My closing arguments - Part 1

My closing arguments - Part 1 - by P.K.Odendaal - 20 December 2013

"The time has come," the Walrus said,
"To talk of many things:
Of shoes, and ships, and sealing-wax
Of cabbages, and kings
And why the sea is boiling hot
And whether pigs have wings."

From the Walrus and the Carpenter by Lewis Carroll.

The time has come for me to conclude with my closing arguments in this trial where I have placed Great Arguments before the Great Judge. I myself and how I think and experience life have also bowed to these arguments. I have over the past six years enjoyed writing my blog articles, and I have now exhausted all the ideas which I am passionate about and it is time for me to move on. I have also enjoyed the patronage of my readers who have inspired me to consider all sides of every argument, and I hope I have been objective in giving voice to the proponents of my adversary arguments. However - I never expected to have the last word.

Ballad of Reading Gaol - Part IV

IV 

There is no chapel on the day
On which they hang a man:
The Chaplain's heart is far too sick,
Or his face is far too wan,
Or there is that written in his eyes
Which none should look upon.
 
So they kept us close till nigh on noon,
And then they rang the bell,
And the Warders with their jingling keys
Opened each listening cell,
And down the iron stair we tramped,
Each from his separate Hell.

Phantasmagoria - Canto II

CANTO II--Hys Fyve Rules

"My First--but don't suppose," he said,
"I'm setting you a riddle -
Is--if your Victim be in bed,
Don't touch the curtains at his head,
But take them in the middle,

"And wave them slowly in and out,
While drawing them asunder;
And in a minute's time, no doubt,
He'll raise his head and look about
With eyes of wrath and wonder.

Ballad of Reading Gaol - Part III

Ballad of Reading Gaol - Part III

In Debtors' Yard the stones are hard,
And the dripping wall is high,
So it was there he took the air
Beneath the leaden sky,
And by each side a Warder walked,
For fear the man might die.
 
Or else he sat with those who watched
His anguish night and day;
Who watched him when he rose to weep,
And when he crouched to pray;
Who watched him lest himself should rob
Their scaffold of its prey.

The Ballad of Reading Goal - Part II

The Ballad of Reading Goal - Part II  

Six weeks our guardsman walked the yard,
In the suit of shabby grey:
His cricket cap was on his head,
And his step seemed light and gay, 
But I never saw a man who looked
So wistfully at the day.
 
I never saw a man who looked
With such a wistful eye 
Upon that little tent of blue
Which prisoners call the sky,
And at every wandering cloud that trailed
Its ravelled fleeces by.

Phantasmagoria - Canto I - by Lewis Carroll

Phantasmagoria by Lewis Carroll

Canto I--The Trystyng

One winter night, at half-past nine,
Cold, tired, and cross, and muddy,
I had come home, too late to dine,
And supper, with cigars and wine,
Was waiting in the study.

There was a strangeness in the room,
And Something white and wavy
Was standing near me in the gloom -
I took it for the carpet-broom
Left by that careless slavey.

The Ballad of Reading Goal - Part 1

The Ballad of Reading Goal by Oscar Wilde

 

He did not wear his scarlet coat,

For blood and wine are red,
And blood and wine were on his hands
When they found him with the dead,
The poor dead woman whom he loved,
And murdered in her bed.

He walked amongst the Trial Men

In a suit of shabby grey;
A cricket cap was on his head,
And his step seemed light and gay;
But I never saw a man who looked
So wistfully at the day.

How I found my way out ...

How I found my way out ... by P.K.Odendaal - November 2013.

Note added to end on 29 November 2013.

I have taken this title from a series of books published over many years. Some of these titles are:

How I found my way out of:

Mormonism

Free Masonry

Catholicism

And many others.

 

And I think it is the most important thing in our lives to pursue the way out of hundreds of bondages and enslavements - by ourselves, by others and by society.

Hunting of the Snark - The last two fits

Fit the Seventh

The Banker's Fate
 

They sought it with thimbles, they sought it with care;

   They pursued it with forks and hope;

They threatened its life with a railway-share;

   They charmed it with smiles and soap.
 

And the Banker, inspired with a courage so new

   It was matter for general remark,

Rushed madly ahead and was lost to their view

   In his zeal to discover the Snark

Our previous and next poem.

