Willie Saroyan

[Kazza]

More to come: about to find some decent biography. I like this writer a lot! He tells his life and stories not from the eyas of a authority FIGURE IN armenian society, but just life through the eyes of a human being.

 

Oh, and the pictures I will put of him as when he was younger, he was very handsome!

[Kazza]

**********************************************

 

 

Please discuss his short stories, and talk about what you think of them. If the links do not work in this ost, I'll try and enclose something that does. The thing I like about him like I said before was he wasnt trying to be anything. He wasnt pretentious, but at the same time his intelligence came through anyway. They are works that everyone can read. Everyone can relate to them too, not just as an armenian, but in a total sepreate sense, as a person. I supose anybody reading them, armenian, odar, or whatever, would think, "yes, I can think of a time I've experience that myself" because that's the way I felt went reading them. That is the reason why his work has reached people.

 

Odars and armenians liked this. They respected him, so listened to what he had to say. He spoke about Armenia and Armenians so everyone becoame interested in this too.

 

Katerina Ioannou-Kouioumzian (Kazza)

 

 

*********************************************

 

William Saroyan

 

 

(1908-1981)

 

 

 

William Saroyan was an internationally renowned Armenian-American writer, playwright and humanitarian.

His fame, and his most enduring achievements as a writer, date from the 1930's. He dazzled, entertained

and uplifted millions, with hundreds of short stories, plays, novels, memoirs and essays; they continue to

charm and touch us today.

 

Saroyan's talent was first projected to the world through the medium of an Armenian-English newspaper,

Hairenik of Boston. In 1934, at the age of 26, with the publication of his first book The Daring Young Man on

the Flying Trapeze, William Saroyan became an overnight literary sensation. His first successful Broadway

play was My Heart's in the Highlands in 1939, and in the same year, Saroyan was the first American writer

to win both the Drama Critic's Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize for his play, The Time of Your Life. He

refused to accept the Pulitzer Prize on the grounds that, "Commerce should not patronize art...," and he

added, "it is no more great or good than anything else I have written."

 

Saroyan is unique among writers. He acknowledged the Armenian culture as an important source of literary

inspiration, especially notable in the book-of-the-month choice, My Name Is Aram, in 1940. In 1943, another

book-of-the-month choice, The Human Comedy, was dedicated to his mother and made into an MGM movie

which won him an Academy Award for Best Writing Original Screen Story.

 

In February 1943, 35 year old William Saroyan and 18 year old New York debutante, Carol Marcus, married

in Dayton, Ohio. They were blessed with two children: Aram, born in 1944, and Lucy, born in 1946. Their first

marriage ended after six years. Two years later, in 1951, Saroyan's remarriage to the same wife ended in

divorce for the second and final time.

 

William Saroyan achieved great popularity through the thirties, forties and fifties. During his lifetime, he

published over sixty books. His works have been translated into more than two dozen languages and have

sold millions. To fully enjoy Saroyan, either in prose or on the stage, you have to be "with" him. This may

require effort, but once you are with him, he can take you places you have never been before. Saroyan

writes humanely and powerfully, with restless enthusiasm. His major themes are aspiration, hope and

honesty; materialism and success mean nothing. His works show the basic goodness of all people,

especially the obscure and naive and the value of life. He once observed that he needed to write, "Because I

hate to believe that I'm sick or half dead, because I want to get better; because writing is my therapy." In the

last book published during Saroyan's lifetime, Obituaries, he wrote: "My work is writing, but my real work is

being."

 

Saroyan spoke for Armenians to the world. He gave international recognition to his people at a time when

they remained dispersed and continued to meet with prejudice and outright hatred. He brought more public

understanding to the culture and the quality of the Armenian people, than any other person in the history of

the Armenian experience in America. By international standards, he is very likely the most famous literary

figure produced by his ancient people.

