A Prayer For Adam Smith

[Lucky]

In his signature line, Adam Smith say "timor mortis conturbat me." Even with 5 years of Latin, I had to look that one up, not that I didn't get the gist of it.

What I learned is that it is a phrase part of a bigger prayer, one which explains to me, at least, what might lead one to utter the words. Here is the longer version:

Peccantem me quotidie, et non poenitentem, timor mortis conturbat me. Quia in inferno nulla est redemptio, miserere mei, Deus, et salva me.

These words could easily apply to many who post in these forums, but no one would doubt that Adam has a claim to them. After all, the translation is:

"Sinning daily, and not repenting, the fear of death disturbs me. Because there is no redemption in hell, have mercy on me, O God, and save me."

Well, by these terms, at least there will be plenty of companions in hell with him, probably not the least being his favorite escort. That is, of course, if one accepts that fucking daily is a sin, and not a gift from God!

[AdamSmith]

As used in: http://www.bartleby.com/101/21.html

I prefer the translation:

The fear of death confounds me.

[MsGuy]

Birth and dealth are one. Fear the time after no more than the time before.

[AdamSmith]

Birth and dealth are one. Fear the time after no more than the time before.

I don't fear the time after: I fear time present's ending.

Your view is too Eastern for me. An atheist, I am still inescapably of the Judeo-Christian line. What are the Old and New Testaments alike, if not a cry to heaven for more life, into a time without boundaries?

[MsGuy]

Eastern? I don't think you can get much more Judeo-Christian than the Southern Presbyterian iteration of Calvinism.

I wish I could hang around long enough to see how all the strange stuff going on now works out, but that's more a matter of regret than of fear. Once you realize that post life is the same as pre-life, you don't have to expend much of your time you have to live worrying over it ending.

Don't blame our cultural fixation on eternal life on the Isrealites. Until the Persians overran them, they focused on the here and now. God didn't save you from death so much as famine, disease and the nastier neighbors (unless of course you pissed him off.)

[manticore]

I don't fear the time after: I fear time present's ending.

Your view is too Eastern for me. An atheist, I am still inescapably of the Judeo-Christian line. What are the Old and New Testaments alike, if not a cry to heaven for more life, into a time without boundaries?

I'm an atheist from the same J-C culture.

To me, the finiteness of life is just one more limitation to accept.

I'm OK with not being infinitely smart or strong, I'm OK with living

in a world where everything has its limitations, and it's in the same

spirit that I'm OK with my life having a finite extent.

I agree with you that a cry against death motivates religion for

many people. I see belief in life after death as organized denial.

[Guest StuCotts]

As used in: http://www.bartleby.com/101/21.html

I prefer the translation:

The fear of death confounds me.

A thought for the translator whose lot it is to spend his life splitting hairs ten ways and be constantly disagreed with. Still, it's a great feeling to wrestle an expression to the ground and come up with the translation that satisfies both head and gut. Anyway, my submission is: The fear of death haunts me.

As for attitudes toward death, my contention is that it's all theory until you're face-to-face with the real thing. I've lived through two experiences, one near-death and one really-near-death. The theory says that my reaction should have been a reversion to the strict Catholicism I was raised with or a conscious rejection of it. In other words, big thoughts. In the event, it was nothing like that.

[AdamSmith]

Eastern? I don't think you can get much more Judeo-Christian than the Southern Presbyterian iteration of Calvinism.

This failed Southern Baptist would see you and raise you one.

Once you realize that post life is the same as pre-life, you don't have to expend much of your time you have to live worrying over it ending.

Sensible attitude. I know it; wish I could feel it.

At the very least, I would like a more reasonable life span. Say, 250 years. That would give us time to make our first mistaken tries at the life projects; then, with the lessons learned, go again and have some shot at getting closer to what we meant. And maybe a coda in which we really manage to distill the good stuff.

Don't blame our cultural fixation on eternal life on the Isrealites. Until the Persians overran them, they focused on the here and now.

We could have a whole seminar on that. Beyond the Persians, at the center of all mischief was Paul. Uprooting the historical Jesus from his Judaic soil, and replanting the whole shebang in the entirely foreign ground of Paul's Neoplatonic and Hellenized learning, which split body from soul and pitted one against the other. Rewriting the here-and-now transformative social gospel of the peasant revolutionary into a crude supernaturalizing fixation on bodily resurrection and literal afterlife.