I have selected some poems here which I like most and I have presented them in parts not to overload the demand on your free time. The present one, namely Hunting of the Snark, excels in its clothes of nonsense because this humorous poem tells the tale of an impossible voyage for an improbable crew hunting an imaginary creature. It was very popular and rose from being read by only a few of my readers in the first fit to being read by almost all in the latest fit.

But on a deeper level you will find it is an allegory for the quest of happiness as Carroll himself once admitted. This quest for happiness is, as usual, also accompanied by the fears of doom and doom itself, because of the duality of life.

You might have noticed that there are ten personages involved having all their names being started with a B. Down deeper you will also meet the acrostic for one of Carrolls female child friends named Gertrude Chataway.

Our next poem, "The Ballad of Reading Goal" by Oscar Wilde, one of my all time favourites, will be exactly the opposite and will be an image of human suffering brought on by human hypocrisy - a malady we still suffer under today.

Democracy rehashed.

I have added a new note to this previously published article :

http://pkodendaal.blogspot.com/2012/04/philosophy-downfall-of-man-part-5.html

Hunting of the Snark - Fit the Sixth - The Barrister's Dream

Fit the Sixth: THE BARRISTER'S DREAM

But the Barrister, weary of proving in vain
That the Beaver's lace-making was wrong,
Fell asleep, and in dreams saw the creature quite plain
That his fancy had dwelt on so long. 

He dreamed that he stood in a shadowy Court,
Where the Snark, with a glass in its eye,
Dressed in gown, bands, and wig, was defending a pig
On the charge of deserting its sty. 

Hunting of the Snark - The Beaver's Lesson.

Hunting of the Snark - Fit the Fifth - The Beaver's Lesson - by Lewis Carroll.


Then the Butcher contrived an ingenious plan
For making a separate sally;
And fixed on a spot unfrequented by man,
A dismal and desolate valley. 

But the very same plan to the Beaver occurred:
It had chosen the very same place:
Yet neither betrayed, by a sign or a word,
The disgust that appeared in his face. 

Civilisation and Barbarism

Civilisation and Barbarism - by P.K.Odendaal - October 2014.

Note at the end added on 23 November 2013.
 

I have written a few futile attempts on civilisation, realising that it was very difficult to hunt it down, although not so difficult to kill. It is a very thin fabric and there is a growing concern in the world today that it might be very frail and that it might be under attack and that it might be very vulnerable. It was under serious attack more than a millenium ago and Europe escaped the total destruction of civilisation by the skin of its teeth.

Against civilisation, at the other extreme, I posit barbarism as its antidote, and though I respect both life forms, I only revere civilisation.

Travel is so broadening ... or The Pilgrims Digress

Travel is so broadening ... or The Pilgrims Digress - by P.K.Odendaal - September 2013. 

By this time you have gotten used to my mind wandering in totally different trajectories than my body and you have gotten used to look deeper at things than what you can see. The occasion is my visit to South Africa. I prepare my body for this arduous journey of 25 hours - drastically down from the 43 hours it took me in 2002 - from Canada to South Africa.

Well, the logistics of such an itinerary is quite easy to understand but what we do not see is quite complex and hidden from the eye.

The Hunting of the Snark - Fit the fourth: The Hunting

The Hunting of the Snark by Lewis Carroll

 

Fit the fourth: The hunting

The Bellman looked uffish, and wrinkled his brow.
"If only you'd spoken before!
It's excessively awkward to mention it now,
With the Snark, so to speak, at the door!

"We should all of us grieve, as you well may believe,
If you never were met with again --
But surely, my man, when the voyage began,
You might have suggested it then? 

The Hunting of the Snark - Fit the Third - The Baker's Tale

Fit the Third

The Baker's Tale

They roused him with muffins—they roused him with ice—

   They roused him with mustard and cress—

They roused him with jam and judicious advice—

   They set him conundrums to guess.
 

When at length he sat up and was able to speak,

   His sad story he offered to tell;

And the Bellman cried "Silence! Not even a shriek!"

   And excitedly tingled his bell. 

More is never Enough

More is never Enough - By P.K.Odendaal - September 2013 

When I wrote the article on 'Asking the right questions', I came to the conclusion that we have been called to serve God and Mankind, but that we are moving in a direction diametrically opposite to that calling, namely of alienating ourselves from God and Mankind. After some contemplation, I have come to the sobering realisation that the reason for this is because 'More is never Enough'.

Hunting of the Snark - Fit the second

Hunting of the Snark - Fit the second - The Bellman's Speech  - by Lewis Carroll

The Bellman himself they all praised to the skies—

   Such a carriage, such ease and such grace!
Such solemnity, too! One could see he was wise,
   The moment one looked in his face!

The Best of all Possible Worlds.

The Best of All Possible worlds - by P.K.Odendaal - September 2013. 

I have added another part to this original article of last month (The Perfect World) and tried to answer the questions the first part of this article begged.

I have added yet another part at the end setting out a scientific interpretation of the Many Worlds Interpretation concept. (October 2013)

Taken from the idea of The Perfect Storm - which was not so perfect.

If there is something I will definitely not like, it would be a perfect world. I cannot imagine the boredom and lack of creativity that will accompany a perfect world. In a perfect world there will not be any improvement, development, creative space or new ideas possible, because by definition it is perfect and cannot be improved.

I shudder at the thought.

The Perfect World

The Perfect World - by P.K.Odendaal - August 2013 

Taken from the idea of The Perfect Storm - which was not so perfect.

If there is something I will definitely not like, it would be a perfect world. I cannot imagine the boredom and lack of creativeness that will accompany a perfect world. In a perfect world there will not be any improvement, development, creative space or new ideas possible, because by definition it is perfect and cannot be improved.

I shudder at the thought.

Asking the right questions.

Asking the right questions - by P.K.Odendaal - August 2013 

And all the time we thought that the most clever man was the one who gave the best answers to the most difficult questions asked!

False.

It is the man who asks the most clever questions. That is how we got to all our inventions. Someone somewhere knew which questions to ask - but knowing that does not come easily.

Hunting of the Snark . Fit the First .. continued

Hunting of the Snark by Lewis Carroll 
 
Fit the First .. continued
 
“His form is ungainly — his intellect small —”
 (So the Bellman would often remark)
“But his courage is perfect! And that, after all,
 Is the thing that one needs with a Snark.”

He would joke with hyenas, returning their stare
 With an impudent wag of the head:
And he once went a walk, paw-in-paw, with a bear,
 “Just to keep up its spirits,” he said.

I am from the Chain Gang

I am from the Chain Gang - by P.K.Odendaal - August 2013.

You are now used to my favourite quotation by Jean Jacques Rousseau: 'Man was born free, but everywhere he is in chains'. It takes some thought before we will realise that we are in chains. Apart from chains as physical things we are also bound emotionally and spiritually as we are in bondage and victims of somebody else's war.

The idea of the Chain Gang is as old as man himself, but it has been more vividly portrayed in the book of Victor Hugo: 'Les Miserables'. In the book a person called Jean Valjean must serve his jail term in hard labour as part of the Chain Gang, because he stole bread for his sister and her family. In the Chain Gang he had to do hard labour like the breaking of stones.

Two is a crowd

Two is a crowd - by P.K.Odendaal - August 2013

I have dwelt on solitude somewhat in my previous series named 'Death in the Afternoon', but I wish to revisit it here, being very important to our anti-social needs - if anti-social rings a bell for you somewhere. For me it is important.

Privacy.

It is so that the person who has the least privacy in the world - a non-commissioned soldier - is called a Private. I wonder why, because, in all earnestness, he should be called a Public. Apart from his public duties, his work is also open to public scrutiny.

The limits of Free Will

The limits of free will - by P.K.Odendaal - July 2013 

If you are still unsure whether you have free will, this is probably not for you, but read on - you just might be surprised. In previous articles I have elaborated on that and the gist of the argument is as follows:

 

Argument 1

God cannot make a mistake or error. I make mistakes and errors. I therefore do things for which only I am the author.

QED

Oh, the ignorance of these learned people!

Oh, the ignorance of these learned people! - by P.K.Odendaal - June 2013

 In my previous blog I have spoken of the strange and unknown activity called THINKING, and I quoted George Bernard Shaw who once said: 'Few people think more than two or three times a year; I have made an international reputation for myself by thinking once or twice a week'.

My experience is that the more you know, the less you think, and that learned people have stopped thinking. One would have thought that it worked the other way round, but now that I THINK about it, I find it to be so. The reason is that people, who get very skilled in anything, later do things mechanically, and that must then also be true for people skilled in letters and science.

