On DAY FIFTEEN, Atheism for Lent turns to the early, early mystics, a bevy of hermits, ascetics, nuns, and monks from around the 3rd century C.E. These folks had a huge impact on Orthodox tradition and neo-monasticism. According to Dr. Rollins, they took a “theological approach that constantly deferred, delayed, destabilized, and disarmed our understanding …
Hey, Icarus, how high will you fly? For DAY THIRTEEN, we turn to a fella named Pseudo-Dionysius, who lived in the late 5th or early 6th century and was apparently the first person to get mystical reflections into real philosophical discussion. I’ma call him Fake-Dio for short. For AfL, we read an excerpt from Fake-Dio’s …
Okay, so DAY TWELVE’s material kinda gave me fits. Because I like to know what words mean and where they come from and how their use morphs over time. And there’s this word that kept popping up in DAY TWELVE’s material, and that word is apophatic. I recall my Greek (me *yelling*: my greek! hey, …
As predicted, I’ve missed a few blogging days. That means this and the next couple of posts will probably be pretty short. Meh. Oh well. This is how we roll. Plus, honestly, my brain’s kinda preoccupied with our world-wide question of “is it Captain Trips or isn’t it?” So my attention span for philosophy isn’t …
DAY TEN’s material comes from Lectures of Colonel Robert Green Ingersoll, Vol. 2. Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899) was a political leader, orator, and Civil War veteran known as “the Great Agnostic.” Ingersoll contends that priests invented “blasphemy,” which (in my understanding) he defines as “the belief and statement that God doesn’t exist.” In today’s selection from …
I suspect this is going to be a very stream-of-consciousness post. Y’all have been duly warned. It’s so interesting and peculiar that a guy who died almost 140 years ago still gets other humans’ panties in a bunch. Yes, I know, on the surface you could argue that it’s not the guy who upsets people …
DAY EIGHT’s material comes from the show Fear and Faith by illusionist Derren Brown. As a magician, Brown mixes traditional magic with psychological techniques and the power of persuasion — all to warn people against the power of manipulation and the dangers of groupthink. His personal position is atheist (after having been raised in a …
Earlier, I posted thoughts from AfL2020 and from me on Jean Meslier. But I forgot to include a pretty big thought/personal response, and that’s what comes of doing things in a hurry, kids. ANYHOO…. Concerning Meslier’s in-depth Christian career and his resulting critique, quoth Rollins: “The best atheistic critiques arise out of the very ground …
So, here on DAY SEVEN, a brief overview of Jean Meslier and his posthumously published Testament: Meslier: French Catholic priest who secretly penned a scathing diatribe against God, Christianity, the Bible, basically the whole religious shebang bequeathed his writings and all his other belongings to his parish writings later published as Testament, the first systematic …
Hidey-ho, philosopherinos. It’s time for DAY SIX here at Courtney’s Journey Through Atheism for Lent 2020. As I mentioned on DAY FIVE, today’s material covers brief selections from the writings of: Protagoras, a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher; “Man is the measure of all things.” Epicurus, a Greek philosopher concerned with modest pleasures as the greatest good …