Originally Posted by Sting
Any extreme ideology (religious or not) can poison. When the belief become more important than The Being(God) or beings(us), then it's the wrong way round and could be said to be a form of idolatory...but this belongs elsewhere really, so I shouldn't elaborate too much....
To things I am reading - I'm having a wholistic phase and dipping into several books, one on Mindfulness & meditation, another a forty day spiritual detox book as well as a book called "Living Simply".
He was the stages of hell guy.
He was more of a church basher because his work was more influential, more subversive, and came at a time when the scope of the Church's power was at its peak. And he was flat out good at it. TS Eliot claimed that Dante and Shakespeare "divide the modern world. There is no third."
For one thing, he wrote in Italian instead of Latin. Think about that. Latin was the language of the church. He spurred this movement.
He wrote when heresy was a capital offense.
He put three popes in the 8th circle of hell.
His guide through hell was Virgil, who penned one of my favorite quotes, "Discite iustitiam, moniti, et non temnere divos." This was a line from Virgil's Aeneid uttered by Phlegyas, who torched one of Apollo's temples after Apollo killed his daughter. Phlegyas, eternally sentenced to the (Greek) inferno, was condemned to keep shouting "Discite iustitiam, moniti, et non temnere divos"--I warn you, learn justice, and do not despise the gods. Virgil was fed up with the bullshit of Augustan Rome. It wasn't Virgil saying "do what's right" it was him saying "watch your ass." It is a subversive verse. The line certainly resonated with Dante, who wrote his works in exile at the hands of the pope.
Virgil's line was also a point of contention between Poe and Voltaire.
from http://www.studiolum.com/en/silva2.htmHowever, the story ends with a twist on behalf of injustice and the contempt of gods: indeed, Poe censures Voltaire for having intentionally mistranslated this verse in order to deny the Judaic origins of monotheism...
Last edited by Hawgdriver; 09-17-2014 at 10:55 AM.
Originally Posted by Sting
I had a hard time getting into it. But the history fascinates me. I appreciate the perspectives of the great thinkers. Like you, nut.
Originally Posted by Sting
This is going to be a controversial book, but I certainly recommend it to everyone since there are so many great tools in this book that can help people in monogamous relationships:
http://www.amazon.com/More-Than-Two-...=more+than+two
I got mind control while I'm here
You goin' hate me when I'm gone
Ain't no blood clot and no fear
I got hope inside of my bones
Dracula - the original Bram Stoker novel. Never read it before, and I think its a legit classic. The writing is florid and Victorian, but that's not always a bad thing IMO
“What fresh hell is this?”
"A man who picks a cat up by the tail learns something which he can learn in no other way." - Mark Twain
Just reread Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's "Half a Yellow Sun" and enjoyed it even more on the 2nd reading. It's set during the Biafran War.
I'm now reading Khaled Hosseini's "A Thousand Splendid Suns".
I seem to have a thing about books with Sun in the title it would appear!
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