 

William Stonehill Saroyan was born in Fresno, California, on August 31, 1908; the 4th child of Armenian

immigrants Armenak Saroyan preacher and poet, and Takoohi Saroyan, of Bitlis. On May 18, 1981, he died

of prostate cancer at the age of 72, about a mile from where he was born. "Everybody has got to die," he

said, "but I have always believed an exception would be made in my case. Now what?" William Saroyan

died, an artistic era ended. He loved America, but he did not forget Armenia. Saroyan wanted his heart in

the Armenian highlands. A year after his death, half of his cremated remains were permanently enshrined in

the Pantheon of Greats in Yerevan, Armenia, while the other half remained in Fresno, California.

 

On May 22, 1991, William Saroyan was the first and only individual to be jointly honored by the USA--as

part of its Literary Arts Series and the USSR Postal Services on their Commemorative Postal Stamps.

First-day-issue ceremonies took place simultaneously in Fresno, California, and in Yerevan, Armenia.

 

The number of unpublished manuscript left by William Saroyan, surpasses the massive bibliography of his

published works. Since his death in 1981, over 15 books have been published about his life and works.

 

 

**********************************************

 

 

Please discuss his short stories, and talk about what you think of them. If the links do not work in this ost, I'll try and enclose something that does. The thing I like about him like I said before was he wasnt trying to be anything. He wasnt pretentious, but at the same time his intelligence came through anyway. They are works that everyone can read. Everyone can relate to them too, not just as an armenian, but in a total sepreate sense, as a person. I supose anybody reading them, armenian, odar, or whatever, would think, "yes, I can think of a time I've experience that myself" because that's the way I felt went reading them. That is the reason why his work has reached people.

 

[ April 17, 2001: Message edited by: Kazza ]

[Kazza]

SOUL REBEL

"The writer is a spiritual anarchist, as in the

depth of his soul every man is. He is

discontented with everything and everybody. The

writer is everybody's best friend and only true

enemy - the good and great enemy. He neither

walks with the multitude nor cheers with them.

The writer who is a writer is a rebel who never

stops." (from The William Saroyan Reader, 1958)

 

**********************************************

 

Selected works:

 

THE DARING YOUNG MAN ON THE FLYING

TRAPEZE, 1934

THOSE WHO WRITE THEM AND YHOSE WHO

COLLECT THEM, 1934

INHALE AND EXHALE, 1936

THREE TIMES THREE, 1936

A GAY AND MELANCHOLY FLUX, 1937

LITTLE CHILDREN, 1937

A NATIVE AMERICAN, 1938

THE MAN WITH THE HEART IN THE HIGHLANDS,

1938 (play)

THE TROUBLE WITH TIGERS, 1938

LOVE, HERE'S MY HAT, 1938

LOVE'S OLD SWEET SONG, 1939

CHRISTMAS, 1939

HARLEM AS SEEN BY HIRSCHFIELD, 1939

MY HEART'S IN THE HIGHLANDS, 1939 - Sydämeni

on kukkuloilla

ed.: HAIRENIK 1934-1939, 1939

PEACE, IT'S WONDERFUL, 1939

THE TIME OF YOUR LIFE, 1939

THREE FRAGMENTS AND A STORY, 1939

THE TIME OF YOUR LIFE, 1940 (play) - Tämä elämäsi

aika / Elämäni parhain aika - film 1948, dir. by H.C. Potter

HERO OF THE WORLD, 1940 (play)

LOVE'S OLD SWEET SONG, 1940 (play)

THE PING PONG CIRCUS, 1940 (play)

A SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT, 1940 (play)

SUBWAY CIRCUS, 1940 (play)

SWEENEY IN THE TREES, 1940 (play)

MY NAME IS ARAM, 1940 - Nimeni on Aram

SAROYANS FABLES, 1941

THREE PLAYS, 1941

THE INSURANCE SALESMAN, 1941

THE BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE, 1941 (play)

THE PEOPLE WITH LIGHT COMING OUT OF THEM,

1941 (play)

