LDS culture problem

[zil]

Meanwhile, how did we manage to get 22 pages in without talking about the real LDS culture problem: green Jello with shredded stuff in it? 

[Guest MormonGator]

7 minutes ago, Sunday21 said:

What is interesting to me is that Paradise Lost has lds content that nonlds Christians don't know about. How did this happen? I say this, knowing very little about either Christianity or Paradise Lost!

 

The poem is incredibly complex and multi layered. To fully understand it you need to understand what was going on in England at the time. Milton was extremely political, by far the most political poet in English history. No question. Not even Chaucer (who worked for the government and was deeply connected to the high ups in the country) was as political as Milton. So if you don't understand the basics of the English Civil War (and Milton was a radical, staunch Parliamentarian though he wavered when he saw Cromwell refusing to advance English liberty and acting more like a monarch) you have no chance of understanding the poem. 
 

Edited July 28, 2017 by MormonGator

[Sunday21]

2 hours ago, zil said:

Meanwhile, how did we manage to get 22 pages in without talking about the real LDS culture problem: green Jello with shredded stuff in it? 

I was thinking that 'Green Jello' would be a great name for an lds bluegrass band!

[Sunday21]

2 hours ago, MormonGator said:

The poem is incredibly complex and multi layered. To fully understand it you need to understand what was going on in England at the time. Milton was extremely political, by far the most political poet in English history. No question. Not even Chaucer (who worked for the government and was deeply connected to the high ups in the country) was as political as Milton. So if you don't understand the basics of the English Civil War (and Milton was a radical, staunch Parliamentarian though he wavered when he saw Cromwell refusing to advance English liberty and acting more like a monarch) you have no chance of understanding the poem. 
 

Well that explains my struggles in English lit!

[Guest MormonGator]

Just now, Sunday21 said:

Well that explains my struggles in English lit!

Believe me @Sunday21, if an idiot like me can understand this stuff, anyone can. It just takes time. 

[Sunday21]

@MormonGator. You know what would be great? Really well annotated versions of classic works like Paradise Lost, War &Peace etc. This would be great for those of us who did not get the pricey classical education. I read one on Alice and Wonderland and I learnt a lot! The problem with most so called annotated texts is they give you a few footnotes. Not enough, I say! I need serious explaining! Anyway, this explains what the Gator family get up to on Saturday nights. They are not slapping squeetores. They are rereading Paradise Lost. They are probably the only two on the planet who can figure out what is going on in that text!

[Sunday21]

6 minutes ago, MormonGator said:

Believe me @Sunday21, if an idiot like me can understand this stuff, anyone can. It just takes time. 

And lots and lots of footnotes! You should have seen me with War & Peace! Who is this person? Who is that person? Ugh!

[Guest MormonGator]

2 minutes ago, Sunday21 said:

 this explains what the Gator family get up to on Saturday nights. 

hahahahaahahaha.

2 minutes ago, Sunday21 said:

And lots and lots of footnotes! You should have seen me with War & Peace! Who is this person? Who is that person? Ugh!

If you meet someone who says they've read and understood War and Peace without massive footnotes, outside help and Cliff Notes, you've met a liar. I have read War and Peace (once), and it took me MONTHS of solid reading and painstaking note taking. It's a very intense undertaking, like reading all Russian literature is. 

Seriously, no one I know who has actually read the book cover to cover would say it's a simple undertaking. 
 

 

[Sunday21]

Just now, MormonGator said:

hahahahaahahaha.

If you meet someone who says they've read and understood War and Peace without massive footnotes, outside help and Cliff Notes, you've met a liar. I have read War and Peace (once), and it took me MONTHS of solid reading and painstaking note taking. It's a very intense undertaking, like reading all Russian literature is. 

Seriously, no one I know who has actually read the book cover to cover would say it's a simple undertaking. 
 

 

Ok! I will stop trying! Maybe a retirement project!

[Guest MormonGator]

2 minutes ago, Sunday21 said:

Ok! I will stop trying! Maybe a retirement project!

If you want to read Russian literature start with the short stories of Gogol, then Chekhov. Then work your way up. 

Edited July 29, 2017 by MormonGator

[Sunday21]

I very much fancy this novel called The Idiot and one called the inspector general but not now! Lots of books to read in heaven?

[Guest MormonGator]

2 minutes ago, Sunday21 said:

I very much fancy this novel called The Idiot

I name drop Dostoyevsky to sound intelligent and witty but I find his works incredibly complex, more so than Tolstoy! Way too deep for my feeble mind. 

[Sunday21]

@MormonGator. Maybe someday, there will be a good online Russian Lit course! There could be a lecture before you begin to read and then a lecture every x number of pages. Maybe a Russian lit cruise!

