It looks as though Online Opinion, or at least the Forum, is a location that attracts folk who like to get their social interactional quotient from knocking out their thoughts onto a computer screen. So it is probably not a good place for an article like this to get a fair hearing.

Very clever, veritas.

>>It looks as though Online Opinion, or at least the Forum, is a location that attracts folk who like to get their social interactional quotient from knocking out their thoughts onto a computer screen. So it is probably not a good place for an article like this to get a fair hearing.<<

But ultimately self-defeating.

Presumably your intention is to insult the audience here by intimating that they are a bunch of anti-social loners with Aspergers, whose only viable relationship is with a keyboard.

I'll avoid the obvious question, (so, what are you doing here?) and merely point out that the responses here prove categorically that there is a substantial body for whom being alone is far from being the "greatest tragedy of all". By calling it "loneliness", for example, and not allowing for those for whom being alone and being lonely are two vastly different concepts, the author is setting up a fairly tattered straw man.

Mr Toutounji leaps so quickly to judgment, it is easy to conclude that he is merely pushing a barrow. And from his article history on this Forum, we all know what that is.

"The true purpose of the [Genesis] story, far from fuelling debate about the practical beginnings of the world, emphasises the innate human desire for communion and friendship."

Actually, I can think of another objective "Ha'adam" might have had in mind when asking that the companion created for him was in fact a woman.

After all, if his problem was just one of loneliness, a mate to take with him down the pub would have been a far less troublesome alternative.

I seem to recall that Jesus spent some time wandering alone in the desert. It used to be fairly popular activity amongst Christian mystics to withdraw from society into the wilderness to contemplate God without distraction. I believe a lot of other spiritual and mystical traditions have stressed the importance of withdrawal from social affairs in achieving spiritual purity.

I wonder if Bernard has given any consideration to the words of The Smashing Pumpkins: loneliness is cleanliness and cleanliness is Godliness.

Cheers,

Tony