Jesús, Markús og Kúrt - ruggustólar og hamingja

Tveir snillingar, sitjandi í ruggustól á veröndinni við hús Marks Twain í Hartford, Connecticut. Kurt Vonnegut (11.11.1922-11.04.2007) var mikill aðdáandi Mark Twain (30.11.1835 – 21.04.1910).

Það eru vitanlega nokkur ár á milli þess að þessar tvær myndir voru teknar, þar sem Kurt V. fæddist 12 árum og tæplega 7 mánuðum eftir að Mark T. dó. Myndin af K.V. er tekin af Jill Krementz, eiginkonu (nú ekkju) hans (Lunch with Jill Krementz)

Tilvitnun í Kurt Vonnegut, sem segir, að mínu mati, allt sem segja þarf um afstöðu hans til kristinnar trúar:

“I am not the writer Twain was but I am what I believe he would call a Humanist. Nowadays it means persons like my parents and both sets of grandparents, who try to behave ethically without any expectation of rewards or punishments in an afterlife. They serve as best they can the only abstraction of which they have any real familiarity, which is their community. What about Jesus? I say what one of my great grandfathers wrote, as follows: ‘If so much of what Jesus said is ethically brilliant, and especially the Beatitudes, and Forgive us our Trespasses as we forgive those who Trespass against Us, what can it matter if he was God or not?’"

Kurt Vonnegut um hamingjuna; þetta er speki sem góði frændinn hans, hann Alex, kenndi honum:

• I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, "If this isn't nice, I don't know what is."
  • "Knowing What's Nice", an essay from In These Times (2003)

Athugasemdir

[Birna Dis Vilbertsdóttir (IP-tala skráð) 10.1.2008 kl. 16:24]

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