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What You Can't Say
dtolton writes "Paul Graham has an excellent article posted on the subject of things you can't say. His article explores what ideas are generally considered heresy, and whether or not those ideas might be true nonetheless. He also presents advice for handling heretical ideas. Considering that many of the ideas in technology in general and Open Source specifically are near heresy, it's well worth a read."
I hate to rain on your parade but... Violence should be unacceptable except in self-defense.
In this country (UK) for about 10 years now there has been a campaign to stop "violence against women" (by men) i.e. Domestic Violence. There has been no such campaign agains violence against men by women. In the media, women are portrayed as heroes when they thump men.
Look, I'll cut out the crap and come straight to the point.
One night my then girlfriend went ape at me in a fit of madness, ripped out half my hair and beat me black and blue.
I didn't hit back and I'm glad I didn't,
In that case I deserved a go at self-defense, not revenge, but I prefered to curl up into a ball and take the beatings.
So you see, the guy was right on the money in his article. It's what people will let you say, what they will let you believe and what they allow us to believe is important.
Stick Men
than Microsoft SQL server, any day of the week!
One has to watch what one says on Slashdot, lest one's comments dissappear in a sea of downmods. I'm not referring to crapflodding and Michael-is-a-censoring-bastard, posts. But if someone loves Microsoft and expounds on why they like it, expect that post to die at -1 fairly quickly. Even daring to follow-up a post often needs to be done AC or else it'll be rated -1, Offtopic.
C - A language that combines the speed of assembly with the ease of use of assembly.
I love you, mesocyclone. :-)
As I recall, Oedipus was punished for something his grandfather did, sleeping with (or failing to sleep with, I can't remember) the duaghter of this god or that. Unfortunatly, I can't find a link to support that, so I may be wrong.
Regardless, the story of Oedipus was well-known quite a while before Christ. It's generally accepted that Sophocles took a known myth and made a play out of it, but even if he created it all by his little self, he still wrote it, at the latest, around 400 B.C. (Just type if Sophocles or Oedipus into google and click any of the links.) So the _intended_ meaning of the Oedipus myth is not about abandoning knowledge of our selves as God, it's about denying your destiny.
I realize that, arguably, those are the same things. If we are all pieces of God (something I don't believe but am willing to use for conjecture) then by going against Gods will we are going against our own will, and thus damning ourselves. This was a large part of Dante's explanation for how souls are placed in Heaven or Hell, and is not a new concept.
But Oedipus wasn't about denying self (or "remembering childhood"), it was about trying to escape that which he (and his father, and his mother) were destined for. Sure, you could argue that had Oedipus been able to remember his true parents he could have escaped his fate, but that would be a flawed argument. The whole point is that it WAS his fate, and he couldn't do a thing about it.
There was no Christian imagery anywhere in it. And there shouldn't have been, as Christ wasn't around yet to be imagery-ized.
Finally, changing gears for a couple questions. These aren't attacks but honest questions. What is the "human experience" that we are supposed to be in search of? Because I'm pretty sure I know how to be a human, but wouldn't know the first thing about being a spirit. I think the Emporer's New Clothes is relevant, because it addresses what's "known" to be true, even when it is so obviously false. But How does the life of Jesus tie in? The virgin birth as a metaphor saying that only children (i.e. those who haven't had sex) know what's going on?
I think your post is a stretch, attempting to pull stories that do _not_ have Christian imagery and using them as Christian metaphors, rather than just speaking of religion straight out.
-Trillian