Nothing is quite what it seems

Nothing is quite what it seems - by P.K.Odendaal - June 2013 

There is a saying that one cannot judge a book by its cover, and yet that is exactly what we do every day.

I think that the thing we do most every day is judging some item, thought, person or action and that is our life. At least it is mine, but I am sure it is the life of many other people as well. And then some people have the nerve or audacity to say that we should not be judgmental. That is like saying we should not live. I can, off the cuff, think of at least over a hundred judgments, even if they are only value judgments, which I make every day. I judge whether the things I, or people around me, or in the news, are valid, morally correct, politically correct, true, good, bad, expedient, prudent, important, considerate, enjoyable, fattening, equitable, life threatening and a host of other things.

The bondage of the Church - Part 3 - The Church Government

The bondage of the Church - Part 3 - The Church Government - by P.K.Odendaal - June 2013. 

In a previous article I have superficially written on the devastating persecution and war the Roman Catholic Church prosecuted against its disobedient members and even on people who did not want to have anything to do with it - like Jews and many others. It is too ghastly to go into the detail of those persecutions and wars. I referred you to the book: 'The Dogs of God' by Reston. Of course the recent film named 'Goya's Ghosts' is an excellent portrayal of the life under the Catholic Church, the inquisition and the abuse of church members.

Fact of the matter is that the Vatican set up a government complete with military wing to keep the Pope in power over these two millennia. It is clear from the history that if you did not obey the Pope, you were dead.

The Bondage of the Church - Part 2 - Who is in charge?

The Bondage of the Church - Part 2 - Who is in charge? - by P.K.Odendaal - June 2013. 

In Old Testament times, God spoke to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, to His leaders of the people like Moses, to His friends like Enoch, and to the High Priest in the Holy of Holies.

The reason He did not speak to plebs like you and me in those times was that there was a dividing wall of sin between us and God - and secondly, we were afraid to speak to God lest we should die. I can quote a scripture which is relevant in this regard:

The bondage of the Church - Part 1

The bondage of the Church - Part 1 - by P.K.Odendaal - June 2013 

In previous articles I have written superficially of the bondage of the Church, but now I intend to delve deeper into it. We stand at a crossroads where the Church in general is not fulfilling its calling and its obligation towards Christians anymore. It is not the first time in history that this happens and the Church history is full of this type of abuse, but we cannot have a reformation over and over each century.

Intermezzo - or smell the roses

Intermezzo - by P.K.Odendaal - May 2013

This is not an intermission between the two parts of a very long film to enable you to fill up your popcorn, although that is one interpretation. It is also not a break in the proceedings or meeting to allow for coffee. For me it has a deeper meaning.

In music, in the most general sense, it is a composition which fits between other musical or dramatic entities, such as acts of a play or movements of a larger musical work.

The Gift of Flight - Part 3 - Flying the Husky to Victoria

The Gift of Flight - Part 3 - Flying the Husky to Victoria - by P.K.Odendaal - May 2013.

I have obtained permanent residence in Canada this year, and now live in Edmonton. One of the logistical issues was to ship my Husky aircraft to Canada - a few simple words, but a very daunting task, in hindsight. I shipped the Husky in February and was told that it would arrive ten weeks later in San Francisco, from where I would fly it to Canada - a very daunting task, but very simple in hindsight.

The Hunting of the Snark

The Hunting of the Snark - An agony in eight fits - by Lewis Carroll.

I have read thousands of poems and find this one the most enjoyable - so please take the journey with me in volleys!

Fit the First

"Just the place for a Snark!" the Bellman cried,
As he landed his crew with care;
Supporting each man on the top of the tide
By a finger entwined in his hair.

"Just the place for a Snark! I have said it twice:
That alone should encourage the crew
Just the place for a Snark! I have said it thrice:
What I tell you three times is true."

Thanks to all my readers

Thanks to all my readers - by P.K.Odendaal - May 2013.

I wish to thank all my readers for supporting my Blog, and for your comments and encouragement - I really appreciate that.

 

As you might have seen, I have tried to develop these articles and arguments without bias, giving both sides of the coin a fair hearing, and I mostly did not know what the outcome of the arguments were, until I finished the relevant article.

