Notable quotes, excerpts, and profound lines.

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by kennyc

Exactly. As someone said in that other thread, it's disrespectful of the truly homeless in the same manner as the quote above is.

How is the above quote disrespectful of the truly homeless? I think Melville was pointing out something that needed to be said. Even today, we have radio and TV hosts who seem to make a very comfortable living by, among other things, criticizing the have-nots. The very first time I heard Rush Limbaugh, he was criticizing the homeless by saying most of them choose to be that way; although why the young children of out-of-work parents, who make up a sizable proportion of the homeless, should be thought to have chosen to be that way is beyond me. But I guess Limbaugh should be given credit for being one of the first to fearlessly take on the vast and powerful homeless lobby.

[kennyc]

If you haven't walked a mile in their shoes.....let he who is without sin cast the first stone...

To me he is saying exactly that. Perhaps I'm reading it incorrectly or taking a different meaning from it. To me he is saying it is preposterous of those who have to criticize those who don't.

The "kids" are pretending to be homeless but truly have no business claiming they are.

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by kennyc

If you haven't walked a mile in their shoes.....let he who is without sin cast the first stone...

To me he is saying exactly that. Perhaps I'm reading it incorrectly or taking a different meaning from it. To me he is saying it is preposterous of those who have to criticize those who don't.

The "kids" are pretending to be homeless but truly have no business claiming they are.

I think that's exactly what Melville was saying. He was criticizing the smug, "They only need to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps" attitude so prevalent among those who have never suffered poverty. Pulling yourself up by the bootstraps is fine, as long as you have bootstraps, or the ability, or boots. But there are many who truly need help. As you say, it's east to criticize when you haven't walked a mile in their shoes (or had a daddy to set you up in radio).

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

I think that's exactly what Melville was saying. He was criticizing the smug, "They only need to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps" attitude so prevalent among those who have never suffered poverty. Pulling yourself up by the bootstraps is fine, as long as you have bootstraps, or the ability, or boots. But there are many who truly need help. As you say, it's east to criticize when you haven't walked a mile in their shoes (or had a daddy to set you up in radio).

Exactly.

[WT Sharpe]

.....The good historian, then, must be thus described: he must be fearless, uncorrupted, free, the friend of truth and of liberty; one who, to use the words of the comic poet, calls a fig a fig, and a skiff a skiff, neither giving nor withholding from any, from favour or from enmity, not influenced by pity, by shame, or by remorse; a just judge, so far benevolent to all as never to give more than is due to any in his work; a stranger to all, of no country, bound only by his own laws, acknowledging no sovereign, never considering what this or that man may say of him, but relating faithfully everything as it happened.
..........— Lucian (120-200 C.E.), Greek satirist. "Instructions for Writing History," from Trips to the Moon (c. 170), translated from the Greek by Thomas Francklin, D. D., Edited by Henry Morley.

[GeoffC]

“Some think it [the universe] had no beginning and will have no end; while others have made bold to name its creator and describe its construction. The latter caused me the most astonishment, since they posited some god as the creator of the universe, but didn’t tell us further where he came from or where he stood when he fitted it all together. Yet it is impossible to conceive of time and place before the creation of the universe.”

- Lucian of Samosata in his dialogue ‘Icaromenippus’

I believe he also had a description of the beginning of the Universe that reads with similarity to recent theories on the Big Bang .... [unable to reference at the moment, though].

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by GeoffC

“Some think it [the universe] had no beginning and will have no end; while others have made bold to name its creator and describe its construction. The latter caused me the most astonishment, since they posited some god as the creator of the universe, but didn’t tell us further where he came from or where he stood when he fitted it all together. Yet it is impossible to conceive of time and place before the creation of the universe.”

- Lucian of Samosata in his dialogue ‘Icaromenippus’

I believe he also had a description of the beginning of the Universe that reads with similarity to recent theories on the Big Bang .... [unable to reference at the moment, though].

