There are times in which you are well-fed, rested, sober, safe and warm -- times in which you feel good. It takes an enormous amount of time and energy to get to those good times. It takes an ability to find warmth, shelter, a safe place to sleep, and the enormous amount of time and energy used to obtain and secure food.
The religious mind assumes that the world is here for us. They assume that all of the things required to secure these good feelings were put there for us to use. Post hoc ergo propter hoc.
Instead, enjoying warmth, shelter, food, etc. is a luxury. It is not part of the world's design. It is us riding the wave of consciousness before the next crashing need of warmth, shelter, food, etc. must be met.
There is the surf and the surfer. The surf was not created for the surfer nor the surfer for the surf. The surfer is taking advantage of the surf and doing something to it. It takes many hours and lots of resources to get the surfer to the point where he can enjoy a few moments of surfing. Many people and things had a hand in getting the surfer to this point -- he did not do it himself although, obviously, he played a big part. Think of the hours devoted to creating and maintaining surfboards. These things were not predesigned by a intelligent deity. God did not make the surf for the surfer. Many people and things made surfing.
Showing posts with label God. Show all posts
Showing posts with label God. Show all posts
Infinite Jest part 1: letting go of control
One theme in David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest is letting go of control of the self. The characters in AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) and NA (Narcotics Anonymous) learn that control of the self is what got them into trouble with alcohol and drugs. Don Gately calls it his Spider. By squishing his Spider, by handing over his brain to be washed, by letting go, Don Gately learns to live without alcohol and drugs. He is set free of the cage of control. He doesn't even understand why it works and understanding why it works ruins the loss of control. He is told to Fake It Until He Makes It (DFW's all caps). The AA/NA nightly meetings are full of trite expressions like One Day At a Time. Rejecting these obvious truths is to regain control and end up back in the death spiral of alcohol and drugs.
In DFW's list of things you might learn at AA/NA is the claim that God does not care whether you believe in God or not. Don Gately prays every day for sobriety even though he doesn't believe in God. He doesn't know why his prayers for sobriety work, and he knows that knowing why they work will probably ruin it.
At the elite tennis academy bright Hal obsesses over over-analyzing his tennis game because self-awareness ruins the zone that top athletes strive to achieve. The zone is the Zen like lack of self-awareness that can be achieved when one has hit a tennis ball a few million times by age seventeen.
A prominent bar in Infinite Jest is The Unexamined Life. According to Socrates, the unexamined life is not worth living. Infinite Jest may suggest otherwise.
In DFW's list of things you might learn at AA/NA is the claim that God does not care whether you believe in God or not. Don Gately prays every day for sobriety even though he doesn't believe in God. He doesn't know why his prayers for sobriety work, and he knows that knowing why they work will probably ruin it.
At the elite tennis academy bright Hal obsesses over over-analyzing his tennis game because self-awareness ruins the zone that top athletes strive to achieve. The zone is the Zen like lack of self-awareness that can be achieved when one has hit a tennis ball a few million times by age seventeen.
A prominent bar in Infinite Jest is The Unexamined Life. According to Socrates, the unexamined life is not worth living. Infinite Jest may suggest otherwise.
Morality Doesn't Need Religion
We all know that religion can be used for both good and evil purposes. We all know that a religious person could be either good or evil. This proves that morality is not grounded in religion.
Atheism scares some people because they think that morality requires religion -- take away religion and anything goes. But if that were true then it would be impossible to be an immoral religious person or to be a moral non-religious person. Since both options are possible it follows that morality does not need religion.
If you honestly believe that being watched by God is the only thing keeping you from doing evil things, then please believe.
Atheism scares some people because they think that morality requires religion -- take away religion and anything goes. But if that were true then it would be impossible to be an immoral religious person or to be a moral non-religious person. Since both options are possible it follows that morality does not need religion.
If you honestly believe that being watched by God is the only thing keeping you from doing evil things, then please believe.
Progress and Old Truth
Conservatives believe that they have the truth -- why else would they be conservatives? They want to hold onto their correct way of thinking and they oppose changing their way of thinking.
George Washington was a great soldier, statesman, and president. But he didn't know that washing your hands killed deadly germs. Doctors at the time killed Washington using leeches to suck out disease. Washington didn't even have aspirin. There are many many important things that George Washington didn't know.
It is just foolish to believe that any past figure had the truth and that the best thing we should do is hold onto it. It is incredible to consider that some people will reject the latest scientific research simply because a story was written down thousands of years ago by desert nomads who claimed to hear God's voice
George Washington was a great soldier, statesman, and president. But he didn't know that washing your hands killed deadly germs. Doctors at the time killed Washington using leeches to suck out disease. Washington didn't even have aspirin. There are many many important things that George Washington didn't know.
It is just foolish to believe that any past figure had the truth and that the best thing we should do is hold onto it. It is incredible to consider that some people will reject the latest scientific research simply because a story was written down thousands of years ago by desert nomads who claimed to hear God's voice
Magic Books
Recently a Mormon tried to convince me of the pedigree of their magic book. I was supposed to believe that a 17 year old man found in the wilderness of upstate New York a set of golden tablets written in "reformed Egyptian hieroglyphics" and translated by means of magic translating stones. The solid proof was that others living in that hotbed of religious revivalism and experimentation (historians call it "the burnt over district") claim to have witnessed the event.
