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One day old Thrashbarg said that Almighty Bob had declared that he, Thrashbarg, was to have first pick of the sandwiches. The villagers asked him when this had happened, exactly, and Thrashbarg said it had happened yesterday, when they weren't looking. 'Have faith,' Old Thrashbarg said, 'or burn!' They let him have first pick of the sandwiches. It seemed easiest.
Douglas Adams
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Interpretation

What this quote means

This quote highlights the themes of belief and authority in the context of absurdity.

In this quote, Douglas Adams uses the character of Old Thrashbarg to illustrate how people's willingness to accept arbitrary authority can lead to seemingly irrational outcomes. The villagers choose to believe Thrashbarg's declaration about divine selection rather than question it, opting for comfort over skepticism, which reflects a deeper commentary on faith and social dynamics.

Themes

FaithAuthorityAbsurdityBeliefSocial Dynamics

In practice

Example use cases

This quote can be used in a discussion about the nature of belief systems in society.

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