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My Lovely Horse posted:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUJoR4vlIIs I wasn't hot on the first trailer but that looks wayyyy better. Absolutely nailed the look for Anathema and Newt. Jon Hamm looks fun. Kinda bummed that Pollution isn't a withered, anonymous waif though. Not that the character had to be male or white but I was expecting emaciated or grimy.
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Mar 13, 2019 08:23
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So it's about angels, devils, heaven, and hell, but doesn't seem to be dealing with faith and religious experience at all?
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Mar 13, 2019 08:34
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BravestOfTheLamps posted:So it's about angels, devils, heaven, and hell, but doesn't seem to be dealing with faith and religious experience at all? Oh, it deals with faith, definitely.
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Mar 13, 2019 09:10
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BravestOfTheLamps posted:So it's about angels, devils, heaven, and hell, but doesn't seem to be dealing with faith and religious experience at all? That's hosed up. Starting think this guy might not have been good at writing..
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Mar 13, 2019 09:30
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Doesn't even use chapters. Hasn't got a clue.
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Mar 13, 2019 09:44
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BravestOfTheLamps posted:So it's about angels, devils, heaven, and hell, but doesn't seem to be dealing with faith and religious experience at all? the bulk of atheists - and all of the evangelical type - can only engage with the external trappings of religion, as they lack both the personal experience of mature faith and any interest in understanding what that experience is like. this makes their writing and their thoughts on the matter shallow and silly. they are emotionally and intellectually stunted, locked in a permanent stage of angry reaction against their parents for dragging them to sunday school when they were twelve. this is the sort that terry pratchett is e: was (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Mar 13, 2019 17:06
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Small Gods tho
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Mar 13, 2019 18:50
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chernobyl kinsman posted:the bulk of atheists - and all of the evangelical type - can only engage with the external trappings of religion, as they lack both the personal experience of mature faith and any interest in understanding what that experience is like. this makes their writing and their thoughts on the matter shallow and silly. they are emotionally and intellectually stunted, locked in a permanent stage of angry reaction against their parents for dragging them to sunday school when they were twelve. this is the sort that terry pratchett is Everyone who disagrees with me is being childish!
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Mar 13, 2019 19:04
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Cicadalek posted:Small Gods tho Feet of Clay, as well. Seriously, there isn't a single statement Chernobyl Kinsman could have made that is easier to disprove.
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Mar 13, 2019 19:10
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Jedit posted:Feet of Clay, as well. Seriously, there isn't a single statement Chernobyl Kinsman could have made that is easier to disprove. Making his post a worthy homage to BotL.
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Mar 13, 2019 19:19
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Cicadalek posted:Small Gods tho small gods is the worst example i can possibly think of to prove my post wrong. it's tired, bog-standard British anti-Catholicism. pratchett's Not Catholic Church is shallow, silly, and worst of all boring. the bit about the turtle god starting to care about his worshippers is good, but that's it. the Big Event that gets everyone christian again is a public miracle, because the idea of non-positivism and believing in something you haven't literally seen is completely alien to Pratchett even in his imagination. it ends with the Not-Catholic Church espousing perfect liberal humanism and relinquishing all truth claims, therefore rendering religion non-threatening and palatable to atheist readers (and its atheist writer). i haven't read feet of clay and i'm not going to, but i doubt it signals a break with pratchett's usual superficial treatment of religion Jedit posted:Seriously, there isn't a single statement Chernobyl Kinsman could have made that is easier to disprove. of course there is. i could have said that terry pratchett was a good writer chernobyl kinsman fucked around with this message at 19:34 on Mar 13, 2019 |
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Mar 13, 2019 19:30
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chernobyl kinsman posted:pratchett's usual superficial treatment of religion there's nothing there except the surface, the depths are invented, just like the god(s)
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Mar 13, 2019 22:24
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chernobyl kinsman posted:
It's explicitly about the positive power of faith. "I haven't read the material but I'm gonna double down anyway" is never a strong position.
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Mar 13, 2019 23:32
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This is what you traded BotL for lmao. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Mar 13, 2019 23:38
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Jerry Cotton posted:This is what you traded BotL for lmao. <searches for Report button> Why can't we have both?
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Mar 14, 2019 00:44
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*kramers into the thread* hey guys...... u kno that thing u like thayt this thred is about? its.... BAD... AND SUPERFICAL NERDS *huffs farts and rubs printouts of BotL's posts on his crotch*
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Mar 14, 2019 00:47
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chernobyl kinsman posted:the bit about the turtle god starting to care about his worshippers is good, but that's it. "the bit", as if that's a small sidebar in the novel and not a huge part of the plot quote:the Big Event that gets everyone christian again is a public miracle, because the idea of non-positivism and believing in something you haven't literally seen is completely alien to Pratchett even in his imagination. The main character explicitly has unwavering belief in a god he's never seen before the events of the story. Did you like read the book in school years ago and forget everything until you needed to drop these epic truthbombs?
