MovieChat Forums > The God Who Wasn't There (2005) Discussion > Terry Eagleton: 'An Unbelieving Age'

Terry Eagleton: 'An Unbelieving Age'

posted 10 years ago by clyons
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Fascinating essay over at Commonweal--hopefully this link will keep working, since they don't make most of their stuff available to nonsubscribers. It's basically something he produced by paring down a recent book.

https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/unbelieving-age

Now--is he an atheist or a theist?

Hard to tell, isn't it?

Not such a black/white thing, after all.

He's a Marxist, if that helps. But a fairly unconventional one, and hey--Rush Limbaugh says the current Pope is a Marxist--to which Francis replied he didn't mind being called that, as he's known many good people who were Marxists--so that probably doesn't help, no.

He absolutely does believe Jesus existed as a historical person. But the above essay is really more about the PHILOSOPHICAL significance of the gospel story, among other things. And it's pretty damn significant. Oh, Nietzsche is in it too, if you like that sort of thing. Which I think some visitors here probably do. Personally, I think he's the one that's dead. That was pretty definitively proven at the coroner's inquest.

[–] bastasch8647 10 years ago

Thanks for posting this. I've bookmarked it and intend to read it asap before it gets pulled.

"I think he's the one that's dead."

More guffaws and milk-squirtin' nostrils!

[–] clyons 10 years ago

Eagleton is one hell of a writer. The downside to reading something like this is that you see ideas you've sort of half-grasped at explained lucidly and well, and you feel--well--humbled. Contrariwise, the great thing about posting at a forum like this, dealing with its various half-witted denizens, is that it makes you feel really smart--which is also the danger--dealing with the likes of Hobnobin28.5 or whatever it was is you end up feeling like some kind of god of wisdom high atop Mt. Olympus. Then you read somebody like Eagleton, and you are made aware of just how high the mountain really is, and that you've barely gotten out of the foothills.

[–] bastasch8647 10 years ago

dealing with the likes of Hobnobin28.5 or whatever it was is you end up feeling like some kind of god of wisdom high atop Mt. Olympus."

Ah ... the barbed wit.

"Then you read somebody like Eagleton, and you are made aware of just how high the mountain really is, and that you've barely gotten out of the foothills"

Exactly that.

[–] clyons 10 years ago

Btw, you probably haven't checked, but the Man With No Time has posted 30 times to the Walking Dead forum since his last post here. In which he said he had no time to post.

Mind you, his posts to that forum don't look to be terribly time-consuming--I wonder how many people there have him on ignore? I seem to recall he was a touch sensitive on that point.

[–] bastasch8647 10 years ago

No, I had not checked, so thanks for informing me. Losers frequently haul out the "I'm too busy" smokescreen, thinking that it fools their correspondents...

:)