Thursday, August 12, 2010
A Journey of Peace
A thought I have for what might make a good book.
Travel essays and writing are typically verbose and almost always sentimental or cynical.
Forget all that.
I have my faith in the Judeo-Christian God. I think the whole world reflects different wavelengths of His truth. A part of the character of God is peace. A fount of peace. A good book would be a photographic/essay book about peace. It wouldn't have to be overtly Christian. Done well, it would bleed Christianity as subtlely (and profusely) as Tolkien.
Full moons on the Yangtze, Japanese tea ceremony, a thunderstorm in India, tea in London, spring in central Texas, fall in the Shenadoah, a burning sunset in Africa, a dinner in the Amazon. Not about adventures. That might be a small part of it. But it's not the focus. It would be a tight thesis. If photographed well, it could be extraordinary. The writing would need to be sharp too. Sparse, meditative. No cynicism. I suppose it could be romantic. But this isn't necessarily about the cultures. It's more about how God's peace could be reflected in the culture.
It doesn't seek to set anyone on a pedestal. It seeks to shine a light on different diamonds and see how they catch.
Travel essays and writing are typically verbose and almost always sentimental or cynical.
Forget all that.
I have my faith in the Judeo-Christian God. I think the whole world reflects different wavelengths of His truth. A part of the character of God is peace. A fount of peace. A good book would be a photographic/essay book about peace. It wouldn't have to be overtly Christian. Done well, it would bleed Christianity as subtlely (and profusely) as Tolkien.
Full moons on the Yangtze, Japanese tea ceremony, a thunderstorm in India, tea in London, spring in central Texas, fall in the Shenadoah, a burning sunset in Africa, a dinner in the Amazon. Not about adventures. That might be a small part of it. But it's not the focus. It would be a tight thesis. If photographed well, it could be extraordinary. The writing would need to be sharp too. Sparse, meditative. No cynicism. I suppose it could be romantic. But this isn't necessarily about the cultures. It's more about how God's peace could be reflected in the culture.
It doesn't seek to set anyone on a pedestal. It seeks to shine a light on different diamonds and see how they catch.
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
A quick pensee (from work!)
The Deconstruction of Narrative
How Naturalism, in addition to the challenges of circularity and normativism, naturalism also faces another challenge to its foundations. Naturalism, fundamentally, cannot contain narrative. Obviously, in this framework the humanities are destroyed.
Causality
Our ability to form narrative, is perhaps a huge proof of God's existence.
Are ultimate conclusions about causality impossible? E.g.- narrative (even the most self-critical), require, by necessity, tunnel vision. If it wasn't tunnel vision, it would be as Mary Midgley said- we would be indiscrimenant fact gatherers without any conclusions at all about causality. X would not cause Y which causes Z. There is only X. X is all there is at all moments past and present. We would, essentially, be dead. We would be the same as a mirror that reflects the sky or a mountain. We would reflect nothing but the randomness and meaninglessness of reality. No thought, no conclusions, no logic, no reason, no emotion, no mind, no body even. We would be an empty recording. A mute phonograph. Narrative is an aberration. Beyond an aberration, it cannot exist.
Interesting to note that a summation of the naturalistic response to the problems of circularity particularly, is: Well, though that approach is indeed rigorous and completely obedient to the rules of logic and reason, it isn't REALLY essential. And by essential, we really mean, its resolution is not necessary for us to live how we want, experiment with what we want, and basically do what we want for the remainder of our ultimately meaningless days. But this isn't rigorous, academic, or any other thing. The modernist experiment produced some fantastic results, but was ultimately driving a car it didn't really own on a very short road ending in a boulder. It gave them a good perspective on some things, but they wrecked the parent's car. Some (Dawkins?) have refused to acknowledge this. Are we in a state of widespread denial?
The above may sound polemic, and perhaps even angry. But it's actually not. It really seems to be the conclusion of a set of values.