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Mar 14, 2019 01:24
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One of my favorite parts in Small Gods is when Didactylos is talking about witnessing a stoning in Omnia. Now, if you wanted to take superficial potshots at the Catholic Church, you could just point to witch hunts and the Spanish Inquisition and say "hey look murdering people who don't agree with you is bad" and that'd be true, for sure, but not very deep. But Pratchett goes much further than that surface level. I don't have the quote in front of me, but it goes something like: Didactylos: I saw a stoning in Omnia before I went blind. it was pretty fuckin terrible to see. Brutha: Well yeah but their body's state doesn't matter if it's to save their souls, so. . . Didactylos: Well I'm not sure about any of that, but I wasn't talking about the poor bastard in the pit. I was talking about the terrible looks on the faces of the people throwing the stones. They were sure, all right. Sure it wasn't them in the pit. They were so sure that they were throwing the stones just as hard as they could. He is not just pointing out the system is terrible; he takes that as given. He's trying to explore why systems like that arise and persist. Systems that make otherwise good people do terrible things. That's a major theme throughout Discworld, and Small Gods uses religion as its example but other books use other systems (police states in Night Watch, feudalism in Interesting Times, jingoism in Jingo, etc.).
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Mar 14, 2019 02:41
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I just started discworld, finished the first 2 books and liked them a lot. Looks like I'm at the point where I have to choose whether to read the rest by publication date or jump around and follow specific character arcs to their ends? Any recommendations which way is more enjoyable?
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Mar 14, 2019 02:51
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Read it by publication order, then return to the stories you enjoyed most.
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Mar 14, 2019 03:02
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great big cardboard tube posted:I just started discworld, finished the first 2 books and liked them a lot. Looks like I'm at the point where I have to choose whether to read the rest by publication date or jump around and follow specific character arcs to their ends? Publication order I'd say for the first run through, there's an overall thematic development that makes jumping back to the beginning of a sub-series odd.
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Mar 14, 2019 03:05
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great big cardboard tube posted:I just started discworld, finished the first 2 books and liked them a lot. Looks like I'm at the point where I have to choose whether to read the rest by publication date or jump around and follow specific character arcs to their ends? If I remember correctly, I read them by character arcs (ie I read the Death books, the Witches books, etc) but I'd say either way is enjoyable, as you get to see the Discworld evolve as a setting and PTerry becoming a better writer ( and sadly, in the later books written after his "embugerance", his writing quality decline). I would read them in some sort of order, if only to avoid spoilers / plot points (that said the first Discworld book I read was The Last Hero, a big coffee table / picture book that came late in the series) Also re: Pratchett and religion, his best take on it was his non-Discworld trilogy The Bromeliad (Truckers, Diggers, and Wings)
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Mar 14, 2019 03:16
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Cicadalek posted:The main character explicitly has unwavering belief in a god he's never seen before the events of the story. ya, he's also the last person on earth who still believes in Om, and his faith is wrong in many crucial respects - it needs to be filtered and rectified through comfortingly secular philosophy in order to be made palatable. (speaking of, you did get that the entire plot is a just hamfisted retelling of Aquinas' reconciling Christian theology with then-recently-discovered Aristotelian thought, right?) everyone else only worships om because they're stupid or afraid of the church Hieronymous Alloy posted:It's explicitly about the positive power of faith. small gods seems to think it is, too, but it ends up just being about the positive power of "liberal humanism with a dash of NGO charity work on the side". quote:"I haven't read the material but I'm gonna double down anyway" is never a strong position. neither is the uniquely nerd fallacy that one cannot criticize an author until one has read every single book that author ever wrote DontMockMySmock posted:Now, if you wanted to take superficial potshots at the Catholic Church, you could just point to witch hunts and the Spanish Inquisition and say "hey look murdering people who don't agree with you is bad" he literally does, though? the main antagonist is Not The Pope, who heads Not The Inquisition. and as a sidebar, i had to google it to double check that pratchett honestly called his Inquisition standin The Quisition. come on, man. . DontMockMySmock posted:I don't have the quote in front of me, but it goes something like: yeah, i'm sorry, but "religion makes people feel justified in doing bad things" isn't very deep, either, nor is the bit you posted e: i mean to be clear it's not wrong, it's just an extremely basic idea communicated in a not-particularly-innovative or nuanced way chernobyl kinsman fucked around with this message at 07:15 on Mar 14, 2019 |
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Mar 14, 2019 04:15
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Mar 14, 2019 05:40
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chernobyl kinsman posted:ya, he's also the last person on earth who still believes in Om, and his faith is wrong in many crucial respects - it needs to be filtered and rectified through comfortingly secular philosophy in order to be made palatable. (speaking of, you did get that the entire plot is a just hamfisted retelling of Aquinas' reconciling Christian theology with then-recently-discovered Aristotelian thought, right?) everyone else only worships om because they're stupid or afraid of the church BoTL parachute account spotted. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Mar 14, 2019 05:42
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Could you cite some fiction or beginner-level scholorship you feel does a good job of exploring the themes fans found compelling in Small Gods, Feet of Clay, Hogfather, et al?
