2022-07-04 Bedankmail aan Willem & Mariette voor de lunch in Vinkenveen.
Transcription
From: "A.D. Dirkzwager" <[email protected]>
Subject: Thanks for the memories
Date: 4 July 2022 at 12:53:33 CEST
To: Willem Dirkzwager <[email protected]>, Mariētte D.
Lieve Mariette & Willem,
Vera en ik hadden ons voorbereid op een eenvoudig broodje met een kop koffie om weer eens een get "together" te hebben, want dat had Willem ons laten weten. Maar we werden verrast op kreeftensoep met warme broodjes met 'en plus' eier -en krabsalade uit Volendam salade. We hebben genoten van de traktatie en van elkaar weer eens gezien te hebben.
In de auto terug naar Amsterdam bevestigde Vera dat de lunch bij jullie zo gezelligs was geweest. 's-Avonds kon zij ons bezoek aan jullie niet meer herinneren. Na een paar hinten van mijn zijde zei
ze: 'O ja, natuurlijk.'
Jullie herinnerde niet de bladzijden 139 & 140
uit "Travels with Epicurus" van Daniel Klein. Daarom heb ik het voor jullie gekopieerd. 'Thanks for the memories', die het verlangen oproepen om gauw weer bij jullie in Vinkenveen te komen lunchen. Liefs en groeten, mede namens Vera, Aadje
Citaat uit 'Travels with Epicurus' van Daniel Klein
BLdz. 139 &140
Freud's assumption is that if ideas such a transcendent god and a lovely afterlife come into minds merely as a result of our feelings, then they must be nonsense.
At strictly logical and empirical level, as Sportin'Life sings in Porgy and Bess apropos dicta of the Bible, this assumption "ain't necessarily so". For example, our feelings could be the source of our idea that the stranger in a fedora has sitting across from us in the train is a serial killer, but it could turn out that the guy in the fedora actually is a serial killer. That we came to this idea in non-rational way has no bearing on whether or not it is actually and independently true.
Piling on the psychological interpretation of why we cook up God are today's new atheists, thinking like Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins.These thinkers point out that most of us subscribe to scientific, logical-empirical thinking in 99 percent of what we do, but then we go off the deep end into illogical non-empirical thinking when it comes to God and religion. We pick between the two ways of thinking according to what we need: a scientific head suits driving a car, while an illogical, non-empirical head is a better fit when it comes to praying for salvation.
Sam Harris puts it amusingly: "If I told you that I thought there was a diamond the seize of a refrigerator buried in my backyard, and you ask me, why do you think that? I'd say, this belief gives my life meaning, or my family draws a lot of joy from this belief, and we dig for this diamond every Sunday and we have a gigantic pit in our lawn. I would start to sound like a lunatic to you. You can't believe there is really a diamond in your backyard because it gives your life meaning. If that is possible, that's self-deception that nobody wants."