HILLTOP RUSSIANS IN SAN FRANCISCO, 1941

RAZZLE DAZZLE, 1942

THE TIME OF YOUR LIFE, 1942 (play)

HELLO OUT THERE, 1942 (play)

ACROSS THE BOARD ON TOMORROW MORNING,

1942 (play)

THE AGONY OF LITTLE NATIONS, 1942 (play)

BAD MEN IN THE WEST, 1942 (play)

COMING THROUGH THE RYE, 1942 (play)

ELMER AN LILY, 1942 (play)

THE POETIC SITUATION IN AMERICA, 1942 (play)

TALKING TO YOU, 1942 (play)

GET AWAY,OLD MAN, 1943

THE HUMAN COMEDY, 1943 - Ihmisä elämän

näyttämöllä - film 1943, dir. by Clarence Brown

DEAR BABY, 1944

GET AWAY, OLD MAN, 1944 (play)

THE HUNGERERS, 1945 (play)

WHY ABSTRACT?

THE ADVENTURES OF WESLEY JACKSON, 1946

JIM DANDY, 1947 (play)

THE SAROYAN SPECIAL, 1948

THE FISCAL HOBOES, 1949

A DECENT BIRTH, 1949

SAM EGO'S HOUSE, 1949

A DECENT BIRTH, A HAPPY FUNERAL, 1949 (play)

DON'T GO AWAY MAD, 1949 (play)

SAM EGO'S HOUSE, 1949 (play)

THE ASSYRIANS, 1950

TWIN ADVENTURES, 1950

THE SON, 1950 (play)

THE TWIN ADVENTURES, 1950

TRACY'S TIGER, 1951

ROCK WAGRAM, 1951

THE BICYCLE RIDER IN BEVERLY HILLS, 1952

THE SLAUGHTER OF THE INNOCENTS, 1952

THE LAUGHING MATTER, 1953

THE BICICLE RIDER IN BEVERLY HILLS, 1953

MAMA, I LOVE YOU, 1953

OPERA, OPERA, 1950 (play)

MAMA, I LOVE YOU, 1956

THE WHOLE VOYALD, 1956

PAPA, YOU'RE CRAZY, 1957

EVER BEEN IN LOVE WITH A MIDGET?, 1957 (play)

THE WHOLE VOYALD AND OTHER STORIES, 1957

THE CAVE DWELLERS, 1958 (play)

THE SLAUGHTER OF THE INNOCENTS, 1958 (play)

THE ACCIDENT, 1958 (play)

THE WILLIAM SAROYAN READER, 1958

CAT, MOUSE, MAN, WOMAN, 1958 (play)

ONCE AROUND THE BLOCK, 1959 (play)

SETTLED OUT OF COURT, 1960 (play, with F. Cecil)

SAM, THE HIGHEST JUMPER OF THEM ALL, 1961

(play)

HERE COMES, THERE GOES YOU KNOW WHO,

1961

HIGH TIMES ALONG THE WABASH, 1961 (play)

HERE COMES, THERE GOES, YOU KNOW WHO,

1961

A NOTE ON HILAIRE HILER, 1962

AH MAN, 1962 (play, with P. Fricker)

NOT DYING, 1963

ME, 1963

BOYS AND GIRLS TOGETHER, 1963

PATIENT, THIS I BELIEVE, 1963 (play)

THE PLAYWRIGHT AND THE PUBLIC, 1963 (play)

SHORT DRIVE, SWEET CHARIOT, 1964

AFTER TWENTY YEARS, 1964

ONE DAY IN THE AFTERNOON OF THE WORLD,

1964

SHORT DRIVE SWEET CHARIOT, 1966

LOOK AT US, 1967

DENTIST AND PATIENT, 1968 (play)

THE DOGS, 1968 (play)

HORSEY GORSEY AND THE FROG, 1968

HUSBAND AND WIFE, 1968 (play)