That which has no existence …

That which has no existence … - by P.K.Odendaal - May 2013

I have had a discussion with someone recently on starting a flying community at our local airport. There is no formal or informal structure to bind the lots of people together who are interested in flying. Well … here it comes … an interest in flying is not a material or physical thing - it is an idea or notion.

And what struck me immediately were the words of White from The Sunset Limited by Cormac McCarthy:

White:    I want the dead to be dead - forever. And I want to be one of them. Except that of course you can't be one of them. You can't be one of the dead, because what has no existence can have no community.

Liberal, Liberty, Liberation … Liquidation, Perdition

Liberal, Liberty, Liberation … Liquidation, Perdition - by P.K.Odendaal - May 2013 

If there is one universal theme which comes up again and again in almost all facets of our lives, it is the struggle and conflict between free will and determinism.

It is the conflict between conventional wisdom and innovation, between orthodoxy and heresy, between the well-trodden path and the one less travelled, between the heart and the mind, between the good and the evil, between freedom and regulation, between socialism and capitalism, between revenge and forgiveness, between war or violence and peace, between the flesh and the spirit, between honesty and corruption … and between a lot of others.

Slavery and Addiction

Slavery and Addiction - by P.K.Odendaal - May 2013

Men are born free, but everywhere they are in chains ... Jean-Jacques Rousseau

If a Nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be ... Thomas Jefferson

If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed. Joh. 8:36 

After many years of meditation, I still have not come to grips with the meaning of the words Slavery and Addiction, much less have I been able to free myself from the bondage of both.

A parody on time

It's about time - a parody on time - by P.K.Odendaal - April 2013

Words ... words ... words. How do I start a parody with an article name which is already so ambiguous? Is the article about the subject time or is it the long expected thing to do? Is the parody on the subject of time or is it on the appropriate time?

And of course, everything about time is so slippery that I could not even think of an article name which is not slippery - and as this is positively not a material thing, I think I should call in our two conversationalists named GLC (God Loving Creature) and Atheist (our materialist), to whom you have got so used to by this time, to lead us into this subject. Their views are so widely divergent so that it might help us to understand the concepts of time better.

Fun With Maths - Part 3 - The Bush Calculator

Fun With Maths - Part 3 - The Bush Calculator - by P.K.Odendaal

So we are in the bush, and we quickly need to calculate the number of stars in the night sky and our children are not there with their calculators. What do we do?

We draw a few lines in the sand.

We need to multiply two double digit figures with each other. Let's say 22 x 23 = 506.

Passion and Meaning

Passion and Meaning by P.K. Odendaal – April 2013

I'm afraid I've been thinking, a dangerous pastime, I know ... from Beauty and the Beast

A previous article I wrote about Passion, Emotion and Delusion left many questions unanswered and thus prompted me to rethink the subject - and this opened new perspectives in my mind. I never could have thought that passion and meaning were such integral and connected concepts.

Passion, emotion and delusion

Passion, Emotion and Delusion - by P.K.Odendaal - 7 April 2013.

I am quite sure that passion is the most important emotion in our lives and that of God - if one can refer to Him as having a life in that sense. I also know of many people who do not have that emotion, but I would not want to live without it. In fact, God displayed His biggest act of love towards us in the Passion of Christ.

 

Of course many people, notably the materialists, agnostics and atheists would disagree that these three non-material or non-physical things - passion, emotion and delusion - exist. For the rest of us who go off at a tangent when these things grip us know too well what they are.

Just one

Just One

One song can spark a moment,
One flower can wake the dream
One tree can start a forest,
... One bird can herald spring.

One smile begins a friendship,
One handclasp lifts a soul.
One star can guide a ship at sea,
One word can frame the goal

The distribution of Happiness

The Distribution of Happiness - by P.K.Odendaal - March 2013.

We all should be engaged in the pursuit of happiness, but somehow the activity eludes us, because there are so many other things which occupy our thoughts and acts - and so the pursuit of happiness it filters down to the oblivion of the subconscious. When we realise that we are not happy, we wonder why that is, and it is simply because we did not pursue it. How can we realise or attain something when we do not pursue it? That only happens in fairy tales.

The notion of distribution is very easy and well known. The population of the earth is not spread evenly over the whole earth. If that was the case the distribution of the population over the earth would have been constant or homogenous. But now there are more people in cities than in rural areas, so that the distribution of the population is uneven. It is also valid for almost anything else like pressure, rain, poverty, minerals and wealth. We will return to the latter later on.

