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Quote by Elle Newmark

“The chef sighed. “They talk about three gods in one or one in three, depending on who you ask.” He rolled his eyes. “What a tale. God arranges to torture and kill his son, who is also himself, in order to forgive sins not yet committed. It makes no sense. If a compassionate God wanted to forgive, why not just forgive? I’ll tell you why: There’s not enough drama in that. No blood, no pathos, it’s flat. But human sacrifice to atone for sin is a compelling idea borrowed from paganism. It’s primitive and emotional. It’s an old favorite.”

Quote by Elle Newmark

Work

The Book of Unholy Mischief

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Author

Elle Newmark

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“Daily news reports of various crimes actually affirm and support the humanistic insistence that humans are essentially good. It is, paradoxically, the fact that we read of horrific things in the news on a daily basis that bolsters an abiding faith in humanity. Indeed, there is no greater evidence for the veracity of humanism than the daily news. How so? Simple: it is because the news reports on what is rare, what is unusual, what is out of the ordinary. That’s why murder and rape are headlines: because they are notable exceptions to otherwise decent, everyday human behavior. If humanity were naturally, intrinsically evil—if people’s default position were bad, immoral, unethical—then the newspaper would look very different. It would be replete with shocking, unbelievable headlines such as: ...“Couple Takes Morning Walk Every Day Around Their Neighborhood Without Incident!” … But we don’t see such headlines, because they are the mundane, all-too-expected stuff of cooperative, communal, daily human life.”

“When the hysteria subsides, this video is destined to be another relic that we will never truly understand. A new tragedy presents itself before we can make sense of the last. Why does this keep happening, and who keeps doing this to us? I wish I could strangle their collective necks and be done with it, so we could hail our utopia in peace. Maybe some advanced being will sift through this junk when we’re gone, and wonder how siblings could be so cruel to each other.”

“It happens all the time. People lie to themselves or their therapists because they’re ashamed or they don’t want to deal with the reality of their circumstances. Sometimes people are manipulative and twist the narrative to get something from the therapist: attention, empathy, love. Or the most likely reason: Sometimes the truth really hurts.”