Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame.
Alexander PopeRead
Atheists put on false courage and alacrity in the midst of their darkness and apprehensions, like children who, when they fear to go in the dark, will sing for fear.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that atheists may mask their fears and uncertainties with a facade of bravery, similar to how children sing to comfort themselves in the dark.
In this quote, Alexander Pope uses the metaphor of children singing to assert that atheists, while facing their own existential fears and doubts in a world perceived as dark, often project a semblance of confidence and cheerfulness. This comparison highlights the human tendency to cope with fear through bravado, demonstrating that even those who reject faith may experience a struggle with apprehension and uncertainty about life and existence.
In practice
A discussion on coping mechanisms during a theology class.
Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame.
What dire offence from am'rous causes springs, What mighty contests rise from trivial things.
Fair tresses man's imperial race ensnare; And beauty draws us with a single hair.
An honest man's the noblest work of God.
One thought of thee puts all the pomp to flight;_x000D_ _x000D_ Priests, tapers, temples, swim before my sight.
Who breaks a butterfly on a wheel?
No more fear of hunger. A new kind of freedom. But what then ... what? What would my life be like on a daily basis? Most of it has been consumed with the acquisition of food. Take that away and I'm not really sure who I am, what my identity is. The idea scares me some.
The vast distances that separate the stars are providential. Beings and worlds are quarantined from one another. The quarantine is lifted only for those with sufficient self-knowledge and judgment to have safely traveled from star to star.
Truly, there is a Christian note which makes the whole World vibrate, like an immense gong, in the divine Christ. This note is unique and universal, and in it alone consists the Gospel.
If one looks with a cold eye at the mess man has made of his history, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that he has been afflicted by some built-in mental disorder which drives him towards self-destruction. Murder within the species on an individual or collective scale is a phenomenon unknown in the whole animal kingdom, except for man, and a few varieties of ants and rats.
There's always a sense that people will do things quite differently if they think they have privacy.
Philosophy as practice does not mean its restriction to utility or applicability, that is, to what serves morality or produces serenity of soul.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.