On Tue, 20 Jul 2010 01:42:51 am Richard D. Moores wrote: > The formatting operations described here are obsolete and may go away > in future versions of Python. Use the new String Formatting in new > code. > > I hope that use of '*' does disappear. It's the most confusing thing > I've recently tried to get my mind around!
If you think that's confusing, you should try reading up on Monads. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monad_(functional_programming) > Before that, maybe, was the Trinity.. [Note: the following may be offensive to some Christians, in which case, remember that nobody has the right to not be offended, and nobody is forcing you to read on.] The Trinity is simple to understand once you realise one thing -- despite all the obfuscatory pseudo-justifications for it, it is not meant to be understood, it's meant to be believed. It is a Mystery, something beyond human understanding. Not merely a small-m mystery, something which is possible to understand in principle, if we only knew enough. As Tertullian said (in a related but slightly different context): "It is certain because it is impossible". Or, to paraphrase, "I believe it because it is absurd". Like many religious beliefs (e.g. transubstantiation and dietary restrictions), belief in the Trinity is a shibboleth. Belief in the Trinity distinguishes Us ("true Christians") from Them (heretics and pagans[1]). The more ridiculous and crazy the belief, the more effective it is as a shibboleth. Anyone can believe that the son and the father are different people, because that's just ordinary common-sense[2]. But to believe that the son and the father are one and the same while being different *at the same time* makes no sense. It is, as Tertullian would almost certainly have admitted, absurd and ridiculous and totally crazy. Tertullian would have believed it *because* it was unbelievable. It really is frightening to realise that, essentially, the Chewbacca Defence has held such a grip on human society for so many centuries. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chewbacca_defense [1] Actually many pagans also believe in trinities. But they believe in the *wrong* trinity: the three-as-one nature of Brahma/Vishnu/Shiva, Ra/Horus/Osiris, Ceres/Liber/Libera, or (two-in-one) Apollo/Bacchus is mere pagan superstition, while the three-as-one nature of Father/Son/Spirit is self-evidently true, at least according to those Christian sects which believe in a trinity. [2] So rare that it ought to count as a superpower. -- Steven D'Aprano _______________________________________________ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor
