Thursday, February 24, 2005
Mendleson Reading
The thing that struck me the most about the Mendleson reading was the tone he used. He had this facade of being polite and not wanting to engage in public controversies, but on the other hand he still managed to outright criticize the Lavater. The Lavater presented M Bonnet's book on Christianity to Mendleson in an attempt to convert him. Mendleson essentially said that his people were too good for conversions, and did not want people outside of their nation. The way he worded it was so strategic. He came off as being tolerant of religions. He then proceeded to challenge Lavater in his selection of Bonnet's book to convert him, which he did not find at all persuasive and even hardly relevant. After this direct blow on Lavater's ego, he then concluded his adress, "Your sincere admirer". This was the cherry on the sunday you could say.
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I was pleasantly surprised by this reading. Generally, I'm not very interested in religion, so I was expecting this piece to be rather boring and biased. I was mistaken in that Mendelssohn was so open-minded about other religion. He showed a tolerance that I think is often contradictory to the stereotypes of religious people. I don't think it was meant to be funny, but I thought when he said "Never did my heart whisper to me: 'What a shame about their souls!'" on page 41 was hilarious.
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