Just love your tagline, editor-surveyor! In the Hebrew language, "fool" is translated as nabal. And as the Psalmist says, the man who "says in his heart" that "there is no God" is a nabal, a fool. To say as much is to take flight into a second reality, and indicates a profound pneumopathological (or spiritual) disorder. So this is not a "funny-ha-ha" type of fool: The reference is to a profoundly disturbed or disordered human being.
Cicero remarked on the same phenomenon, calling a man in such a flight insipiens -- likewise translated as "fool." But for Cicero, such a flight from divine reality is caused by aspernatio rationes, or "contempt for reason." And that is very much a spiritual disorder, too -- a disorder of the mind, where for the Psalmist, it was a disorder of the soul. Both are varieties of spiritual sickness....
Plato called this disease, nosos; Aristotle, nosemos. The great ancient thinkers knew all about this syndrome, though we moderns seem to have forgotten all about it. Its root is the flight from God, or divine reality which is, in turn, the root of both reason and the human soul.
Just a bunch of trivia I suppose. But such trivia is of interest to me.... Maybe it might be of interest to a Lurker or two as well.
Thank you so much for your observations!
I find nothing at all trivial about your post. But for those interested in Bible trivia: nabal spelled backwards is Laban - Jacob's uncle and father-in-law.
As is anything but unquestioning belief in the Lord, and his inerrant word. The essence of this debate is the turning of reality on it's head.