Gunnar Heim:
"Please...let me live that long. I don't ask for more. Please, Fox has got to be told." (p. 194)
See "There are no atheists in foxholes," here.
Heim offers a foxhole prayer. We can all do this. It is the old pagan/agnostic prayer to "whatever gods may be" and does not prove that we are all covert monotheists. The prayer of monotheist faith is not just said in foxholes and is a different matter entirely. My closest approach to it is zazen meditation because I do not believe that reality is or can be a person to be addressed in verbal prayer. But, whatever the reality is, we are all in it.
Do novels always raise ultimate philosophical questions? I think so, as long as their characters reflect and/or pray.
2 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Most times, however, when I read about agnostics in dangerous places making foxhole prayers, they address them to God, not "gods." The instinctive default seems to be monotheistic, not polytheist.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
I think that that is cultural and linguistic, not instinctive.
Paul.
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