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Poetry
Confu(sed)ius
By Fledermaus
19 October 2007
Many on this site seem to have fallen from their religion, whereas others are convinced in their beliefs. How I eny both.

The longer lines are quotes from Confucius... The stuff in between my own interpretations.


While respecting spiritual beings, to keep aloof from them, may be called wisdom.

I think the Master was right.
Did the gods ever listen?
Did the deities ever act?
I do not know, do not know.
Don't want to get entangled
In their strange and divine games

To worship to other than one's own ancestral spirits is flattery

So true! For what does he care,
This distant God in Heaven.
Is this God my creator?
I do not know, do not know.
Should I bow and sacrifice
To one I have never seen?

While you are not able to serve men, how can you serve spirits?

There's so much evil on earth.
Man is incomprehensible.
I have never seen a ghost.
I do not know, do not know.
Let's not ponder about it,
For it only breaks my head.

What you know, you know, what you don't know, you don't know. This is knowledge.

Reviews

Written by audrie (451 comments posted) 19th October 2007
Very good. Confucius, said a lot of wise things: 
 
It is no good going to bed early to save the candle, if the result be twins! 
 
He also said: If rape be inevitable, lie back and enjoy it. 
 
I think there would be uproar if this was said in this day and age!

Written by Fledermaus (3306 comments posted) 20th October 2007
Thanks Audrie. 
Haven't encountered those yet. The last one sounds a bit strange though. It would have been a useful remark in that age, with warlords constantly plundering eachothers lands (and probably considering women as booty alongside gold and cattle), but as for as far as I know, Confucius' students were all men.
Good one Fledermaus
Written by jean.day (2283 comments posted) 20th October 2007
Very eloquant way of stating your agnosticism. I enjoyed knowing more about what Confucius said too. I certainly heard the line about enjoying rape if you couldn't prevent it, but didn't realise that was where it came from.  
 
And Fledermaus, men can be raped too.

Written by audrie (451 comments posted) 20th October 2007
Maybe it was apocryphal, that it came from Confucius, but that is what I was told. It sounds the sort of odd logic that he would state.  
 
Whatever, good poem, though.

Written by Fledermaus (3306 comments posted) 21st October 2007
Thanks Jean and thanks again Audrie. 
Of course these are my interpretations, so what Confucius' thoughts behind the remarks were I do not know. As he lived five centuries before Jezus I supose he had never heard of the God of Christianity ;) I like the way he seems to be rather straight forward. No need to be fuzzy. It's a talent the philosophers of antiquity seemed to have (both the Chinese and the Greek and Roman ones).

Written by maipenrai (783 comments posted) 21st October 2007
enjoyed this a great deal, a good write. 
Bernie

Written by Fledermaus (3306 comments posted) 22nd October 2007
Thanks maipenrai

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