I looked at them this morning at 4:00 when I flipped on the Chinese lamp. The Help I had just started yesterday, and I was enchanted by the first few pages. Then I have Philosophy: Jerry Fodor on Cognition, and Dr. Cunningham's book on Albert the Great and Moral Agency. Mary Roberts Rinehart is there also, sweet Mary who sets the scene so well, then leaves me with stilted stick-people walking in and out of the Conservatory with lead pipes!
I have Avivah Zornberg in a great sized tome of erudition and wonder.
And Wolfram's A New Kind of Science, which is my Bible...
Then my Bible... which is my Bible, too.
Hmmm.
There is the Lord Buddha and the Quran on the other side of the bed, well marked with Hollerith cards... I still have thousands of Hollerith - or IBM - punch cards from the early days of computing, when we used such things, and they make excellent bookmarks.
Then a Cree Indian grammar, and some stories in Arabic.
Anatole France's La Revolte des Anges...
Cervantes...
Luis de Camoes...
Pushkin...
All topped off with Stephen St. Vincent Benet's John Brown's Body - a book length poem - with bookmarks made from Thanksgiving and Christmas napkins.
Some people have said that I am a person who thinks one religion is as good as another. Well, that's nonsense. I certainly would not want to be the center of attention in an Aztec sacrificial religious spectacle!
I suppose what these people meant was that I try to show respect for all religions... and that is a trick that they have not yet learned. Respect recognizes common humanity. It does not confer an aura of infallibility upon the object of its attention. I guess this is where some folks go wrong: they believe that showing respect is like money in the bank, and they do not feel like giving out spare change to religious ne'er-do-wells. Let them get a job in Christianity, like normal folks! Or in whatever religion it is that they themselves profess.
I learned not to go there. As far as I am concerned, the statement that one religion is as good as or not as good as another is a nonsense statement, and this frame of mind I kept from my days as a Logical Positivist working in Vienna with Moritz Schlick and Rudy Carnap.
The context "...is/is not as good as..." is usually reserved for "hamburgers grilled are/are not as good as hamburgers fried." or "six of one are/are not as good as half-a-dozen of another." and similar acute observations. I mean, what the heck! Should I use such a "fast-foodie" and non-chalant way of speaking about Holy things? Might as well say that I want my Divinity with a side order of Grace! And Super-Size it!
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2 comments:
Well this is fun. I admire your open heart.
And I like your book tower. One on mine I recommend, given your love of science, is Feathers, the evolution of a natural miracle. You know I like me some feathers.
Still haven't figured out what to title my book. What's your book title? (or maybe it's a secret)
The Man in the Brown Fedora.
Open heart takes a lot of work over the years... just like anything that's good.
We tend to think a lot of things take hard work and attention, but religion is not one of them: it's a free lunch.
I doubt very much that the Holy is a free lunch.
I seem to remember your book.
Listen: write it now and get it done before 2013. I have a bad feeling about that year. Of course, the future is very flexible... unless our hearts are hards; then the future is hard, too.
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