Human excellence and the trodden path

Human excellence and the trodden path - by P.K.Odendaal - February 2013.

Amended 5 March 2013

One stands amazed at the accomplishments of individuals who have attained feats of excellence never done before, and one thinks that it was built on years of methodical exploration, planning and experimentation. Although these accomplishments go hand in hand with exploration, planning and experimentation, the bigger truth is that it is built on a directionless procession of random events and the variation of circumstances.

The upper layer reveals to us an accomplishment of almost super human effort and insight, but it is built on a thicker layer of bricks or stones of doubt, mindless wanderings, meaningless efforts, botched opportunities, luck, unexpected outcomes and a thing called serendipity.

Science and fairy tales.

Science and fairy tales - by P.K.Odendaal - January 2013

I have written a lot lately about reality and meta-physics, and debunking the false aura of gullibility surrounding science. I need to place these in a multi-dimensional perspective and place it in its most realistic domain.

As starters, I wish to emphasize that science and fiction is the same thing, and therefore we have this strong genre of science-fiction - simply because there is a fine line or no line between the two. It is really difficult to place these two in different domains or different stages of reality. The one is no more real or fantastical than the other, but history has blinded our eyes to the most basic agreement between the two. We have just too many times been fooled into thinking that science is real and fiction unreal or imaginary.

Dialogue with an atheist - Part 10 - The Invisible hand

Dialogue with an atheist - Part 10 - The Invisible hand.

by P.K.Odendaal - January 2013

 

Our Protagonist's acronym GLC stands for God Loving Creature.

GLC:        Hi Atheist, care for a curved ball from me?

Atheist:   Why not?

GLC:        Have you heard of the Invisible Hand?

Atheist:   Why, no.

GLC:        It is quite a well known and basic principle in Economics.

Atheist:   Why do you want to tell me? I don't like economics.

GLC:        Because it demonstrates quite clearly the presence of God in inanimate things, of which Economics is an excellent example. We can then also extrapolate this phenomenon throughout the Universe.

Dialogue with an atheist - Part 9 - Talking to God

Dialogue with an atheist - Part 9 - Talking to God

GLC         Do you think that inanimate things have souls - or can feel emotion - or can understand something?

Atheists:  Of course, I believe in it. That is what Darwinism is all about. Darwinism posits that the tiny cells, even in inanimate things, steers the course of evolution in a random way. And if you did not know, electrons which are totally inanimate know their way around an atom's nucleus. This has been determined by our brilliant scientists. In fact, we do not believe in any external meta-physical influences on such an electron. It knows by itself and the nuclear forces acting on it, what it should do, and it does it every-time without fail.

To Russia, with Love - a novelette - Part 1

To Russia, with Love - a novelette - Part 1 - by P.K.Odendaal - January 2012 
 

Amended February 2013

To me is all, I to myself am lost,

Who the immortals' fav'rite erst was thought;
They, tempting, sent Pandoras to my cost,
So rich in wealth, with danger far more fraught;
They urged me to those lips, with rapture crown'd,
Deserted me, and hurl'd me to the ground.

Goethe, Marienbad Elegy, the last stanza, translated by Edgar Alfred Bowring

This poem was written by Goethe when he was 73 years old and in love with a woman of 18 years, to whom he proposed via a friend and got turned down. This theme of Goethe was later incorporated in a book and later in the film: 'Death in Venice' where Gustav von Aschenbach, an artist, author and philosopher, in his early fifties, falls in love with a young man, about 13 years old.

Dialogue with an atheist - Part 8 - Tree of death

Dialogue with an atheist - Part 8 - The tree of death - by P.K.Odendaal

January 2013

 
Note added by the narrator 13 March 2013.

Our Protagonist's acronym GLC stands for God Loving Creature. 

GLC:        Hi Atheist, why do you look so intoxicated today - have you had some drink or drugs?

Atheist:   I will have you know that I do not drink and I don't do drugs - and I am very sober as I stand here. My behaviour conforms to the highest moral standards of society - much higher than most of you Christians.

GLC:        I was talking of your intoxication with the drugs which come from the fruit of the tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, because I see  that you have had too much it. It intoxicates the soul with temporary pleasure and vainglory, takes away hope and faith, sells you as a slave and in the end kills you - like all other drugs. It burns you from the inside until there are only ashes left in your soul.