god created the world just so he'd have a place to kill himself

I"d never heard that one before.  Can you tell me who said it?


----- Original Message -----
From: "Francis Gavin" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, January 13, 2006 11:50 PM
Subject: Big "G" and the orthodox heresy /Re: Pound panel(s) at the ALA?


> And a neat trick too, Charlie, since Hallaj was executed by Mutawwakil in
> Baghdad in 922 and Avicenna wasn't born until 980. Hallaj, like Servitus
was
> also burned alive, not hanged.
>
> Apparently despite all the serene comforts of Sufism,  Hallaj did not die
> well. There is a lineage out of all of that too -- Christians weren't
burned
> alive for heresy until after the Crusades were well under way and they got
> to see the Muslims execute their heretics that way.
>
> Kind of like the way the Romans admired crucifixion so much they just had
to
> steal it from the Carthaginians. Borges once suggested that god created
the
> Punic wars just so the Romans would adopt crucifixion and be his
instrument
> of suicide some two centuries later -- a narrowing down of the notion that
> god created the world just so he'd have a place to kill himself. And if
that
> ain't heresy, I don't know what is.
>
> GAVIN
>
>
>
>
>
> on 1/13/06 5:15 AM, Charles Moyer at [log in to unmask] wrote:
>
>
> > Avicenna's main work, PHILOSOPHIA ORIENTALIS, in which he may have
clarified
> > his rationalizations for big "G" further is lost, probably the last copy
was
> > used to light the fire that burned Michael Servitus or kicked out from
under
> > the feet of the hanging Mansur ibn al-Hallaj.