funny. Did you not notice that his despairing speech is in Act 2? Do you think that's the end of the "context"?

Read his speech in Act 5: "There's a divinity that shapes our ends, Rough-hew them how we will." Figure out what that means, and you'll realize that H's declaration in Act 2 is far from his final, heroic realization.

My culture is secular. Why am I not secular? You say yours is Christian. Why are you not Christian?

There's a big difference between "shaped by" and "determined by." There's miles and miles of territory between the two, in fact. The phenomenon of conversion to a different worldview demonstrates that culture is not at all determinative. So let's cut the nonsense: culture influences, but only in cases in which the influence is not consciously resisted and something different chosen. You and I are both demonstrations of the truth of that.

You have a bizarre and unrealistic view of what culture comprises.

Your problem is you don't know what "my culture" is, and you don't know that it's secular now.

In Act 5. "divinity" means "fate". Nothing more. Shakespeare was a very secular writer.

Shakespeare? I see you don't know him at all. Do you know that he quoted or alluded to the Bible some 1,350 times in his plays? And did you know that there was no such thing as "secular," in his day? The guy was, by all accounts, a sort of Anglo-Catholic. Do you know that Act 1 explicitly refers to the Catholic belief in Purgatory?

I am thy father's spirit,
Doom'd for a certain term to walk the night,
And for the day confin'd to fast in fires,
Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature
Are burnt and purg'd away.

Accident? The kind of thing a "secular" person would put in his play? You don't know Shakespeare.

Shakespeare quote the Bible only 1350 times? That proves my point!

Of course Shakespeare used the vernacular of the time -- a time when almost everyone in England (except a few witches, and most of them had been executed) was Christian. Counting the references adds no credence whatsoever to your claim.

I could argue that Shakespeare was a pagan -- look at all those references to auguries in MacBeth and Julius Caesar. Or perhaps he believed in Egyptian Religion -- if we read Antony and Cleopatra. He was "secular" not in his beliefs (I have no idea what they were, and neither do you) but in his humanism. His interest in the plays was in people -- not religion. The ghost in Hamlet is a plot device, and a device to create an eerie mood, not a claim about purgatory.

Hamlet -- if not Shakespeare -- seems uncertain about what dreams may come after we have shuffled off this mortal coil. He differs from you in that regard. You appear to think (incorrectly, of course) that you are uniquely privy to that information.

Alexiev wrote: ↑Wed Mar 26, 2025 3:27 pm Shakespeare quote the Bible only 1350 times? That proves my point!