Gods are fragile things, they may be killed by a whiff of science or a dose of common sense. They thrive on servility and shrink before independence. They feed upon worship as kings do upon flattery. That is why the cry of gods at all times is 'Worship us or we perish.' A dethroned monarch may retain some of his human dignity while driving a taxi for a living. But a god without his thunderbolt is a poor object.
— Chapman Cohen
Yet such is (Murdoch)
Absolute devotion of one human being to another is comparatively rare, yet such is the dazzling light of egoism in which each of us lives that when devotion fails us in some quarter where we have looked to find it we feel amazement, shocked surprise, that so great a value should not be an object of love.
Iris Murdoch, The Red and The Green
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