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Mar 14, 2019 07:51
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DontMockMySmock posted:He is not just pointing out the system is terrible; he takes that as given. He's trying to explore why systems like that arise and persist. Systems that make otherwise good people do terrible things. That's a major theme throughout Discworld, and Small Gods uses religion as its example but other books use other systems (police states in Night Watch, feudalism in Interesting Times, jingoism in Jingo, etc.). He was not really pointing trying to explore systems like that, it was always more a comment on people in general. He had a rather cynical view on humanity, which is readily obvious in all his works. It is readily apparent in the Witches series, where Weatherwax always pointed towards the personal responsibility of peoples actions.
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Mar 14, 2019 08:38
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chernobyl kinsman posted:ya, he's also the last person on earth who still believes in Om, and his faith is wrong in many crucial respects - it needs to be filtered and rectified through comfortingly secular philosophy in order to be made palatable. (speaking of, you did get that the entire plot is a just hamfisted retelling of Aquinas' reconciling Christian theology with then-recently-discovered Aristotelian thought, right?) everyone else only worships om because they're stupid or afraid of the church You really have missed the point, then. Brutha is the only person who worships Om. Everyone else worships the Church. This is explicitly stated at least twice, so odds are good you were rushing through the book trying to glean enough to satisfy whichever teacher set it to you as an assignment. You also didn't understand why the Quisition are so called, but that's a lot more subtle. "In-" is a verb transitive; it moves a word into the active voice. For example, I might trust you to do something. That's passive, it just means I expect you will do it. But if I entrust you with doing something, then I am telling you I want you to do it. The Quisition are the reverse of that. An inquisition finds people and asks them questions. The Quisition just questions everyone who is brought before it, and it doesn't even really care about the answers.
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Mar 14, 2019 09:18
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are there really teachers setting terry ratchett as assigned reading?
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Mar 14, 2019 09:47
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The_Doctor posted:4 years ago today, we were robbed. Rest in hilarity, Terry. late but GNU pterry
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Mar 14, 2019 09:56
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Also, going back to your original post, I like the characterization of atheists as no-YOU-shut-the-gently caress-up-Dad teenagers because they only engage with the external trappings of religion. You know, stuff like torturing people who don't fall in line, holy wars that kill millions, ruling by fear and violence...all that silly, shallow stuff. I guess atheists a have a lot of growing up to do. I don't even really disagree with you that Pratchett doesn't engage with religion at the sort of high-level discussion you're describing (I think so anyway, you haven't really defined what high-level discussion looks like). Here's the thing though: religious people also don't think about it that hard, which leads to all the problems mentioned above. And that's kind of what the book is about. I'm not sure why you skateboarded into the thread to blast him for not publishing a college thesis instead of a novel.
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Mar 14, 2019 11:24
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Canuckistan posted:GNU pterry
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Mar 14, 2019 11:36
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Cicadalek posted:Also, going back to your original post, I like the characterization of atheists as no-YOU-shut-the-gently caress-up-Dad teenagers because they only engage with the external trappings of religion. You know, stuff like torturing people who don't fall in line, holy wars that kill millions, ruling by fear and violence...all that silly, shallow stuff. I guess atheists a have a lot of growing up to do. are you aware that all that stuff happens under secular governments as well?
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Mar 14, 2019 11:38
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A human heart posted:are you aware that all that stuff happens under secular governments as well?
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Mar 14, 2019 11:47
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A human heart posted:are you aware that all that stuff happens under secular governments as well? I always wanted a perfect example to encapsulate whataboutism, and that fills it nicely. Yes. Secular governments do terrible poo poo too. Both of these things can be true at the same time, and Pratchett is deeply critical of both of them repeatedly across the series.