I USED TO BELIEVE I HAD FOREVER, BUT NOW I'M

NOT SO SURE, 1969

LETTERS FROM 74 RUE TAITBOUT, 1969

MAKING MONEY, AND 19 OTHER VERY SHORT

PLAYS, 1969

DAYS OF LIFE AND DEATH AND ESCAPE TO THE

MOON, 1970

THE NEW PLAY, 1970 (play)

DAYS OF LIFE AND DEATH AND ESCAPE TO THE

MOON, 1971

PLACES WHERE I'VE DONE TIME, 1972

ARMENIANS, 1974 (play)

THE TOOTH AND MY FATHER, 1974

PLACES WHERE I'VE DONE TIME, 1975

THE REBIRTH CELEBRATIONS OF THE HUMAN

RACE AT ARTIE ZABALA'S OFF-BROADWAY

THEATRE, 1975 (play)

SONS COME AND GO, MOTHERS HANG IN

FOREVER, 1976

AN ACT OR TWO OF FOOLISH KINDNESS, 1976

FAMOUS FACES AND OTHER FRIENDS, 1976

MORRIS HIRSCHFIELD, 1976

SONS COME AND GO, MOTHERS HANG IN

FOREVER, 1976

THE ASHTREE TALKERS, 1977

CHANGE MEETINGS, 1978

ed.: HAYATS'UTS' HOVHANNES, 1978

OBITUARIES, 1979

TALES FROM THE VIENNA TALES, 1981

BIRTHS, 1981

MY NAME IS SAROYAN, 1983

THE PHEASANT HUNTER, 1986

AN ARMENIAN TRILOGY, 1986

THE CIRCUS, 1986

MADNESS IN THE FAMILY, 1988

WARSAW VISITOR; TALES FROM THE VIENNA

STREETS, 1991

 

 

© 2000

[MadArmo]

Thanks for starting his thread Kazza.

 

 

http://home.earthlink.net/~artsakh/_images/saroyan.jpg

 

[ April 27, 2001: Message edited by: MadArmo ]

[Kazza]

You know what? How do you do pictures and post them on the forum? I have found some other pictures of him but dont know how to post them

[Garo]

Kazza jan you need to save them somewhere online and then use

code

[img]ImageURL[/img ]

to show the picture where ImageURL is the address to that image file. If you can't save those pictures online just email them to me and I'll put them on our server.

[Kazza]

OK. I also think I have found that engraving that Steve wanted, and didn't now how to post it!

[MosJan]

you might need this

http://www.armenians.com/famous/WSaroyanPanteon.jpg

[Azat]

Fresno Finally Throws Wake for Literary Lion

 

By MARK ARAX, TIMES STAFF WRITER

 

FRESNO -- Twenty years after he uttered one of the great parting lines--"Everybody has got to die, but I have always believed an exception would be made in my case. Now what?"--the ashes of writer William Saroyan were buried Sunday in the town where his genius first sprang.

 

The roundabout nature of his final journey, which came amid Fresno's first Saroyan Festival, would have delighted the author and playwright to no end. Never short on confidence, the winner of a Pulitzer Prize and an Oscar, Saroyan figured he was too out-sized to be kept in one place.

 

Half his ashes were shipped in 1982 to a memorial in Armenia, and the other half sat in obscurity in an urn on a chapel shelf here. Now on a springlike day filled with the sweet smell of apricot blossoms, those ashes were laid to rest in a grave beside the railroad tracks on the outskirts of town. It was a fitting spot for Fresno's most famous native son, whose writings put the town on the world map but also poked fun at it.

 

All around Ararat Cemetery were the markers of the Armenian immigrants he brought to life in his short stories ("My Name is Aram," 1940), novels ("The Human Comedy," 1943), plays ("My Heart's in the Highlands," 1939) and songs. Here were cousins who stole beautiful white horses and farmers who swore they were poets and mothers who could feed a houseful of strangers with one chicken and five ripe pears.

 

His son, Aram, and daughter, Lucy, who had spent years trying to come to peace with their father's life and legend, listened with a handful of his old friends and dignitaries as the priest of the First Armenian Presbyterian Church prayed over the black granite headstone.

