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Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Iconoclast

Dictionary.com's word of the day is
iconoclast \ahy-KON-uh-klast\, noun: a person who attacks cherished beliefs or institutions as foolish or wrong
    By 1596, from French iconoclaste, from Middle Latin iconoclastes, from Late Greek eikonoklastes, from eikon "image" + klastes "breaker," from klan "to break." Originally the word referred to those in the Eastern Church in 8th and 9th centuries whose mobs of followers destroyed icons and other religious objects on the grounds that they were idols. Extended sense of "one who attacks orthodox beliefs or institutions" is first attested 1842.
While some who avoid this website probably do so because they perceive Moristotle to be an iconoclast, he doesn't think the term applies. At least not in the sense of attacking cherished beliefs simply because they are cherished. If he seems to attack religion and belief in god, it is because he sees through a glass clearly that there is no god and religion is a delusion1.
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  1. As Robert M. Pirsig said in Lila (not Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance), "When one person suffers from a delusion, it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion, it is called religion."

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