Infidel Links #2

Kurt Vonnegut

{Sketch from etchasketchist}



Kurt Vonnegut, Died



Jessica Zafra: Kurt Vonnegut died last night in Manhattan. He was 84.



Inarage: Not even “The Simpsons” can make me feel better today. I’d been dreading this for months; a couple of months ago I wrote him an email and sent it to some address I saw on his website... All he asked was that we act like decent human beings; that we love each other and try to do good by others. Is that too much to ask?



beatburn: I got the news from misis last Friday. Kurt Vonnegut is dead. She knows how time stops for me every time a writer passes. Time last Friday was longer than usual. Normally it would take a couple of minutes of silence to contemplate how this world will no longer get to read new texts from a particular author. Vonnegut's passing affected me the whole morning.



Manuel L. Quezon III: Of all the possible ways, it was through twittervision that I found out that Kurt Vonnegut has passed away. I never really read his fiction, but I very much admired his essays.



Noel Vera: Was hardly his biggest fan... But for this and a for a few others of his early work, I'm grateful for him.



Eating The Sun: In honor of the great writer, here's one of his more famous short stories: "Harrison Bergeron" makes us (and especially the liberal in all of us) confront the uncomfortable, and lets us question the idea of human equality, stripping it down to what he perceives to be a very dangerous naivete.



Tristantrakand: His two books, Cat's Cradle and Breakfast of Champions, were just two of the few things that helped me stay in that call center I worked for for as long as I did.



Nothing In Particular: First Vonnegut book that I read: Bluebeard in 1989, while on the way to Baguio City. While the author is popular for “Cat’s Cradle” and “Slaughterhouse Five,” I think his best work by far is Sirens of Titan, which was recently reissued by a London publisher and a copy of which I bought in a bookstore located inside an Ortigas area mall. This entry, I guess, is my way of paying tribute to the author whose works I read the most. Goodbye, Mr. Vonnegut.



Verbosecity: “If you really want to hurt your parents, and you don't have the nerve to be a homosexual, the least you can do is go into the arts.” If I am wise I should save myself from further embarrassments and shut up. But I’m foolish, so I make my mourning public.




Kurt Vonnegut:

I am, incidentally, Honorary President of the American Humanist Association, having succeeded the late, great Isaac Asimov in that totally functionless capacity. We had a memorial service for Isaac a few years back, and I spoke and said at one point, 'Isaac is up in heaven now.' It was the funniest thing I could have said to an audience of humanists... And if I should die, God forbid, I hope you will say, 'Kurt is up in heaven now.' That's my favorite joke.


Kurt Vonnegut, like Isaac Asimov, is an atheist. Kurt is up in heaven now.



So It Goes (3 minutes):





Grief without God



Virginia Tech

{Photos from New York Times}



Carol Fiore:

Before I arrived at the hospital just hours after the accident, Eric had been given the last rites by a Catholic priest. On whose authority? During the entire time I lived at the hospital I heard the following comments over and over: "God has a plan", "God never gives us more than we can handle", "Put your faith in our Lord Jesus Christ." One respiratory therapist even told me that unless I prayed for Eric, he would die. She'd seen it happen before, she repeated. When the family doesn't pray, the patient dies. Almost without exception, every single person who visited, called, or sent cards said the same thing "I'm praying for your husband." (...read the rest here)



I have highlighted Carol's moving letter about her husband's death because many people accused us atheist to be heartless bastards. That we atheist are pure rationale lacking any real emotions. That in the face of emminent death such as those of chaotic war or senseless carnage - fear impels us into the cowardice of beleiving in an unseen deity - "a comfort to the weary or a hedge against death," Obama once said. Death touches us all:






The recent events reminds me of the phrase "There are no atheists in foxholes," which has been quoted, and misquoted to death by those who discriminate against us. But as Carol's letter has shown, there are atheists in deathbeds. And that we atheists mourn too when deluded fanatics attack innocent people. And that we atheists feel too when someone so close dies. That we atheists grieve too when good people die of reason not their own. That we atheist are humans too. And so it goes.




See Also:



Posted in: | | |  

6 comments:

  1. Shari (21 April, 2007 01:56)

    I wonder why people have this terribly terrible misconception that Atheists are not feeling individuals. Where the hell did that idea come from? Sigh, sigh.

    Michael (21 April, 2007 10:44)

    Shari,
    D'Souza condescendingly implied that we don't mourn. An atheist professor at Virginia Tech has an eloquent and brilliant rebutall.

    indigo snow (21 April, 2007 12:55)

    thanks for linking my blog to your post. i wonder how you stumbled into my semi-obscure overcaffeinated drivels :-)

    cheers!

    Prudence (22 April, 2007 15:05)

    Thanks for linking my blog. :-)

    Chino (23 April, 2007 00:14)

    I also have a reaction about that... gggrrr. Even we are atheists or agnostics... we are people too. We feel pain, we feel sadness and we do mourn.

    Atheists like me are still human.

    sexy mom (26 April, 2007 07:19)

    It's human behaviour - with or without a god, we FEEL, we SEE, we SENSE, we HEAR, in the same way that we are HAPPY on joyous occasions, we can be SAD, etc., and at times MOURN.

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)