 

Saroyan, of course, had written his own epitaph:

 

"In the time of your life, live--so that in that wondrous time you shall not add to the misery and sorrow of the world but shall smile at the infinite delight and mystery of it."

 

This town, which still isn't quite sure what to make of Saroyan, dead or alive, had spent the previous two days celebrating the work of its greatest export, if you don't count the raisin. The ongoing 2-month-long festival of theater productions, philharmonic concerts, museum exhibits and literary talks is an attempt to revive a writer who rose to soaring heights in the 1930s and '40s but has long since fallen out of critical favor.

 

It is also a way for Fresno, spreading out into the mass form of Wal-Marts and McDonald's it now shares with every other city, to find a way back to its past.

 

For his few friends still living, the community's bow to the exuberant Armenian with the walrus mustache and deep belly laugh is years past due.

 

They have never quite forgiven city fathers for refusing to keep a treasure trove of unpublished manuscripts and memorabilia that secured Saroyan's place as one of America's most prolific writers and pack rats. After years of gathering dust, the collection was shipped away in boxes, first to UC Berkeley and then to Stanford University.

 

The sheer volume--from his frayed shoelaces to his mustache clippings to the pebbles he collected on his furious bike rides through town to the words that never stopped pouring out of his Royal typewriter--takes up more than 250 feet of shelf space.

 

The collection of another California literary lion, John Steinbeck, whose 100-year birthday is being celebrated this month in his hometown of Salinas, measures a mere 20 linear feet.

 

Like so many Armenians, the Saroyans had come to this land of grapes and peaches in 1908 to escape the pogroms of Ottoman Turkey. Saroyan's father, Armenak, a minister and frustrated poet, died when William was 3. Death would become one of the central obsessions of Saroyan's work.

 

"Try to learn to breathe deeply, really to taste food when you eat, and when you sleep, really sleep," he once wrote to aspiring writers. "Try as much as possible to be wholly alive with all your might, and when you laugh, laugh like hell. And when you get angry, get good and angry. Try to be alive. You will be dead soon enough."

 

High school couldn't contain him, and he dropped out at 15, continuing his education at the public library, bedazzled by Edgar Lee Master's "Spoon River Anthology." When he wasn't reading, he was walking the ditch banks and fields, discovering the eternal struggle between the horned toad, which was trying to hold on to his world, and the farmer, who was trying to engineer a new one.

 

"Fresno had a great early appeal for me," he wrote. "It had a fine smell of dust, of the desert, of rocks baking in the sun . . . of leaf and blossom and fruit."

 

By 18, he wanted nothing more than to leave its small town "rot and decay and ferment." He moved to San Francisco and then bought a one-way train ticket to New York City. He proceeded to write a short story every day in a bursting, spontaneous style.

 

A Difficult Start in New York City

 

Just as swiftly came the rejection letters from magazine editors. Who was this cocky kid who dared to riff a whole page on the miracle of breathing?

 

Holed up in the Mills Hotel, he considered calling it quits but had only $50, too little for the train fare home. On New Year's Day 1929, he wrote to his best pal, Yep Moradian, about his desire to return to a simple life of pruning vines:

 

"Xmas brought me the flu; fever 104; burning hot in sweat; no friends; too homesick to want to die; had dreams for four days and nights of home and the old scenes and meals. I am positive now that I am a God damn fool."

 

His fever broke, and he turned it into a story about a poverty-stricken young writer with only tap water and Proust to fill his belly. The publication of "The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze" in 1934 was the break Saroyan needed.

 

For the next 15 years, his work was everywhere--in short stories and novels, on Broadway and on records, including the hit song by Rosemary Clooney, "Come On-a My House," which he wrote in the idiom of an Armenian woman trying to entice a guest with figs and dates and nuts and cakes.

