[lit-ideas] Re: Beyond Belief
- From: "Mike Geary" <atlas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 22 Aug 2004 21:41:28 -0500
As a matter of fact, I've just started reading _Beyond Belief_ by Elaine
Pagels. Interesting book. I just finished her _Gnostic Gospels_. She's a
very readable historian of religion. Having accepted the fact that
Christianity is probably not going to go away anytime soon, I've decided to
try to reach some accomodation with it, you know, find out where it came
from, what it wants, and how it evolved into the thing it is today. I find
Pagels very enlightening. Has anyone else read her?
Mike Geary
Memphis
----- Original Message -----
From: <Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx>
To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Sunday, August 22, 2004 9:21 PM
Subject: [lit-ideas] Beyond Belief
>
>
> "Beyond belief", "Unbelievable"
>
> Was: "A Hard Imagining"
>
> In a message dated 8/22/2004 10:07:08 PM Eastern Standard Time,
> aamago@xxxxxxxxxxxxx writes:
> I just have a hard imagining that when one combines men and booze and
> professional pleasers let's call them, that sex isn't involved. It still
leaves
> the question of why these men prefer geishas to spending time at home.
House
> of Sand and Fog again ...
> In re-reading this just before deleting it, I notice I wrote "I just have
a
> hard imagining". Filling in the blanks the ol fingers leave, I meant to
say,
> I have a hard time imagining ... I imagine you all figured it wasn't a
hard
> on. I think I'll give myself typing lessons for Christmas.
>
>
>
>
> ----
>
> Actually, I read the original sentence to mean that you had a 'hard
> imagining', literally, i.e. a difficult act of imagination.
>
> Some people use 'imagine' (and notably, 'conceive') like that. They say,
"It
> is pretty inconceivable that..." and then add what they have _just_ noted
it
> was not possible to conceive.
>
> I'm glad you only had a 'hard time' and not a 'hard imagining'. Imagining
> should always be a pleasant, easy flowing experience.
>
> The epitome is again in the Alice Books, where Lewis Carroll pokes fun at
> people who 'overuse' 'unbelievable!':
>
>
> --- Quote:
>
> I'm just one hundred and one, five months and a day.'
> `I can't believe THAT!' said Alice.
> `Can't you?' the Queen said in a pitying tone. `Try again: draw a long
> breath, and shut your eyes.'
> Alice laughed. `There's not use trying,' she said: `one CAN'T believe
> impossible things.'
> `I daresay you haven't had much practice,' said the Queen. `When I was
your
> age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed
as
> many as six impossible things before breakfast.
> --- End of Quote:
> Note that the Queen is right, "The Queen is one hundred and one, five
months
> and a day" is _quite_ possible to believe.
> A recent philosophy title dealing with these problems is:
> Conceivability and Possibility
> edited by _Tamar Szabo Gendler_
>
(http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-url/index=books&field-autho
r=Gendler,%2520Tamar%2520Szabo/002-6770060-1806
> 440) and _John O'Leary-Hawthorne_
>
(http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-url/index=books&field-autho
r=O'Leary-Hawthorne,%2520John/002-6770060-18
> 06440) (OUP blurb below), with contributions by M. Della Rocca et al.
> Cheers,
> JL
> ---
> "The capacity to represent things to ourselves as possible plays a
crucial
> role both in everyday thinking and in philosophical reasoning; this
volume
> offers much-needed philosophical illumination of conceivability,
possibility,
> and the relations between them."
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------
> To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off,
> digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html
>
------------------------------------------------------------------
To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off,
digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html
Other related posts:
