Posted on 04/27/2017 7:58:59 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
It used to be used with the attitude of finding out more about how God has worked. Early evolution theories were even posited with this mindset. Now it has become an exercise in trying to explain how God is needless.
What? You didn’t like Bill Nye’s “Butt Stuff Sex Junk” variety show? It’s just like Hee-Haw but about “Butt stuff” sciency stuff.
In other words, she has much bigger problems than complete ignorance of Dante's Inferno. It would really be best for "science" if this sort of person could be persuaded to stop "defending" it.
Pity
I do.
Enough that the nuisance to us is only a secondary issue?
It may be convenient for him, but it is not convenient for his eternal destination.
As you said, it’s an Internet quote that completely misinterpreted Dante. The 9th Circle of Hell is ice, not fire. There is fire in some of the other circles, but not for those mentioned in the quote. Those who were neutral on good and evil, siding neither with God nor with Obama, face something far less than the hottest places in Hell.
Theodore Roosevelt wrote (1915) that Dante had “reserved a special place of infamy” for neutral angels. W. M. Vines wrote (1917) that Dante placed neutral individuals in the lowest place in hell. John F. Kennedy said something similar (1950s), attributing the statement to Dante.
I enjoy Dante, and this is FR, an intellectual site, so here it is:
____________________________________________________________
http://www.ronnowpoetry.com/contents/dante/InfernoCantoIII.html
Inferno, Canto III
THROUGH ME COME INTO THE CITY FULL OF PAIN
THROUGH ME COME INTO ENDLESS SUFFERING
THROUGH ME COME BE AMONG THE LOST
I WAS FASHIONED BY MY HIGH MAKER IMPELLED
BY JUSTICE; I WAS FASHIONED BY DIVINE POWER,
BY UTTER WISDOM, BY ORIGINAL LOVE.
BEFORE ME ONLY ETERNALS WERE CREATED
–ANGELS HEAVEN PRIMAL MATTER–
I GO ON FOREVER.
YOU WHO COME IN ABANDON ALL HOPE.
Darkling these words I saw inscribed
atop a doorframe, so I said:
“Master, the meanings are hard to me.”
And like a man familiar with the site, he said:
“Here all self-doubt must be cast off, and all cowardice
snuffed out; we’ve come to the place I told you about
where you’ll see the sad beings bereft of the good
of the intellect–the knowledge of God.”
Then, face aglow, he put his hand on mine
–and I was comforted–and after that he led me in
to things concealed from the quick but not from the dead.
Here through the starless air sighs, cries and loud wails
reverberated; so first I wept. A motley clutch
of tongues, monstrous dialects, agony-words, spikes
of wrath, faint and shrill voices and along with these
the thwack of hands–all created a tumult swirling
in a dun air outside of time, as sand eddies in a whirlwind.
And I, horror girding my head, said:
“Master, what’s this I hear, and who are these beings
so in thrall to their grief?”
And he to me:
“This despondency weighs down the miserable souls
who in life earned neither praise nor blame, who here
keep company with that craven choir of angels
not rebels, not faithful to God, out for themselves only.
Justly the heavens chased away such angels
whom Hell’s deeps rejected too, to make sure
the infernal shades don’t lord it over these cowards.”
And I:
“Master, what acute pain afflicts all the spirits here,
who are breaking into lamentation?”
He answered:
“I’ll tell you briefly. These, brought so low
through the blindness of their lives, have no hope
of death, and envy anyone else’s fate.
The world casts them out of its concerns.
Pity scorns them; justice loathes them.
Let’s stop talking about them. Look and pass by.”
I looked–and saw a banner whirling so fast
that I thought it could suffer no
pause; and behind it such a press of beings
that I would not have thought death
could undo so many.
As I was recognizing some,
I saw and knew the shade of him whose pettiness
of soul had spawned the Great Refusal. Immediately
certain, I understood that these were the malicious cabal
odious to God and to all His enemies. Green
flies and wasps stung these naked contemptible beings
–who’d never been alive–
and by their feet disgusting worms were harvesting
the mix of tears and blood that had streaked
their faces.
Some people just adamantly WANT to hate God forever. Far be it from God to turn them into puppets.
Thank you for your research. It’s funny what people “know that just ain’t so,” as the folk aphorism says.
I haven’t read Dante since college, but I remembered clearly that the lowest regions of Hell are cold, not hot!
The ice surprised me too, so it was memorable. I have fun memories of the class where I read Dante.
I had it in a survey of Western culture in my freshman year. We drank wine and ate tacos and argued about who “really” belonged in Hell.
Homosexuals, trannys and other sexually mentally disturbed individuals are about what, one in sixty of the population?
But Hee-Haw was entertaining and amusing. And that cute li'l blonde in those Daisy Maes...
But Hee-Haw was entertaining and amusing. And that cute li'l blonde in those Daisy Maes...
No chants of "Hey, hey, ho, ho, Western culture's gotta go"?
Bill Nye, Sodomite Guy?
Nope. We were nice National Merit Scholars in 1984, diligently memorizing music, art, and literature.
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