Posted on 11/25/2010 4:13:41 PM PST by WesternCulture
Friedrich Schiller was one of them.
Many French Enlightenment intellectuals chose a different way. They tried to build freedom for Man without God being a part of the structure. This idea soon proved its true nature.
For some reason, people interested in History of today refuse to pay attention to what was going on, at all levels, in Germany at the same time.
Goethe and Schiller were some of the greatest minds ever having addressed the eternal issues confronting us men. But in the education provided by the English speaking World they seem to somehow disappear.
Why do I claim Beethoven to be a genius?
It very much has to do with the way in which he interpreted another one.
Beethoven set music to Schiller's most noble work.
Whatever you might think of Europe, our national hymn isn't all that bad.
The music:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kG16pfDZ3CM
The text:
http://www.raptusassociation.org/ode1785.html
Millions of things are wrong about Europe.
But Beethoven isn't one of them and he never will become forgotten upon.
Schiller's poetry centers around a basic idea found in Christianity and like Christianity itself it will never go away as it is of Eternity.
Amen.
“So is this piece written by Mirandolo?”
- Yes, these are the words of a Renaissance Florentine addressing us.
I am an agnostic who will answer that question in one word: Yes.
WesternCulture, you are posting some very thought provoking items. Its a special day here, and I want to wish you well.
I agree - yes.
I used to include the first book of Pico’s On the Dignity of Man in a core course I taught. Also, coincidentally, he was an ancestor of mine on my maternal grandmother’s side.
- Very well put by Mr Hensley.
Life is to be seen as a mission on Earth we are provided by heavenly benevolence.
Given only a short time.
Petrarch was aware of this dilemma:
Thanks for the link and thanks for this post. Some good reading.
The Old Testament is the basics, but what is revolutionary and true about the other one?
It is the Christian notion of “Agape” - the idea of the Universe being conceived in heavenly love.
Which is not any sort of love.
The love the Bible speaks of is one that holds the Universe together and directs Man towards the ultimate of his goals:
True freedom.
A core of Christianity is this:
Man has freedom, unlike animals, because God's utmost expression of love for his creation is Man. Man is created as an image of God “Imago Dei” - in the face of God (in Latin) - meaning Man is to be seen as the gardener of a paradise created by God.
Pico della Mirandola clarified this cornerstone of Christian faith in a beautiful fashion and from his interpretation of scripture Man has found the inspiration and courage of climbing to peaks unknown to his age.
“Thanks for the link and thanks for this post. Some good reading.”
- Thank you for your interest.
Hope to meet you in Florence, Italy, one day!
Save
Thanks. Saw Firenze in 1982. Don’t know if I’ll make it back. But one can dream.
Christianity is Chivalrous. Islam is a political concept with no spiritual component.
I work with some Iraqis, and they don’t contemplate the afterlife. All of their energy is here and now, survival, a DNA marker of their Bedouin ancestry.
Hinduism and Buddism are chivalrous.
Come to think of it, every religion is still chivalrous, after all the Crusades. Except one.
Christian civilization and western civilization are not synonymous. Christianity developed in Asia. The clash and synthesis between Greco-Roman culture and Christianity created the the Western Civilization that we know today. Early Christian centers in Asia Minor, Syria, Iraq, North Africa and Egypt rivaled that of Rome’s. If Islam had not arisen, a schism between Eastern Christian Civilization and Western Christian civilization might be the major fault line of today but perhaps it would not have become so confrontational.
Which Christian Civilization, and superior to what?
Prior to the American Revolution, the "Christian" civilizations provided pretty much the same brutal and short lives for their peoples as any other forms of tyranny.
What changed with the emergence of the USA was a constitutional government with no established religion, and the freedom of each person to worship, or not, as they saw fit.
Religious tyrants are no more desirable than any other kind.
Yes.
Of course it is, Next question!
I believe Christianity is superior because it produces inherently more stable societies.
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