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Mar 14, 2019 13:21
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great big cardboard tube posted:I just started discworld, finished the first 2 books and liked them a lot. Looks like I'm at the point where I have to choose whether to read the rest by publication date or jump around and follow specific character arcs to their ends? I'm almost at the end of my first read through (part way through Snuff at the moment) I read in publication order and have really enjoyed seeing the disc grow and develop. The books (mostly) occur in chronological order so ideas that appear in one book end up appearing in other books after that regardless of series
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Mar 14, 2019 13:50
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So there's a bit in Carpe Jugulum when the priest and Granny Weatherwax are moving through the mountains together. "If I thought there was some god who really did care two hoots about people, who watched ’em like a father and cared for ’em like a mother… well, you wouldn’t catch me sayin’ things like “There are two sides to every question,” and “We must respect other people’s beliefs.” You wouldn’t find me just being gen’rally nice in the hope that it’d all turn out right in the end, not if that flame was burning in me like an unforgivin’ sword. And I did say burnin’, Mister Oats, ‘cos that’s what it’d be. You say that you people don’t burn folk and sacrifice people any more, but that’s what true faith would mean, y’see? Sacrificin’ your own life, one day at a time, to the flame, declarin’ the truth of it, workin’ for it, breathin’ the soul of it. That’s religion. Anything else is just… is just bein’ nice. And a way of keepin’ in touch with the neighbors."
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Mar 14, 2019 14:33
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Jedit posted:You really have missed the point, then. Brutha is the only person who worships Om. Everyone else worships the Church. This is explicitly stated at least twice, so odds are good you were rushing through the book trying to glean enough to satisfy whichever teacher set it to you as an assignment. i know. that was part of my point. Jedit posted:You also didn't understand why the Quisition are so called, but that's a lot more subtle. "In-" is a verb transitive; it moves a word into the active voice. For example, I might trust you to do something. That's passive, it just means I expect you will do it. But if I entrust you with doing something, then I am telling you I want you to do it. The Quisition are the reverse of that. An inquisition finds people and asks them questions. The Quisition just questions everyone who is brought before it, and it doesn't even really care about the answers. yeah i got that, man. it's not that subtle. it's still just Not The Inquisition. it's lazy and boring. Cicadalek posted:Also, going back to your original post, I like the characterization of atheists as no-YOU-shut-the-gently caress-up-Dad teenagers because they only engage with the external trappings of religion. You know, stuff like torturing people who don't fall in line, holy wars that kill millions, ruling by fear and violence...all that silly, shallow stuff. I guess atheists a have a lot of growing up to do. calm down. Cicadalek posted:Here's the thing though: religious people also don't think about it that hard, which leads to all the problems mentioned above. And that's kind of what the book is about. "religious people don't think about their faith" is a hell of a dumb hill to die on, but it's irrelevant. if we were discussing a book written by a religious person that was similarly shallow and superficial, then i'd be critiquing that. but we're not. Cicadalek posted:I'm not sure why you skateboarded into the thread to blast him for not publishing a college thesis instead of a novel. this is such a depressing viewpoint. "not sure why you expect a work of art to have depth or value or engage meaningfully with its subject" is so god damned goony.
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Mar 14, 2019 15:34
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chernobyl kinsman posted:calm down. You still haven't explained why it's shallow, or provided any examples of what you would consider a proper treatment of the subject. Discworld books are definitely not the heaviest reading, but you're describing the book like it was an r/atheism post.
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Mar 14, 2019 16:07
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Cicadalek posted:You still haven't explained why it's shallow, or provided any examples of what you would consider a proper treatment of the subject. i have provided what i think is a fairly detailed critique of its shallowness over the course of several posts now. if you don't think "it's the inquisition but i took the 'in' prefix off" to be shallow then i'm not sure how much farther we can get. maybe re-read my posts? as for "a proper treatment of the subject", are you just looking for, like, books that actually deal with faith and religious experience in a substantive way? what are you in the mood for? anything by dostoevsky, but particularly the brothers karamazov and the idiot, waugh's brideshead revisited, eco's name of the rose, or zadie smith's white teeth... need some kind of direction here, because - since religion is such a central part of human behavior, history, and experience - it plays a fairly significant role in a lot of art, making it all the more glaring when it's dealt with in only a superficial manner. e: Also a lot of people on here like a canticle for leibowitzbut i haven't read that since high school and i don't remember whether or not i liked it Cicadalek posted:Discworld books are definitely not the heaviest reading, so this is another way of saying that discworld is light reading, which i agree with. since it's light, it deals shallowly with its subject matter, asks for little thought from its readers, and generally communicates a handful of simple easily-digested messages while trying to earn some laughs along the way. that's what it means for something to be light reading. you can still enjoy it, i guess, but you don't need to defend it, and you should be able to marshal some kind of critical distance between you and it instead of feeling compelled to defend it as though you, personally, were being attacked. chernobyl kinsman fucked around with this message at 16:44 on Mar 14, 2019 |
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Mar 14, 2019 16:41
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