 

"Saroyan was a lot more than a short story writer," said Bob Setrakian, a local farm boy who became a San Francisco businessman and heads the foundation overseeing Saroyan's legacy. "He worked in all the art forms and drew and painted almost every day."

 

Setrakian said it was bad enough that some of Saroyan's finest stories were out of print and he couldn't interest a single publisher in the boxes of never-before-seen manuscripts. But then to realize that so much of Saroyan's life and work was unknown to the people who should know him best--the residents of Fresno.

 

So Setrakian shared the idea of a festival with local impresario Larry Balakian. Before he knew it, Balakian had signed on more than 29 nonprofit organizations and scores of volunteers.

 

Winemakers at Cal State Fresno bottled a 2000 vintage Saroyan Syrah. The nation's first bus "graphically wrapped" in the visage of a writer, the "Saroyan bus," hit the streets last week.

 

There was no attempt during the festival's opening weekend to slap varnish on Saroyan's complex legend. Whether it was a museum exhibit or a literary symposium, he was portrayed with all his conceit and vices and desire to "hang in there and wrestle death to a draw, at least."

 

At a reception to honor her old friend, Roxie Moradian, Yep's widow, recalled when Saroyan was one of the most talked about writers in the world. The self-doubt of the fatherless boy, who grew up in a town that barred Armenians from country clubs and elite subdivisions, seemed vanished.

 

This was a Saroyan who bragged that he could write an entire play in three days and then wrote the Pulitzer Prize winner, "The Time of Your Life," in six days. He ended up rejecting the prize because the play was "no more great than anything else I have ever written."

 

What he never quite mastered was family life. He married Carol Marcus, a New York debutante, and they had two children together. They divorced, remarried and divorced again before she wound up with actor Walter Matthau.

 

In his later years, estranged from his children, Saroyan split time between Paris and Fresno. Broke from playing the ponies and roulette tables and owing the IRS a debt no writer in his 50s could pay, he turned inward to a life of documenting every external facet of his existence.

 

When he finished eating a can of green beans, for instance, he would neatly take off the label and sign the backside with the year, month, day and hour. He did the same with his Metro tickets from France, playing cards, typewriter ribbons, rocks he picked up off the streets.

 

"I think Saroyan's last gesture, while seemingly mad, was really the final selfless act of a writer. By putting his signature to the items of everyday life, he was documenting everyday life," said Aris Janigian, a professor of Humanities at the Southern California Institute of Architecture.

 

Half His Ashes in Fresno Since 1981

 

Saroyan died in 1981 at 72, and his ashes, at least half of them, have sat in Fresno's Chapel of Light in a golden urn inscribed, "Author and Humanitarian." Aram Saroyan said it was only right that his father's remains come to rest in Ararat Cemetery, where he used to wander the grounds in the rain, talking to the headstones.

 

On a bright, cloudless Sunday, about 20 friends and family huddled around a huge black stone imported from India. A hole had been dug among the names Garabedian, Simonian and Krikorian.

 

"Welcome home, dear friend, dear writer," said Kevin Starr, author and California state librarian. "Welcome home to the place that haunted and nurtured you across a lifetime. Be at peace, Bill. Be at peace."

 

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-00001...es%2Dcalifornia

 

[ March 04, 2002, 01:31 PM: Message edited by: Azat ]

[khodja]

Interesting that Armenians seldom mention that the woman that Saroyan married two times, and fathered two children with, was not an Armenian but a Jew. Perhaps I should also have married a Jew. I married an Armenian and had a miserable childess marriage, while my brother's and cousins' marriages to persons of the Jewish faith were much happier and produced beautiful children.

[THOTH]

Azat -

 

Thank you for that wonderful post. I feel truly honored that Saroyan was one of us. His words and attitudes (such as the "New Armenia" concept - one that I have frequently referred to in arguments with certain Armenians who insist that we must retake "our" lands in Anatolia etc etc - well its clear what Bill would think...) and the quote from the article you posted:

 

"In the time of your life, live--so that in that wondrous time you shall not add to the misery and sorrow of the world but shall smile at the infinite delight and mystery of it."

