13. Empson's tone and voice in Milton's God is very close to that of Hitchens in God Is Not Great -- talk of wickedness, torture, etc.
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Replying to @HeerJeet
14. As far as I know, Hitchens only referred to Empson in passing, but I think Milton's God must have been formative for Hitchens.
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Replying to @HeerJeet
15. Example of Empson's tone: "I think the traditional God of Christianity very wicked, and have done so since I was at school..."
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Replying to @HeerJeet
16. "....where nearly all my little playmates thought the same."
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Replying to @HeerJeet
17. I sort of picture Empson and his fellow 6-year olds, all in short pants, chatting in the playground about how wicked God is.
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Replying to @HeerJeet
18. But while Empson was a precursor to the New Atheists, he remains superior to them in many ways.
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Replying to @HeerJeet
19. For all his school-boy insolence, Empson had a genuine moral horror at theodicy as a justification for pain and torture.
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Replying to @HeerJeet
20. Here, the excellent
@RonRosenbaum1 applies Empson to critique a facile theodicy:http://observer.com/2005/01/disaster-ignites-debate-was-god-in-the-tsunami/ …2 replies 1 retweet 4 likes -
Replying to @HeerJeet
21. For all his jokes, Empson took both Milton and the Christian God seriously & engaged in a deep textual argument with them.
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Replying to @HeerJeet
22. It's the intellectual strenuousness with which Empson quarreled with the Christian tradition that I don't see in the New Atheists.
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Jeet Heer Retweeted
23. The other great thing about Empson is that he had the most tremendous neck-beard in human history: https://twitter.com/LitGenius/status/531489896377384960 …
Jeet Heer added,
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Replying to @HeerJeet
24. In sum: people should read William Empson. He's a good egg, an often profound critic who is also very funny.
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