|
SubscriptionsSites I Read
|
|
|
|
| Part Three of a Devotional
On occasion, most notably through conversation, I seem to reach a point beyond which very little seems to be of any concern. I believe it is because concern is the topic of conversation, and when it has been defeated by that conversation, there seems little left to do logically than reflect on my success and enjoy my coffee, which I'll undoubtedly be having at the time. Then I return to the mundane life, where what little truth I feel I've found becomes equally irrelevant, save one recurring thought. I wonder if there are individuals in the world who never seek Truth (capital T), never push the limits of their values, never really "value" anything. I'm beginning to believe they exist. Like the scene in Annie Hall when Woody Allen learns that a couple he's just met continues to have a successful relationship because they (in an Allenesque sense of ironic humor, naturally) both have no independent thoughts, beliefs, or concerns of their own. What do you do with yourself all day? You must be continuously sleeping, or continuously talking. And you better hope your favorite team blew it, or hit it big. Perhaps in high school that's where all the drama arises- an inability to rest and listen to you thoughts, and to others' for that matter.
Oh, I'm fed up to death with all of you fundamentalists- of all sorts. I have to move away from the previous themes of the last two entries, and touch less on God for the moment and more on believers and nonbelievers. Theists and Atheists. I myself have been convinced with almost absolute certainty throughout my life that there is and is not a God. And, understanding the somewhat inevitable dangers of skepticism, I have to say that both theistic and atheistic fundamentalism is the greater danger. I've not entirely decided what the reconciling point is, but to be absolute on anything seems to discredit the almost naturally ambivalent state of the human intellect. It's a slap in the face to thought in all forms. For to be certain is to be without thought, and to be without thought is to be rather animalistic, in my opinion. Struggling with the broad themes of reality, or at least (as always) the reality one perceives, should be a daily exercise. I worry for those who do not. It has created war for millenia now. To openly and unquestionably embrace any philosophy seems to call into question the value of philosophy itself. The same of course applies to any religious creed. That's why I'm doing what I'm doing in these entires, or, in my life in general. That's why I seem to have gone out of my way to be unorthodox. I don't know if I'll ever find what I'm looking for, but I know it will not rely in a self-asserting creed, with the exception of course, of "we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal." That old maxim, you know.
What really appalls me about American life in the twenty-first century is the ease we have in never questioning, in never evaluating anything short of our dinners. We find ourselves trapped in careers, in relationships, in contracts and ordeals that never fulfill us, and we seem surprised. Why have we allowed ourselves to settle ourselves so easily into contentment and convenience? Why is it as simple as going to Church on Sundays, work on workdays, and nothing else any other day? Why do we not care about how little we will be here? Why do we make such absurd assumptions that there is something beyond all this? There may be, and I as much as the next person hopes there is, but until I'm certain, which I'll never seem to be, I'll keep focusing on trying to figure it out, and I plead that you do the same. Keep talking.
Joe
| | |
| Part Two of a Devotional.
Alright, Aristotelian God, you're up. Aristotle's God was one with very little consequence. He wasn't much of a thinker, wasn't much of a doer, wasn't really much of anything. Well, he was quite the mover, the Prime Mover, one might argue, but that's beside the point. Really, there's his magnum opus right there-moving things. Aquanis liked him, Anselm liked, him, and I'd argue that Voltaire was fan. The Islamic Faylasufs were admirers as well. They liked to speak of God as being "nothing," that is, nothing that the limited human mind can conceive. They were very careful not to let Him slip into the world of Pantheism, but only just. Besides, they were busy doing such droll things as discovering algebra, and conceiving the number zero. Filthy towel heads.
So there's your God, friends. He's a bit antisocial, to say the least. He works no miracles, declares no imperatives, and doesn't even glance us over every few millenia. He's content existing, and as His essence is to exist, he's doing a damn fine job at it.
He's rather attractive, isn't he? Especially for those of us with lower moral standards and empathy. There aren't any explicit rewards or punishments, no scriptures to memorize, and very little divinity for us to grasp. His existence lies completely outside our thought, so it seems absurd to do little more than describe what he is not. Problems immediately arise for the intuitive types out there. Putting it bluntly, why call this God? Where is the verification that such a Being exists? You are quickly left with an intellectual cop-out, an assertion that rational thought, which has taken us to his conception up to this point, must now be left behind to rot with the heathens and, well, maybe Jews (if you're that type of person, which historically speaking, you are) who would question His Mysteriousness. Such a God, such a "no-thing," seems entirely that. Nothing. He ain't much to look to, and He'll always short change you. God then, becomes the human intellect, which is fine with me, but when intellect and rationale are discarded in describing Him fully, I'm left to burn with the rest of the flock. If God exists in everyone of us, though, this seems to require men and women to discard any form of social prejudice. The Black Man is God. The Yellow Man. Yes, even the Grench, is God. That too is very attractive to me, but it creates a delightful form of Humanism (big "H"), not any sort of traditional Theism.