Lots of people have magic books and claim excellent pedigrees. Muslims tell great stories about the veracity of theirs. Jews can attest to the veracity of Torah. Protestants and Catholics each tell stories of their versions of the Bible -- often blaming the other for hiding the true version. Hindus have many books they discuss. Buddhists have magic books. Even Confucians. Ba'hai do too.
While we're at it, Scientologists have the magic books of L. Ron Hubbard. Christian Scientists have their own. As did Shakers.
A thousand other groups have magic books and they all tell stories of veracity. Each one believes that the other thousand groups have it wrong, or at least not quite right. Besides, it is logically impossible for them all to be right since they disagree on fundamental issues. Odds are that they are all wrong and the tendency to tell stories about magic books tell us something about being human.
Somewhere Nietzsche writes that perhaps God has a speech impediment, for He is certainly having difficulty getting His Word across.
Lots of people have magic books and claim excellent pedigrees. Muslims tell great stories about the veracity of theirs. Jews can attest to the veracity of Torah. Protestants and Catholics each tell stories of their versions of the Bible -- often blaming the other for hiding the true version. Hindus have many books they discuss. Buddhists have magic books. Even Confucians. Ba'hai do too.
While we're at it, Scientologists have the magic books of L. Ron Hubbard. Christian Scientists have their own. As did Shakers.
A thousand other groups have magic books and they all tell stories of veracity. Each one believes that the other thousand groups have it wrong, or at least not quite right. Besides, it is logically impossible for them all to be right since they disagree on fundamental issues. Odds are that they are all wrong and the tendency to tell stories about magic books tell us something about being human.
Somewhere Nietzsche writes that perhaps God has a speech impediment, for He is certainly having difficulty getting His Word across.
Who Created God?
Religious people think that it is a smart question to ask what came before the Big Bang. They cannot imagine a causal chain coming to an end with just another event without a prior cause. This, they think reveals that there must be a God who created the Big Bang.
They fail to realize that this same line of thinking can be applied to God. If God is your explanation for how the world is, then what created God?
They fail to realize that this same line of thinking can be applied to God. If God is your explanation for how the world is, then what created God?
Life has no Meaning
There is a terrible fear that if life is meaningless, then we might as well jump off the nearest cliff. Actually, it is good that life is meaningless.
"Meaning" comes from pointing to something beyond itelf. A sign is meaningful not in itself, but in reference to something else. A red octogon shaped STOP sign is not meaningful as a big piece of oddly shaped metal -- it is meaningful because it is a symbol that points to something else, namely that you should stop your car when you see this sign.
If life is meaningful, then life itself has no meaning but only gets meaning by pointing to something else -- something beyond life. Religious people think that life is meaningful only because it points to God or Heaven or whatever. Take away the God or Heaven or whatever and they think you might as well jump off the nearest cliff.
But life is not a symbol. Life is not a sign. Life does not acquire value by pointing to something else. There is nothing else. Life has value in itself. Life is meaningless because life is not a symbol that aquires meaning by referencing something else.
Life itself is the source of all other value and meaning. Life does not require something else to make it valuable. Embrace that life has no meaning.
"Meaning" comes from pointing to something beyond itelf. A sign is meaningful not in itself, but in reference to something else. A red octogon shaped STOP sign is not meaningful as a big piece of oddly shaped metal -- it is meaningful because it is a symbol that points to something else, namely that you should stop your car when you see this sign.
If life is meaningful, then life itself has no meaning but only gets meaning by pointing to something else -- something beyond life. Religious people think that life is meaningful only because it points to God or Heaven or whatever. Take away the God or Heaven or whatever and they think you might as well jump off the nearest cliff.
But life is not a symbol. Life is not a sign. Life does not acquire value by pointing to something else. There is nothing else. Life has value in itself. Life is meaningless because life is not a symbol that aquires meaning by referencing something else.
Life itself is the source of all other value and meaning. Life does not require something else to make it valuable. Embrace that life has no meaning.
Obviously Arbitrary Authorities
Heard this morning on a Christian radio station: “The Koran states that God is not a father, has no children, and that you’ll burn in Hell for believing that He is a father who has a son. But John 3:16 says that God so loved the world that he gave His only begotten Son so that those who believe will have eternal life.”
Two religious texts, both claiming to be the only true word of the only true god, contain completely opposite statements about this basic theological question. How can this be? Here are some possible explanations:
Perhaps God changed His story later and denied ever impregnating a married woman. (Or was she a young virgin? I’m so confused…)
Perhaps both texts are correct – perhaps God transcends our mortal notions of binary Logic (true / false, father / son) and religious texts are like kaleidoscopes that illuminate fragments of the stained glass window that is THE TRUTH.
Or perhaps these are just books written by men with agendas, charisma, issues, problems, and undiagnosed psychological traumas that make them hear voices. Perhaps it is time to realize that none of these books are really what they claim to be.
Two religious texts, both claiming to be the only true word of the only true god, contain completely opposite statements about this basic theological question. How can this be? Here are some possible explanations:
Perhaps God changed His story later and denied ever impregnating a married woman. (Or was she a young virgin? I’m so confused…)
Perhaps both texts are correct – perhaps God transcends our mortal notions of binary Logic (true / false, father / son) and religious texts are like kaleidoscopes that illuminate fragments of the stained glass window that is THE TRUTH.
Or perhaps these are just books written by men with agendas, charisma, issues, problems, and undiagnosed psychological traumas that make them hear voices. Perhaps it is time to realize that none of these books are really what they claim to be.
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