Philosophy Now Forum

marjoram_blues wrote: ↑Wed Sep 20, 2017 9:05 pm Aesthetic approaches to 'problem' of god's non-existence - creating own meaning in an indifferent universe.

Authors, novels, plays, poetry, programmes, characters...cartoons...
Any sweet or sour suggestions; shocks, surprises ?

I like this by Emily Dickinson:

In the name of the Bee -
And of the Butterfly -
And of the Breeze - Amen !

SpheresOfBalance wrote: ↑Wed Sep 20, 2017 9:22 pm

marjoram_blues wrote: ↑Wed Sep 20, 2017 9:05 pm Aesthetic approaches to 'problem' of god's non-existence - creating own meaning in an indifferent universe.

Authors, novels, plays, poetry, programmes, characters...cartoons...
Any sweet or sour suggestions; shocks, surprises ?

I like this by Emily Dickinson:

In the name of the Bee -
And of the Butterfly -
And of the Breeze - Amen !

Well I'm an agnostic, so...

...who could necessarily 'know?'

I do love the bee, butterfly and breeze, though!

marjoram_blues wrote: ↑Wed Sep 20, 2017 9:24 pm

SpheresOfBalance wrote: ↑Wed Sep 20, 2017 9:22 pm

marjoram_blues wrote: ↑Wed Sep 20, 2017 9:05 pm Aesthetic approaches to 'problem' of god's non-existence - creating own meaning in an indifferent universe.

Authors, novels, plays, poetry, programmes, characters...cartoons...
Any sweet or sour suggestions; shocks, surprises ?

I like this by Emily Dickinson:

In the name of the Bee -
And of the Butterfly -
And of the Breeze - Amen !

Well I'm an agnostic, so...

...who could necessarily 'know?'

I do love the bee, butterfly and breeze, though!

Ah, the poet - who doesn't know it - returns

The Babel fish is small, yellow, leech-like, and probably the oddest thing in the Universe. It feeds on brainwave energy received, not from its own carrier, but from those around it. It absorbs all unconscious mental frequencies from this brainwave energy to nourish itself with. It then excretes into the mind of its carrier a telepathic matrix formed by combining the conscious thought frequencies with nerve signals picked up from the speech centres of the brain which has supplied them.

The practical upshot of all this is that if you stick a Babel fish in your ear you can instantly understand anything said to you in any form of language. The speech patterns you actually hear decode the brainwave matrix which has been fed into your mind by your Babel fish.

Now it is such a bizarrely improbable coincidence that something so mind-bogglingly useful could have evolved purely by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see it as a final and clinching proof of the non-existence of God.

The argument goes something like this: 'I refuse to prove that I exist,' says God, 'for proof denies faith, and without faith, I am nothing.' 'But, says Man, the Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and, by your own arguments, you don't. QED.' 'Oh dear,' says God, 'I hadn't thought of that,' and vanishes in a puff of logic. 'Oh, that was easy,' says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white and gets himself killed on the next zebra crossing.

Most leading theologians claim that this argument is a load of dingo's kidneys, but that didn't stop Oolon Colluphid making a small fortune when he used it as the theme of his best-selling book, Well That About Wraps It Up For God.

Greta wrote: ↑Sat Sep 23, 2017 12:00 am Marj, David Gilmour is one of my favourite humans in music I expect Roger Waters and co felt similarly to DG, given the band's lyrics and style.

Yes, Douglas Adams was a fierce humanist and environmentalist. Terry Pratchett was of a similar ilk, and his "Small Gods" captures many dynamics of religious belief. Some witty and perceptive quotes from the novel: https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/1 ... small-gods

Dubious wrote: ↑Sat Sep 23, 2017 1:22 am As a neo-Nietzsche neophyte, I proclaim that Babel Fish is dead replaced by the Google God as an advanced digital hologram of what used to be.