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May 31, 2014 - July 11, 2020
GEORGE ORWELL
In Westminster Abbey JOHN BETJEMAN
Now I feel a little better, What a treat to hear Thy word, Where the bones of leading statesmen, Have so often been interr’d. And now, dear Lord, I cannot wait Because I have a luncheon date.
Monism and Religion CHAPMAN COHEN
His monument is “Essays In Freethinking,” from which this selection is drawn.
The greatest and the least of men are links in a chain of being, and can neither separate themselves from all that has gone before nor from that which will come after them.
The argument from consequences is only valid if it can be shown that these are in obvious conflict with facts.
All life is an adaptation of organism to environment, and all healthy mental life is the expression of a harmony between our ideas of facts and the facts themselves.
The question is ultimately one of the nature and function of the individual, and to assume that unless we assert that he is independent of the social structure we are destroying him is quite beside the point. We do not annihilate the earth by showing its place in the solar system; we do not annihilate the cell by showing its place in the organism; nor do we destroy the individual by showing him to be a cell in the social tissue. On the contrary, it is only when man is thought of in this sense that we really begin to form a genuine conception of individuality.
We cannot, try how we may, derive society from the individual. We can, as will be seen, derive the individual from society.
It is always good not to lose the particular in the general, but it is also good not to lose sight of the fact that the particular is only what it is because of its relation to the general.
Spiritual Vision
An Old Story
CHAPMAN COHEN
Anthropology holds within it the secret of divinity.
An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish
BERTRAND RUSSELL
A single pamphlet, Why I Am Not A Christian, became a classic from which the Christian churches have yet to recover.
Old-fashioned people still say “bless you” when one sneezes, but they have forgotten the reason for the custom. The reason was that people were thought to sneeze out their souls, and before their souls could get back lurking demons were apt to enter the unsouled body; but if any one said “God bless you,” the demons were frightened off.
I am sometimes shocked by the blasphemies of those who think themselves pious—for instance, the nuns who never take a bath without wearing a bathrobe all the time. When asked why, since no man can see them, they reply: “Oh, but you forget the good God.” Apparently they conceive of the Deity as a Peeping Tom, whose omnipotence enables Him to see through bathroom walls, but who is foiled by bathrobes. This view strikes me as curious.
It is odd that modern men, who are aware of what science has done in the way of bringing new knowledge and altering the conditions of social life, should still be willing to accept the authority of texts embodying the outlook of very ancient and very ignorant pastoral or agricultural tribes.
We are told that sin consists in disobedience to God’s commands, but we are also told that God is omnipotent. If He is, nothing contrary to His will can occur; therefore when the sinner disobeys His commands, He must have intended this to happen.
We believe, first and foremost, what makes us feel that we are fine fellows.
Self-importance, individual or generic, is the source of most of our religious beliefs.
When anaesthetics were discovered, pious people considered them an attempt to evade the will of God. It was pointed out, however, that when God extracted Adam’s rib He put him into a deep sleep. This proved that anaesthetics are all right for men; women, however, ought to suffer, because of the curse of Eve.
In Haiti, when they make statues of Christ and Satan, they make Christ black and Satan white.
Thus politics are a clue to descent. The biologically pure Nordic loves Hitler, and if you do not love Hitler, that is proof of tainted blood.
The ancient Greeks, on the other hand, emerged from an amalgamation of northern barbarians and an indigenous population; the Athenians and Ionians, who were the most civilized, were also the most mixed. The supposed merits of racial purity are, it would seem, wholly imaginary.
The Great Depression was the direct result of the surviving belief in the magical properties of gold.
Politics is largely governed by sententious platitudes which are devoid of truth.
There is no nonsense so arrant that it cannot be made the creed of the vast majority by adequate governmental action.
A belief, however untrue, is important when it dominates the actions of large masses of men.
That cold makes water boil would be a Sunday truth, sacred and mystical, to be professed in awed tones, but not to be acted on in daily life. What would happen would be that any verbal denial of the mystic doctrine would be made illegal, and obstinate heretics would be “frozen” at the stake. No person who did not enthusiastically accept the official doctrine would be allowed to teach or to have any position of power. Only the very highest officials, in their cups, would whisper to each other what rubbish it all is; then they would laugh and drink again. This is hardly a caricature of what
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Indignation, though on the whole a useful social force, becomes harmful when it is directed against the victims of maladies that only medical skill can cure.
Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something; in the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones.
Every advance in civilization has been denounced as unnatural while it was recent.
If an opinion contrary to your own makes you angry, that is a sign that you are subconsciously aware of having no good reason for thinking as you do.
Persecution is used in theology, not in arithmetic, because in arithmetic there is knowledge, but in theology there is only opinion.
It is more difficult to deal with the self-esteem of man as man, because we cannot argue out the matter with some nonhuman mind. The only way I know of dealing with this general human conceit is to remind ourselves that man is a brief episode in the life of a small planet in a little corner of the universe, and that, for aught we know, other parts of the cosmos may contain beings as superior to ourselves as we are to jellyfish.
Fear is the main source of superstition and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom, in the pursuit of truth as in the endeavor after a worthy manner of life.
In spite of all that theology can do, heaven remains, to most people, an “unpleasant subject.”
Fear generates impulses of cruelty, and therefore promotes such superstitious beliefs as seem to justify cruelty. Neither a man nor a crowd nor a nation can be trusted to act humanely or to think sanely under the influence of a great fear.
I admire especially a certain prophetess who lived beside a lake in Northern New York State about the year 1820. She announced to her numerous followers that she possessed the power of walking on water, and that she proposed to do so at 11 o’clock on a certain morning. At the stated time, the faithful assembled in their thousands beside the lake. She spoke to them, saying: “Are you all entirely persuaded that I can walk on water?” With one voice they replied: “We are.” “In that case,” she announced, “there is not need for me to do so.” And they all went home much edified.
A wise man will enjoy the goods of which there is a plentiful supply, and of intellectual rubbish he will find an abundant diet, in our own age as in every other.
27
Aubade
PHILIP LARKIN
Postmen like doctors go from house to house.
Church Going
PHILIP LARKIN
