18 Jan 2013

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.

10 Jan 2013

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.


8 Jan 2013

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.

5 Jan 2013

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.