They were incorrigibly children of the idea, feckless and colour-blind, to whom body and spirit were for ever and inevitably opposed. Their mind was strange and dark, full of depressions and exaltations, lacking in rule, but with more of ardour and more fertile in belief than any other in the world. They were a people of starts, for whom the abstract was the strongest motive, the process of infinite courage and variety, and the end nothing. They were as unstable as water, and like water would perhaps finally prevail.

One could say that this description of a people is just as aptly applied to the generations of progressives plaguing America at this time in its history.

"Nihilism in the Middle East: From Colonel Lawrence to Mohammed Atta
http://www.the-rathouse.com/Nihilism_RSandall.html

Apologies for the duplicates. My computer is acting wonky.

I've never read the whole book because its all written like this and incredibly dense and slow going in a way modern authors do not write. To read and understand T.E. Lawrence you need a very good education and mind, and its a struggle.

But he's very clear and good in his observations, and his warnings are many. He has more than a few slams at the men who sit at home and pretend these things are not true, as well.

But he's not right about Christianity: it didn't come from a prophet in the wilderness, it came from a Baby in manger - and in truth, far before that.

Nor does Christianity or Judaism preach the emptiness and worthlessness of the world, only the evil of man's sin-taint upon a good and beautiful world. God made stuff, as Michael Horton puts it, and He likes it.

The tilt toward Allah's plan, which I have observed in the Muslim mind, distracts them from creating anything new.

Training Muslim pilots to deal with aircraft emergencies is difficult because they interpret mechanical failures as Allah's will. They shouldn't do anything to thwart the will of Allah. That is a no no.

The only time they seem willing to take matters into their hands is when following the dictate of converting or killing all infidels. The Islamists follow that dictate with great creativity and hard work. Improving their lot in life - not so much.

I first read Seven Pillars in eighth grade. again early in the eighties after Beirut. I had a beautiful hardbound copy printed in the thirties and now I cannot find it.

Shared this on Facebook.

"I've never read the whole book because its all written like this and incredibly dense and slow going in a way modern authors do not write." Best recommendation for a book I have ever seen.

James Wilson, yes. There is a certain richness to the dense writing of the past. Some of those "olden days" authors of the 18th and 18th centuries, whether writing fiction or nonfiction, could create sentences of beauty and story telling that modern day authors must envy.

He's describing a people alienated from their own nature; and submitted here, no culture is more alienated from its own nature than ours. They understand that intuitively and that's why their hatred for us is so "unreasonable". We are all "of" matter. That's the grand design, for 'Christ's' sake. Look at the Star of David. What do you think it means? I'll tell you. Two isosceles triangles superimposed over each other. One points down, the other up. God descends into matter in order to (re)emerge a self realized being. That is the story of Christ taken as metaphor. So, the most salient statement here is when he says "...we lost much eloquence when making Him the shortest and ugliest of our monosyllables." Maybe the lyrical appellations of G_d of the ancients is more apropos.

John Hinds:

"Maybe the lyrical appellations of G_d of the ancients is more apropos."

Yes, absolutely. And each name carries different connotations relative to context:

EL, ELOAH; ELOHIM; EL SHADDAI; ADONAI; YHWH / YAHWEH / JEHOVAH

The band, Lamb, sings and praises God with Hebrew lyrics. They are of the Messianic, or Completed Jews; those Jews that have accepted Jesus as the Messiah.

here they are, do click on some of their songs:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=503LjHwedQE&feature=related

Chas, I have to say you have me there with the different names for different contexts. I had a more limited view that the (unpronounceable) names were meant to convey that the deity couldn't be owned, wasn't subject to mere human understanding and would be thereby severely limited, anthropomorphized, by a mere name. The Word cannot in turn be confined by A Word; God cannot be a mere man, but man cannot help but be a spark of the divine. My reading of this T.E. Lawrence excerpt gives me pause to consider his subject people rather avoid this trap more than popular Christianity. I don't know. I'm given pause. The desert, images thereof, the silence, emptiness, yet fecund with expansive grandeur.

I guess within silence rests infinite potentiality.

I will follow your link.

John Hinds: I don't mean to be cryptic and I agree, God should not be anthropomorphized. The several names of God are found in Old and New Testament. Let me provide the link:

http://www.agapebiblestudy.com/documents/the%20many%20names%20of%20god.htm

Most of the names originate in the Old Testament; a few are carried forward in to the New Testament.

Quite fascinating. I'm just an ordinary Baptist and I try to keep it simple.

Seven Pillar is one of the great books of the 20th Century. I'm not sure if I should call it non-fiction. I think Lawrence was interpreting rather than reporting part of the time, but it is essential none the less.