 

Many of the same Armenians - as well as some other could stand taking this to heart a bit - eh?

[wh00t]

Hey hagarag, did they convert to Judaism? They must have.

 

http://us.news2.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/ap/20020304/capt.1015269423.saroyans_ashes_ny22.jpg

Saroyan, 1941.

[khodja]

Wh00t,

 

Yes, they did. But I don't think that Saroyan did.

There is a sickness within the Armenian community that drives so many of us out. Armenians are as guilty for the White Genocide as the Young Turks Ottomans were for the Red Genocide. My brother is now married to a Christian, so I do not know if he still practices Judaism.

 

Saroyan with all his smarts was very stupid on the home front. He once told his beautiful blond young wife that she was too beautiful to be a Jew. Not too smartA THING TO TELLL OUR WIFE

[khodja]

CONTINUATION OF LAST POST.

 

Last sentence of my previous post should read. "Not too smart a thing to tell your wife." Just think how Gregory Peck must have felt sitting at numerous dinners at the home of Carol and Walter Matthau when Carol would relate Willie's anti-Semitic remarks to her before and after they had made the love that brought their children to the world. No wonder he permanently buried the fact that his grandfather was a British-national Armenian Catholic.

[Azat]

Winston, Interesting that you wrote that about that quote. I thought making that my signature.

[THOTH]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Azat:

quote:

---

Originally posted by THOTH:

...

 

"In the time of your life, live--so that in that wondrous time you shall not add to the misery and sorrow of the world but shall smile at the infinite delight and mystery of it."

 

...

---

Winston, Interesting that you wrote that about that quote. I thought making that my signature.

---

I had the exact same though upon reading it here - I guess since you mentioned it first you get first dibs. It really is a wonderful thought and would make a most excellent sig (though if I used it I wonder if would it curtail me from flaming those deserving of such (in my eyes)? But which adds more to our collective misery: doing so (to the deserving) or refraining from such? I suppose if I'm berrating the naysayers and close minded types it'b OK.

 

And back to the quote...perhaps Saroyan was (secretly?) a Buddist or a Daoist...what'ya think?

[Juggernaut]

I am quite disturbed to see Armenians giving up their faith (Christianity), this is the ultimate betrayal, in my eyes. When I first started uni (2 years ago) I met with some (practicing) Muslims and became (and still are) good friends with them. Their friendship and the interesting conversations we had on religion sparked an interest in me, in Islam. At one point I was even considering conversion, but I realised that I would be carrying out the ultimate crime toward my peoples and their history, and my faith in Christianity and God has re-doubled because of this inspiration.

[THOTH]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Juggernaut:

quote:

---

perhaps Saroyan was (secretly?) a Buddist or a Daoist...what'ya think?

---

I am quite disturbed to see Armenians giving up their faith (Christianity), this is the ultimate betrayal, in my eyes.

---

Stuff it already - your just wrong. In fact you may have it backward. At one time Christianity was relevant to Armenians in every respect. It seems to me that the Church (and Christian belief) fail us now in many respect. Not that I think Christian values are completely bankrupt...but in and of themselves they are no longer sufficient - IMO. Additionally if an individual- such as myself lacks faith (and belief in the Bible as the divine word) - what would you have me do - fake it? Forces are at work that are changing us and our society very rapidly - forces of science and technology - how do you suggest we turn back the clock (you are suggesting that this is preferrable are you not?) Without doing so (eliminating technology) you cannot undo the forces that are changing us. So what is your practical solution? (aside from whining about it?) And the Armenian church (as most traditional churches) is unable (aparently to sufficiantly adapt)...thats the problem with dogma i guess...

 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Juggernaut:

At one point I was even considering conversion, but I realised that I would be carrying out the ultimate crime toward my peoples and their history, and my faith in Christianity and God has re-doubled because of this inspiration.