Lastly for this shorter chapter, I recommend you all consider reading Leo Tolstoy's The Kingdom of God Is Within You. And AP kids and English majors, if I italicized where I should have underlined, please don't judge me. But it's a delightful little read and will continue to do all that spiritual challenging we all seem so thirst for.
Take care.
| | |
| Part One of a Devotionalthe following was written as a result of not being able to put it off much longer. i've planned on writing this for sometime, and as you'll probably soon encounter, my writing is currently not very concrete. i would ask for an open mind and a light heart, because most of this, however serious the subject matter may be, is written with a very light heart. but please consider it, though i doubt i have anything to worry about in the angry email department from my few scattered readers; all of your opinions i respect, or am at least intrigued by (no, it's not you, if you're reading this, it's the other guy), and am just looking for a good discussion. also, should i post this on facebook, or do you think the masses would have an aneurism upon reading it? take care, be good, and do good things. or however the quote goes. Musings on God (A Working but Arrogant Title) To begin, He also likes to sleep in. He’s a fan of resting. And who isn’t? I myself am taking nine credit hours this semester. There are many reasons, but it seems to boil down to a sheer lack of motivation. Maybe He’s pretty unmotivated himself. I mean, he’s been watching the same uninteresting archetypes write themselves plotlines ever since a grunt became an acknowledgement, one perchance of hunger. Then came the prophets, the skeptics, the apologists, the rationalists, the reformers, the “counter-reformers,” and the linguists, the translators, trying to slap sense into everyone. Lastly, there was Tom Shadyac, who directed Bruce Almighty and had the brilliance to cast Morgan Freeman as El Sol himself. Good for him. I’m both doing everything I can to make this whole argument seem as trivial as it really can be, and trying to get you all to pay close attention to your incessant creeds, your mantras, your yogis, your gitas, and your whathaveyou. Where do we start? Let’s ignore Anselm, ignore Aquinas, ignore Paul, ignore even Aristotle. Let’s take instead the route of those lowly Galilean fishermen, who had the courage to leave a measly dinner every night for the ramblings of a new prophet, and one with (assembly) very low credit at that. Let’s just say He exists. Why? Because it becomes entirely absurd to muse anything on the Almighty without asserting first the He does of course exist, and to move on from there. Whether He indeed has a penis (a subject of fierce metaphysical debate) I leave to the reader’s own interpretation. Incidentally, the Hebrew slang for male genitalia is zayin. Now what does He do next? He’s just created the cosmos, and has a few billion years to wait around for Disneyland, or to appear in tortillas; it makes perfect sense for him to do nothing but rest. To back track, I suppose a second “given” I’m allowing myself to make is to not even acknowledge any form of Theistic fundamentalism. So I want no fingers pointed, or tongues wagged when I say “billion years” and not “thousand years.” And I urge you all to read modern science whenever you can, or if motivation in that capacity fails you (I suppose I can’t ask too much too soon), just turn on Nova. Please. Moving on. We have to unfortunately begin this discussion with a bit of philosophy (I know, I know). In my eyes the two the major Western (with an emphasis on Christendom) conceptions of God originate from two of Western civilization’s most exemplary figures- Plato and Aristotle. Plato and Aristotle’s conceptions of God seem to be analogous with much of the debate between (perhaps traditional) Catholics and (perhaps more Calvinistic) Protestants today. The former seemed to see God as much more anthropomorphic, or personal, human, than the latter, whose now famous “Prime Mover” God shared much in common with the French philosophes Deistic God- impersonal, distant, even Eastern in nature. Western Protestants, knowingly or not, contribute much of their speculation on God to Plato, and of course later St. Augustine, where Catholic rely more heavily on Aristotle, and the works of St. Thomas Aquinas. Remember, the key difference is a case of impersonality versus a much more human form. Let’s return to what God actually does, a very restrictive verb, one must admit. Does he interact, does he feel, does he think, does he will, or doesn’t he? Does he have a criterion to which we’re all subjected, is there a master plan, a deterministic fate, an end all to end all end alls? Be careful in your decision making- for to attribute such lowly human functions to God as cognition and will is to diminish the “God factor,” to make him little more than a Bigger and Better us. And we’re not that great, friends. Don’t let any religion kid you otherwise. | | |