Naturalism- No intrinsic meaning, no narrative, etc. If there is any meaning or narrative, it is essentially man-created. This isn't atheism at all. It's very Greek. Except that we (some. the great perceivers) are gods among men. John Dewey, Einstein, Dawkins et al. Are our gods and the masses remain the men. Indeed, it is absolutely Greek. One of the paradigms in ancient Greek were that the gods were arbiters of some kinds of power and may sometimes influence or rise above the influences of fate. Ultimately they were still ruled by the forces of fate. In the modernist paradigm, the hazy laws of nature are the new wheels of fate. In all this, the shadowyness, the altars to an unknown god, are very interesting. Very familiar sounding.
How Naturalism, in addition to the challenges of circularity and normativism, naturalism also faces another challenge to its foundations. Naturalism, fundamentally, cannot contain narrative. Obviously, in this framework the humanities are destroyed.
Causality
Our ability to form narrative, is perhaps a huge proof of God's existence.
Are ultimate conclusions about causality impossible? E.g.- narrative (even the most self-critical), require, by necessity, tunnel vision. If it wasn't tunnel vision, it would be as Mary Midgley said- we would be indiscrimenant fact gatherers without any conclusions at all about causality. X would not cause Y which causes Z. There is only X. X is all there is at all moments past and present. We would, essentially, be dead. We would be the same as a mirror that reflects the sky or a mountain. We would reflect nothing but the randomness and meaninglessness of reality. No thought, no conclusions, no logic, no reason, no emotion, no mind, no body even. We would be an empty recording. A mute phonograph. Narrative is an aberration. Beyond an aberration, it cannot exist.
Yet, naturalism is an epistemology of only observable causality. It undermines itself in this way in addition to the problems of circularity and normativism.
Additionally, if we are a result of purely naturalistic causes, then our conclusions are deterministic and will forever be impossible to rise above as Dawkins would like. our conclusions are not, then, based on an apprehension of logic or a larger pattern, but mindless noise. If this is so, then the conclusions are void. Natural cannot be all there is. It's logically impossible. Ergo, Godel.
Additionally, if we are a result of purely naturalistic causes, then our conclusions are deterministic and will forever be impossible to rise above as Dawkins would like. our conclusions are not, then, based on an apprehension of logic or a larger pattern, but mindless noise. If this is so, then the conclusions are void. Natural cannot be all there is. It's logically impossible. Ergo, Godel.
The argument from evolution is unalterable too.
Godel's God is inevitable from many routes. They all lead to it. These are all the problems of Spinoza.
If a room only costs the Ritz $75/night… A Hampton Inn is probably only like $35/night….
If this is so, you could offer free stays for families, requiring a dinner at the hotel restaurant, which will almost undoubtedly hit over $50.
Godel's God is inevitable from many routes. They all lead to it. These are all the problems of Spinoza.
If a room only costs the Ritz $75/night… A Hampton Inn is probably only like $35/night….
If this is so, you could offer free stays for families, requiring a dinner at the hotel restaurant, which will almost undoubtedly hit over $50.
So a hostel with cheaper rates for more people and free for over 10…. Then you could make good money.
Interesting to note that a summation of the naturalistic response to the problems of circularity particularly, is: Well, though that approach is indeed rigorous and completely obedient to the rules of logic and reason, it isn't REALLY essential. And by essential, we really mean, its resolution is not necessary for us to live how we want, experiment with what we want, and basically do what we want for the remainder of our ultimately meaningless days. But this isn't rigorous, academic, or any other thing. The modernist experiment produced some fantastic results, but was ultimately driving a car it didn't really own on a very short road ending in a boulder. It gave them a good perspective on some things, but they wrecked the parent's car. Some (Dawkins?) have refused to acknowledge this. Are we in a state of widespread denial?
The above may sound polemic, and perhaps even angry. But it's actually not. It really seems to be the conclusion of a set of values.
Naturalism- No intrinsic meaning, no narrative, etc. If there is any meaning or narrative, it is essentially man-created. This isn't atheism at all. It's very Greek. Except that we (some. the great perceivers) are gods among men. John Dewey, Einstein, Dawkins et al. Are our gods and the masses remain the men. Indeed, it is absolutely Greek. One of the paradigms in ancient Greek were that the gods were arbiters of some kinds of power and may sometimes influence or rise above the influences of fate. Ultimately they were still ruled by the forces of fate. In the modernist paradigm, the hazy laws of nature are the new wheels of fate. In all this, the shadowyness, the altars to an unknown god, are very interesting. Very familiar sounding.
