Rising ape or fallen angel? – Terry Pratchett on religion

4 Comments »

• Chowbok says:

  31 December 2009 at 3:12 am

  A little rambling from a little rambling old man – put down the bottle Terry!

  It would do Terry Pratchett good to visit The Paepae and read a little Chowbok.

• Peter says:

  31 December 2009 at 7:25 am

  “Rambling”? If so, tolerably so, I suggest.

  Perhaps that’s part of the Alzheimer’s ’embuggerance’ Pratchett disclosed in late 2007.
  (Or just the way this very creative man is when speaking/thinking out loud in public?)

  Worth reading…

  Terry Pratchett’s Alzheimer’s Speech in Full

  this is bristol.co.uk | March 13, 2008 | Terry Pratchett

  My name is Terry Pratchett, author of a series of inexplicably successful fantasy books and I have had Alzheimer’s now for the past two years plus, in which time I managed to write a couple of bestsellers.

  I have a rare variant. I don’t understand very much about it, but apparently if you are going to have Alzheimer’s it’s a good one to have.

  So, a stroke of luck there then!

  Interestingly enough, when I was diagnosed last December by those nice people at Addenbrooke’s, I started a very different journey through dementia.

  This one had much better scenery, interesting and often very attractive inhabitants, wonderful wildlife and many opportunities for excitement and adventure.

  Those of you who’s last experience with computer games was looking at Lara Croft’s buttocks might not be aware of how good they have become as audio and visual experiences, although I would concede that Lara’s buttocks were a visual experience in their own right.

  But in this case I was travelling through a country that was part of the huge computer game called Oblivion, which is so beautifully detailed that I have often ridden around it to enjoy the scenery and weather and have hardly bothered to kill anything at all.

  At the same time as I began exploring the wonderful Kingdom of Dementia, which is next door to the Kingdom of Mania, I was also experiencing the slightly more realistic experience of being a 59 year old who finds they have early onset Alzheimer’s.

  Apparently I reacted to this situation in a reasonably typical way, with a sense of loss and abandonment with an incoherent, or perhaps I should say, violently coherent fury that made the Miltonic Lucifer’s rage against Heaven seem a bit miffed by comparison. That fire still burns.

  I want to go on writing! Admittedly, that means I have to stay alive.

  You can’t write books when you are dead, unless your name is L. Ron Hubbard.

  And so now I’m a game for real. It’s a nasty disease, surrounded by shadows and small, largely unseen tragedies.

  People don’t know what to say, unless they have had it in the family.

  People ask me why I announced that I had Alzheimer’s.

  My response was: why shouldn’t I? … Full transcript

  As is this Sept 2009 profile from the Telegraph.co.uk. – P

• Chowbok says:

  2 January 2010 at 3:08 pm

  Definitely an interesting man with provocative ideas; I will admit I only watched the first half of the interview; I stopped it and wrote the above after he called G.K Chesterton “a down and dirty Catholic convert.” I’m sensitive – I’m a Catholic and a great fan of Chesterton’s.

  So after watching the entire video I’m still inclined to disagree with Terry on his primary assumption that we are better off as rising apes than fallen angels (not exactly theologically correct but a good enough analogy). Personally, I think we will be all better off when we realize that we can be both and more…

  I do agree with Terry on one thing though – that the universe is a very very interesting place. However, there are scientific facts that allude to and complement the Bible – but you have to know where to look. For example the fixed past, relativitistically speaking, is indeed as I stated in my piece on JOY – which indeed coincides with the idea of “life everlasting, forever and ever.”

• Peter says:

  2 January 2010 at 8:08 pm

  Cheers Chowbok. Good to find some agreement.
  Doesn’t mean you roll over and let your debating opponent scratch your tummy.

  But looking for the good, if it’s there is sort of like counting one’s blessings … which is always a good thing. (I’m talking to myself as much as you.) – P