camus, christians, unbelievers

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I transcribed bits of a good Camus speech from 1948 on this blog. Took me a half-hour!

So, like, you should go read it.

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Friday, 21 January 2005 20:21 (twenty-one years ago)

Or just read this bit:

We are faced with evil. And, as for me, I feel rather as Augustine did before becoming a Christian when he said: “I tried to find the source of evil and I got nowhere.” But it is also true that I, and a few others, know what must be done, if not to reduce evil, at least not to add to it. Perhaps we cannot prevent this world from being a world in which children are tortured. But we can reduce the number of tortured children. And if you don’t help us, who else in the world can help us do this?

Between the forces of terror and the forces of dialogue, a great unequal battle has begun. I have nothing but reasonable illusions as to the outcome of that battle. But I believe it must be fought, and I know that certain men at least have resolved to do so. I merely fear that they will occasionally feel somewhat alone, that they are in fact alone, and that after an interval of two thousand years we may see a sacrifice of Socrates repeated several times. The program for the future is either a permanent dialogue or the solemn and significant putting to death of any who have experienced dialogue. After having contributed my reply, the question that I ask Christians is this: “Will Socrates still be alone and is there nothing in him and in your doctrine that urges you to join us?”

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Friday, 21 January 2005 20:23 (twenty-one years ago)

good stuff, gypsy!

― Star Cauliflower (Star Cauliflower), Saturday, 22 January 2005 03:57 (twenty-one years ago)

Nice indeed. Thanks. :-) It's interesting how rhetorical points can seem similar and yet different when the language is employed by different speakers.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Saturday, 22 January 2005 04:21 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm disappointed I don't have a good answer to give this thread. But for what it's worth, I was thinking, the day that gypsy mothra posted this question, along similar lines, standing outside on the roof, in the freezing cold, looking up at the distant lights of the Empire State Building and the rooftops of Brooklyn underneath it. To wit, if one doesn't believe in God, nor communism (nor any sort of comprehensive redistributive scheme ingrained into the fabric of society), on what basis, or under what system of human organization, does one imagine that the systematic injustices visited on the weak by the powerful can be confronted and made shameful, illegal, or impossible?

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Sunday, 23 January 2005 22:27 (twenty-one years ago)

four years pass...

Dead, 50 years ago today. RIP

― Enfonce bien tes ongles et tes doigts délicats dans la jungle de (Michael White), Monday, 4 January 2010 21:46 (sixteen years ago)

ten years pass...

Great essay on The Plague and covid:

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v42/n09/jacqueline-rose/pointing-the-finger

― xyzzzz__, Tuesday, 12 May 2020 16:19 (six years ago)

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