[zil]

18 minutes ago, MormonGator said:

It's a very intense undertaking, like reading all Russian literature is. 

I dunno, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich wasn't hard.  A Hero of Our Time wasn't bad (and I read it in Russian). 

Edited July 29, 2017 by zil

[Guest MormonGator]

Just now, zil said:

I dunno, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich wasn't hard.  A Hero of Our Time wasn't bad (and I read it in Russian). 

That is so amazing @zil. I have legit, so much respect for you for that. 
The Gulag Archipelago is the greatest nonfiction book ever written, in my view. 

[Sunday21]

2 minutes ago, zil said:

I dunno, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich wasn't hard.  A Hero for Our Time wasn't bad (and I read it in Russian). 

U read it in Russian! Seriously! What degree was that!

[zil]

1 minute ago, MormonGator said:

That is so amazing @zil. I have legit, so much respect for you for that. 

It was for a Russian Lit class in college (I studied Russian - stupid thing to do).

I actually like One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (in English).

[Sunday21]

1 minute ago, zil said:

It was for a Russian Lit class in college (I studied Russian - stupid thing to do).

I actually like One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (in English).

Wow! You are awesome! 

[zil]

Just now, Sunday21 said:

Wow! You are awesome! 

The evidence for that is highly suspicious.

[askandanswer]

15 hours ago, anatess2 said:

If you want to be multi-lingual study Latin.  Yes, it can also be useful for atheist vocab.

A long time ago, first year uni, I took linguistics as a subject in the belief that mastering linguistics would then make it easier to learn different languages. I didn't find it easy and it took me a lot of work to get a reasonable grade. I planned on continuing with it in second year, but during the Summer break I went to the Philippines and got married and arrived back at uni about a week late. By then all the interesting linguistics courses were fully enrolled so I ended up dropping it. 

[Vort]

13 minutes ago, askandanswer said:

A long time ago, first year uni, I took linguistics as a subject in the belief that mastering linguistics would then make it easier to learn different languages.

As a middle-aged hobbyist linguist, I think the opposite is probably true and the more natural direction: First learn several languages, then use them to understand linguistics.

[Vort]

11 minutes ago, Armin said:

Imagine mankind would contact an extraterrestrial civilisation or visitors. (it reminds me of Poul Anderson's SF novel "The Byworlder" from 1971,  German issue: "Der Außenweltler" from 1973). How would their language be like, would there be any understanding, would there help any linguistic knowledge? It's said that mathematics is the basic or some kind of universal language, but, anyhow, I'm not convinced. What if they didn't know mathematics...?

http://www.sfreviews.net/byworlder.html

Don't know. But the idea that the entire alien civilization would not understand mathematics belies the premise that we are somehow communicating with them, which seems to me to imply a powerful communication network and/or physical interstellar travel. I don't see how either of those is possible without understanding mathematics. Though I freely admit that their conception and execution of mathematics might be so foreign to us, and ours to them, that communication of those fundamental ideas becomes next to impossible.

[Mike]

8 minutes ago, Vort said:

Don't know. But the idea that the entire alien civilization would not understand mathematics belies the premise that we are somehow communicating with them, which seems to me to imply a powerful communication network and/or physical interstellar travel. I don't see how either of those is possible without understanding mathematics. Though I freely admit that their conception and execution of mathematics might be so foreign to us, and ours to them, that communication of those fundamental ideas becomes next to impossible.

Along the same lines I've personally wondered whether a race could become so spiritually advanced that mathematics, physics as we perceive it, and other sciences are to (that race) metaphorically less than prehistoric technology is to us. When I was young I pondered that God is the ultimate scientist, the ultimate musician, artist, etc. Right now I wonder if those pursuits as we know them are (for God) simply sentimental similar to how playing "Ring-around-the-Roses" might be to me?

(Also, in this same vein I'm thinking of novels by Orson Scott Card and his character, Alvin Maker's, powers of wood joinery along with the beginnings of his first forays into communication with smaller creatures such as insects.)

[person0]

This thread started with a discussion of caffeine, r rated movies, bikinis, and the concept of what is or what isn't appropriate judgement, all within the LDS cultural experience.  Somehow, after 23 pages of posts, we are discussing communication with extraterrestrials, and how mathematics would apply to that situation.  

Technically God is an extra-terrestrial, by definition.    He communicates with mankind in English and other languages.  He knows mathematics and has communicated to us using our numbering and measurement systems.  Problem solved.

[Vort]

1 hour ago, person0 said:

Technically God is an extra-terrestrial, by definition.  

God was born into this world, so I think that makes him terrestrial -- in at least that sense.