Well good for you - if it works for you then fine. Your statement is not a universal truth however.

[THOTH]

Yes perhaps this was so....but if Saroyan was anything he was certainly flawed...(isn't it always the way with genius?)

[Juggernaut]

You forgot to add 'IMO' at the end

 

'It is in time of crisis that we must have faith', like many a times before in our bloody history........

 

No, dont have to fake it, but dont openly advocate other relligions/beliefs.

 

There is no need to turn back the clock (though some technologies need to be banned eg. genetics), the Bible has the basic rules we must obey, and this can be easilly done in a 'modern world'.

 

God does not adapt to you, YOU must adapt to Him.

[THOTH]

NO - the statement was meant to be an absolute. You need to put IMO after every sentence you have presented in reply.

 

We no longer live in an insular world where all we know is our local village and its traditions - where we are unexposed to others who think differently and have beautiful, rich traditions of their own. If we are to survive as a species we must get away from the "this is what I believe and it is the absolute truth - everyone else has it wrong....and BTW they are blasphemous and must die" etc) And we must understand our myths, traditions and beliefs in the proper (allegorical and practical contexts..IMO).

 

You might be surprised that I share your uneasiness concerning the changes we are going through and how the unbridaled advances in science are driving cultural change that is both beyond our control and that is even difficult to predict. (and the resultant behavioral problems cause me a great deal of concern - as they do any "normal" people I imagine - though I beleive there is a big difference between just the changing way of certain things (including religion, family & relationships) and the more neurotic and pathological/aberrent etc behaviors that arise from the rapid change, and the inability to cope with such on both the societal and personal levels...and I realize that not all people are "nice" etc....).

 

And while I too yearn for the simpler times and ways, I don't think that it is possible to turn back the clock per se. We need to do better planning our course however - IMO.

 

And you must realize that the religions of man - and our myths and superstisions are not static - but change through the ages. We are now in a time of great change - much as with the rise of civilizations 4,000+ (or so) years ago when new religions began to spring up and again 2,000 years ago...well its been another 2,000 years (and my suspicion is that these periods will lessen. Have you ever wondered why it was "right" for people to beleive in nature gods, then adding gods of certain behaviors or reflecting other realities around them...then abandoning all that for mono-theistic religions (that were less tied to the land)...and now...what will be appropriate...(BTW I don't think Christianity or Islam etc will last [as the dominant cultural pace setters & such)...at least not without major adaptation...and I'm not sure it can handle it...

 

note to moderators, Jugs etc - we should maybe move the posts beginning with Jugs christianity comment into religion (I wouldn't want to take away from Saroyan....)

[khodja]

Juggernaut,

 

You know NOTHING about the beliefs of the Knights Templar, their pure beliefs in relation to God and the Saints. How DARE you use their battle cry to support your beliefs which are radically different than theirs. Theirs was a pure Christinaty based upon the original teachings of Christ. Yours support the mongrel religion developed by Emperor Constantine and enforeced by the Church hierarchies.

[khodja]

Juggernaut,

 

You want to ban the study of genetics? Are the studies which show that Armenians are part-Jew and part Mongol upseting you? Are you afraid that your myths will be disproved?

[Twilight Bark]

I would like to remind you that, by the same token, sephardic Jews are part-"Armenian". In fact, all Near Eastern people are part-each-other.

[Juggernaut]

And YOU DO? Well, I certainly will like to hear them, escpessially since no-one knows what exactly their beliefs and practices were, you must either have a time machine of some sorts, or be a freemason in which case you believe that the Tamplar Knights were your predecesors (which they were NOT).

 

Read above. And as far as I am concearned they were Christians and devoted their lives to protecting Christians and serving God, that is reason enough for me to use their battle cry.

 

As I said there is no proof of this, only myths...

And I suspect the teachings of Christ are in the Bible, not in the Kabala

 

And what may your religion be? Judaism?

 

Not for historic studies, but for modifying foods, animals and soon HUMANS!