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@Philip

I don't judge you for your obviously wildly erroneous (to my eyes) cleaving to religion. You are obviously a very interesting gentleman who has lived your life and taken your own conclusions, with much to say worthy of consideration. Thus I think it a little harsh to judge Thoreau for his transcendentalism. His naturalism, environmentalism and abolitionist views were ahead of their time and worthy of respect, agree with him or not, in my view.

Could we please avoid ad hominems? This discussion has gotten off on the character of the people involved rather than their ideas. The topic should be the word "agora".

With respect to Dr. Goodword, I agree the discussion has gotten off track from "agora," but don't believe I myself have launched any ad hominem attacks. Nor do I plan to.

Still, I can't resist one last response to damage who wrote:

"I knew people who knew them (Emerson, Thoreau, and Adams, presumably,) and they seemed more like neighbors than historic figures."

Henry David Thoreau (July 12, 1817 – May 6, 1862)

Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803 – April 27, 1882)

Ansel Easton Adams (February 20, 1902 – April 22, 1984)

Adams spent his time in California, not Massachusetts.

Just for the record.

As for "agora," the namesake of the Alpha Agora, the Greek center of athletic, artistic, spiritual and political life in ancient Athens was a pretty contentious place where ad hominems were also known to fly.

I think I have liked all three men for their individualism, which I am steeped in. Thoreau, of course with his different drummer, Wordsworth and his essay on self-reliance, and Ansell Adams was very much an individualist creating a new kind of photography. As a philosophy major I read the transcendentalists to understand where they were coming from. My opinion was they were sort of ethereally vague but others disagree. However they also wrote much else.