My prejudices are showing.

[AdamSmith]

my submission is: The fear of death haunts me.

Accurate; nuanced; beautiful. My preference for "confounds" is projection of my own emotion, at the cost of fidelity to the source.

In other words, big thoughts. In the event, it was nothing like that.

Unsure why, but a comfort to hear that.

[AdamSmith]

I'm OK with not being infinitely smart or strong, I'm OK with living

in a world where everything has its limitations, and it's in the same

spirit that I'm OK with my life having a finite extent.

All those still get way under my skin.

I agree with you that a cry against death motivates religion for

many people. I see belief in life after death as organized denial.

What I value most in religions are all the human needs that they so beautifully (if also, often enough, horrifically and destructively) articulate and give form to.

Even if the choices we make in fulfilling those needs are, as you say, frequently choices of pathology and self-deception. Or worse.

[Guest StuCotts]

Unsure why, but a comfort to hear that.

Not entirely sure myself. I suspect it has to do with my boundless inborn pessimism and allied feeling that life is just one damn thing after the other. I think that folksy americanism puts me within plausible arm's reach of MsGuy's proposition above that you called sensible. I think further that we're all in hock to Francis Bacon for telling us that it's as natural to die as it is to be born. I wish I were versed enough in philosophy to show off and cite Bacon's ultimate source, (He must have had one; there's nothing new under the sun.) but I can't.

Your wish for 250 years put me in mind of Tithonus out of Greek mythology. At the request of some goddess who lusted for him, he was granted immortality by Zeus. She forgot to request eternal youth. As he got older and older, he got more and more infirm and querulous. Finally his non-stop creaky whines got on all the Olympians' nerves and Zeus changed him into a cricket. So don't forget to wish for it all.

I perceive that I'm amid atheists. I can lay claim only to being the kind of deist that can't dismiss the idea of a God, but can't abide the idea of one who takes personal interest in Creation and its inhabitants. I believe He's there based on His often-demonstrated sense of humor, with its resolute tendency to turn mean.

[lookin]

I've lived through two experiences, one near-death and one really-near-death. The theory says that my reaction should have been a reversion to the strict Catholicism I was raised with or a conscious rejection of it. In other words, big thoughts. In the event, it was nothing like that.

Love to hear, if you'd care to tell.

In the meantime, an old wheeze about a woman who lands in the OR after a heart attack and has a near-death experience. She asks God if her time is up, and He says, "No, actually you've got another thirty years and seven months." She decides to stay in the hospital and have liposuction, tummy tuck, face lift, breast implants, teeth whitening, and a full makeover and henna rinse in the hospital beauty salon. She steps out six weeks later looking like a million bucks, and is run over by an ambulance at the front entrance. Face to face with God once again, this time for good, she asks why He told her she had thirty years left and then ran her down with an ambulance. "Damn!", says God, "Was that you?"

[Lucky]

More proof that you can never predict the direction a thread will take, even when you are the OP!

[Guest StuCotts]

Love to hear, if you'd care to tell.

Not really. Sorry.

[AdamSmith]

More proof that you can never predict the direction a thread will take, even when you are the OP!

That, obliquely, says something or other about Intelligent Design. Or at least, per Stu's remark, about deism.

...which (deism) has always struck me as the least gratifying way to be deity. Even if a lot less aggravating than the petulant, small-company shop-foreman micromanagement style of Yahweh in the Old Testament.

[Guest StuCotts]

That, obliquely, says something or other about Intelligent Design. Or at least, per Stu's remark, about deism.

...which (deism) has always struck me as the least gratifying way to be deity. Even if a lot less aggravating than the petulant, small-company shop-foreman micromanagement style of Yahweh in the Old Testament.

Coincidentally, I just came across a review of two books in the Guardian Weekly that address this point. The review is written by Piers Paul Read and called "Where would we be without God?".

I wanted to supply a link, but for all the effort I put into it I absolutely couldn't find the review on the Guardian's website. I attribute that to the ten thumbs I bring to my computer interactions. Sorry.

[Lucky]

At least I can contribute something to this thread:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/may/2...iew-god-society

(Incidentally, the solution was to Google the author's name in quotes, then add the word Guardian.)