• Episode 4: Signs and Wonders

  • Apr 24 2020
  • Length: 17 mins
  • Podcast

Episode 4: Signs and Wonders

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  • Summary

  • The most important element in dealing with the terrible and the inexplicable is to be able to put an interpretative framework around it, to give it meaning.  Giving things meaning makes them comprehensible and perhaps even manageable, and if that doesn’t reduce our fears it at least gives us reason to hope.  It’s tempting to think that our attempts at explaining natural phenomena are better and more scientific than those of the 17th century, but while it’s certainly true that we have developed powerful mathematical and experimental tools for understanding the world, we are no less prone than our forebears to create comprehensive systems of meanings that are not dependent on empirical evidence alone.  In this chapter the author speaks of the attempts of his contemporaries to see in the heavens or in clouds, or through the interpretation of dreams, confirmation of what everyone believes, that the plague is a visitation by God and a judgement on the city. The author believes this as well
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