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“Fables should be taught as fables, myths as myths, and miracles and poetic fantasies. To teach superstitions as truth is a most terrible thing. The child mind accepts and believes them, and only through great pain and perhaps tragedy can he be in after years relieved of them.”

Hypatia of Alexandria

Panopticon wrote:“Fables should be taught as fables, myths as myths, and miracles and poetic fantasies. To teach superstitions as truth is a most terrible thing. The child mind accepts and believes them, and only through great pain and perhaps tragedy can he be in after years relieved of them.”

Hypatia of Alexandria

Very apt! That describes my experience with Mormon mythology very well.

Panopticon wrote:“Fables should be taught as fables, myths as myths, and miracles and poetic fantasies. To teach superstitions as truth is a most terrible thing. The child mind accepts and believes them, and only through great pain and perhaps tragedy can he be in after years relieved of them.”

Hypatia of Alexandria

And looks what Hypatia got for her troubles...

Blixa wrote:

Panopticon wrote:“Fables should be taught as fables, myths as myths, and miracles and poetic fantasies. To teach superstitions as truth is a most terrible thing. The child mind accepts and believes them, and only through great pain and perhaps tragedy can he be in after years relieved of them.”

Hypatia of Alexandria

And looks what Hypatia got for her troubles...

You mean this?

"Hypatia was believed to be the cause of strained relations between Orestes, the Imperial Roman Prefect, and the Patriarch Cyril, thus she attracted the hatred of the Christians of Alexandria, who wanted the governor and the priest to reconcile. One day, in March AD 415, during Lent, a Christian mob of lay Christians led by "Peter the Reader," waylaid Hypatia's chariot as she travelled home.[27] The mob attacked Hypatia, stripped her naked as a form of humiliation, then dragged her through the streets to the recently Christianised Caesareum, where they killed her. The reports suggest that the mob of Christians flayed her body with ostraca (pot shards), and then burned her remains"

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypatia)

Panopticon wrote:“Fables should be taught as fables, myths as myths, and miracles and poetic fantasies. To teach superstitions as truth is a most terrible thing. The child mind accepts and believes them, and only through great pain and perhaps tragedy can he be in after years relieved of them.”

Hypatia of Alexandria

I think if you had told Hypatia she was a Roman, she might have explained to you very vigorously, and in Greek, that she decidedly was not.

You might as well have told Gandhi he was British.

Blixa wrote:

Panopticon wrote:“Fables should be taught as fables, myths as myths, and miracles and poetic fantasies. To teach superstitions as truth is a most terrible thing. The child mind accepts and believes them, and only through great pain and perhaps tragedy can he be in after years relieved of them.”

Hypatia of Alexandria

And looks what Hypatia got for her troubles...

That's the downside to being smart. One day a mob will turn up at your door.

I hope you have a peephole to look through before opening your door, Blixa.

Quasimodo wrote:
That's the downside to being smart. One day a mob will turn up at your door.

I hope you have a peephole to look through before opening your door, Blixa.

Fortunately the streets of Brooklyn are not littered with oyster shells or potshards. Nor am I anywhere near as accomplished as Hypatia, who was after all, a mathematician.

Blixa wrote:Fortunately the streets of Brooklyn are not littered with oyster shells or potshards. Nor am I anywhere near as accomplished as Hypatia, who was after all, a mathematician.

Let us all take a moment this evening to light a candle for Tarski.

Quasimodo wrote:

Blixa wrote:And looks what Hypatia got for her troubles...

That's the downside to being smart. One day a mob will turn up at your door.

I hope you have a peephole to look through before opening your door, Blixa.

Even if Hypatia's murder happened a long time ago and far away, my capacity to make or appreciate jokes about it is, I find, limited. I must try harder.

Chap wrote:

Quasimodo wrote:That's the downside to being smart. One day a mob will turn up at your door.

I hope you have a peephole to look through before opening your door, Blixa.

Even if Hypatia's murder happened a long time ago and far away, my capacity to make or appreciate jokes about it is, I find, limited. I must try harder.

Please do!

I suspect if Hypatia had not been killed by a mob, she would be long dead by now, anyway. I also suspect, given her wisdom, that she might allow a little soft humor regarding her unfortunate demise.

I hold her in high regard.