| Part OneMusings on God To begin, He also likes to sleep in. He’s a fan of resting. And who isn’t? I myself am taking nine credit hours this semester. There are many reasons, but it seems to boil down to a sheer lack of motivation. Maybe He’s pretty unmotivated himself. I mean, he’s been watching the same uninteresting archetypes write themselves plotlines ever since a grunt became an acknowledgement, one perchance of hunger. Then came the prophets, the skeptics, the apologists, the rationalists, the reformers, the “counter-reformers,” and the linguists, the translators, trying to slap sense into everyone. Lastly, there was Tom Shadyac, who directed Bruce Almighty and had the brilliance to cast Morgan Freeman as El Sol himself. Good for him. I’m both doing everything I can to make this whole argument seem as trivial as it really can be, and trying to get you all to pay close attention to your incessant creeds, your mantras, your yogas, your gitas, and your whathaveyou. Where do we start? Let’s ignore Anselm, ignore Aquinas, ignore Paul, ignore even Aristotle. Let’s take instead the route of those lowly Galilean fishermen, who had the courage to leave a measly dinner every night for the ramblings of a new prophet, and one with (assembly) very low credit at that. Let’s just say He exists. Why? Because it becomes entirely absurd to muse anything on the Almighty without asserting first the He does of course exist, and to move on from there. Whether He indeed has a penis (a subject of fierce metaphysical debate) I leave to the reader’s own interpretation. Incidentally, the Hebrew slang for male genitalia is zayin. Now what does He do next? He’s just created the cosmos, and has a few billion years to wait around for Disneyland, or to appear in tortillas; it makes perfect sense for him to do nothing but rest. To back track, I suppose a second “given” I’m allowing myself to make is to not even acknowledge any form of Theistic fundamentalism. So I want no fingers pointed, or tongues wagged when I say “billion years” and not “thousand years.” And I urge you all to read modern science whenever you can, or if motivation in that capacity fails you (I suppose I can’t ask too much too soon), just turn on Nova. Please. Moving on. We have to unfortunately begin this discussion with a bit of philosophy (I know, I know). In my eyes the two the major Western (with an emphasis on Christendom) conceptions of God originate from two of Western civilization’s most exemplary figures- Plato and Aristotle. Plato and Aristotle’s conceptions of God seem to be analogous with much of the debate between (perhaps traditional) Catholics and (perhaps more Calvinistic) Protestants today. The former seemed to see God as much more anthropomorphic, or personal, human, than the latter, whose now famous “Prime Mover” God shared much in common with the French philosophes Deistic God- impersonal, distant, even Eastern in nature. Western Protestants, knowingly or not, contribute much of their speculation on God to Plato, and of course later St. Augustine, where Catholic rely more heavily on Aristotle, and the works of St. Thomas Aquains. Remember, the key difference is a case of impersonality versus a much more human form. Let’s return to what God actually does, a very restrictive verb, one must admit. Does he interact, does he feel, does he think, does he will, or doesn’t he? Does he have a criterion to which we’re all subjected, is there a master plan, a deterministic fate, an end all to end all end alls? Be careful in your decision making- for to attribute such lowly human functions to God as cognition and will is to diminish the “God factor,” to make him little more than a Bigger and Better us. And we’re not that great, friends. Don’t let any religion kid you otherwise. | | |
| I've lost my car. My wallet. My cell phone. And, attempting to avoid melodrama (which seems inevitable all the same), control over my life. And I'm starting over again. Heading back down to Dayton, indefinitely now, sometime in the next two weeks, preferably at the end of this coming one.
Heads is tails now, and tails, well, you're all smart enough to figure it out.
Speaking strictly in terms of my family, it's become impossible to trust anyone. Speaking broadly, the song seems to remain the same. But I won the UT talent show? Yes, I suppose I did. Which is recognition at the most infinitesmal of levels. But it's something. And there's someone now. And that's something. But I'll keep it to myself. It's not like this is a journal or anything. I basically, in the most general terms, can't seem to make sense of anything or anyone right now. So maybe I'll just keep writing and sleeping. The two have never done me wrong as far as I'm concerned. Take care now. | | |
|