Excellent Lucian quote, Geoff! I like that better than the one I posted. Here's the way the Francklin translation of that passage reads:

.....How little they agree upon any one thing, and what a variety of tenets they embrace, is but too evident; for first, with regard to the world, their opinions are totally different; some affirm that it hath neither beginning nor end; some, whom I cannot but admire, point out to us the manner of its construction, and the maker of it, a supreme deity, whom they worship as creator of the universe; but they have not told us whence he came, nor where he exists; neither, before the formation of this world, can we have any idea of time or place.
..........— Lucian (120-200 C.E.), Greek satirist. "Icaro-Menippus. A Dialogue." From Trips to the Moon (c. 170), translated from the Greek by Thomas Francklin, D. D., Edited by Henry Morley.

I'm not familiar with his Big Bang description of the beginning of the Universe you spoke of, but if I come across it, I'll post it. Those ancient Greeks came up with some fascinating conjectures!

[GeoffC]

Anaxagoras’ account of the origin of the world is strikingly similar to a model which is popular today.

At the beginning, he said, ‘all things were together’, in a unit infinitely complex and infinitely small which lacked all perceptible qualities. This primeval pebble began to rotate, expanding as it did so, and throwing off air and ether, and eventually the stars and the sun and the moon. In the course of the rotation, what is dense separated off from what is rarefied, and so did the hot from the cold, the bright from the dark, and the dry from the wet. Thus the articulated substances of our world were formed, with the dense and the wet and the cold and the dark congregating where our earth now is, and the rare and the hot and the dry and the bright moving to the outermost parts of the ether.

anaxagoras ~ 500 BC

Excerpt from An Illustrated Brief History of Western Philosophy ....

[FlorenceArt]

I think it's a fairly common theme to all creation myths, that at the beginning, there was chaos, things were not separated, everything was the same, things were not clearly identified and in their rightful place. Then something happened to separate the formless matter into earth, water, air...

In Egyptian mythology, the primeval chaos is still here, and one of the functions of religion (and of the King) is to perform the rituals that ensure the world does not return to chaos.

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by GeoffC

Anaxagoras’ account of the origin of the world is strikingly similar to a model which is popular today.


anaxagoras ~ 500 BC

Excerpt from An Illustrated Brief History of Western Philosophy ....

That is absolutely astounding!

[GeoffC]

Originally Posted by FlorenceArt

I think it's a fairly common theme to all creation myths, that at the beginning, there was chaos, things were not separated, everything was the same, things were not clearly identified and in their rightful place. Then something happened to separate the formless matter into earth, water, air...

In Egyptian mythology, the primeval chaos is still here, and one of the functions of religion (and of the King) is to perform the rituals that ensure the world does not return to chaos.

That's true, and although there are bits wrong with the detail in the description by Anaxagoras, the concept of everything starting as a primeval pebble spinning is very analogous to Big Bang theories - and these theories are fairly recent developments and build on the scientific shoulders of Giants from the last century or so.

For a philosopher in the BC centuries to have come up with such a thought is somewhat mind-blowing ... and he seems credited with other ideas or nous ...

[beppe]

Originally Posted by kennyc

Sparrow, it gets pretty speculative ... a bit like religion ... at some of the edges.

You are right Kenni. Better a sound creationist point of view. Easy to be for, easy to be against. Let's keep it simple.

[beppe]

Originally Posted by FlorenceArt

I think it's a fairly common theme to all creation myths, that at the beginning, there was chaos, things were not separated, everything was the same, things were not clearly identified and in their rightful place. Then something happened to separate the formless matter into earth, water, air...

In Egyptian mythology, the primeval chaos is still here, and one of the functions of religion (and of the King) is to perform the rituals that ensure the world does not return to chaos.

Luckily we do not refer to them for chirurgical technology and weather forecast.

[GeoffC]

no for the weather we use pine cones, seaweed and a large multi-sided die.

[beppe]

I stay corrected.