Hawking's bubble universe= Greek.
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Quotes.
"Modern atheism is in many instances the product not so much of antireligion as of religion’s replacement of the God of Abraham with the god of the philosophers, and the subsequent rejection of that ersatz god by other philosophers. "
"Absent our sin and God’s judgment and redemption, it is not surprising that people came to dismiss the idea of God, not because it is implausible but because it is superfluous and, yes, boring."
"There is indeed irony in the fact that some who think of themselves as theists eagerly embrace deconstruction’s operative atheism. The reason for this is that among other things that deconstruction deconstructs is an older form of Enlightenment rationalism that excluded religion from the company of rational discourse...[T]here is [an] atheism of putative theists who peddle religious truth claims that are true for you, if you find it useful to believe them true. "
"Eternal life is the fulfillment anticipated by all that is good, true, and beautiful in this life. . .[M]ost of us, and especially the great mystics more than most of us, have moments of encounters with the good, true, and beautiful in which we are moved to say, 'Ah, it must be something like this'... The Christian proposal is that in Jesus the unknown has made itself known in the finitude of space and time. "
- Richard John Neuhaus
"Human beings find the life they live unsatisfactory with uncanny consistency, even human beings who live in comfortable circumstances where there is little objective reason for them to complain. This satisfaction can take the form of an intuition that the world we know is transitional, and the people in it are on their way to somewhere else. "
"In this view, it seems to me, the moral calculus of the world is very like a complex logical system, of the sort that Kurt Gödel noted would necessarily produce undecidable sentences, statements whose truth value cannot be decided within the system but must refer to something outside. As several commentators have pointed, this is how Aquinas’s Five Proofs work: no "comprehensive account" of the world, either in physics or ethics, can explain itself. The books will never balance, in other words, if we look only within the world. It is the burden of American Babylon, and perhaps of Fr. Neuhaus’s ministry, that we can get quite a lot done in history precisely because we know there is a way out. "
- John J. Reilly
"Absent our sin and God’s judgment and redemption, it is not surprising that people came to dismiss the idea of God, not because it is implausible but because it is superfluous and, yes, boring."
"There is indeed irony in the fact that some who think of themselves as theists eagerly embrace deconstruction’s operative atheism. The reason for this is that among other things that deconstruction deconstructs is an older form of Enlightenment rationalism that excluded religion from the company of rational discourse...[T]here is [an] atheism of putative theists who peddle religious truth claims that are true for you, if you find it useful to believe them true. "
"Eternal life is the fulfillment anticipated by all that is good, true, and beautiful in this life. . .[M]ost of us, and especially the great mystics more than most of us, have moments of encounters with the good, true, and beautiful in which we are moved to say, 'Ah, it must be something like this'... The Christian proposal is that in Jesus the unknown has made itself known in the finitude of space and time. "
- Richard John Neuhaus
"Human beings find the life they live unsatisfactory with uncanny consistency, even human beings who live in comfortable circumstances where there is little objective reason for them to complain. This satisfaction can take the form of an intuition that the world we know is transitional, and the people in it are on their way to somewhere else. "
"In this view, it seems to me, the moral calculus of the world is very like a complex logical system, of the sort that Kurt Gödel noted would necessarily produce undecidable sentences, statements whose truth value cannot be decided within the system but must refer to something outside. As several commentators have pointed, this is how Aquinas’s Five Proofs work: no "comprehensive account" of the world, either in physics or ethics, can explain itself. The books will never balance, in other words, if we look only within the world. It is the burden of American Babylon, and perhaps of Fr. Neuhaus’s ministry, that we can get quite a lot done in history precisely because we know there is a way out. "
- John J. Reilly
The God is Powerful
He's like a flood. Everything. Every thought, atom, infinitesimal fragment of matter, quasar, galaxy, universes if more than one, limit of the time-space continuum, something is responsible for it all. God. Great God.
There is fire in these endless equations. Fire in every breath. Suffering is everywhere.
Vanity vanity. He raised the dead.
Oh God Where Are You Now?
In every breath. In all our strained breaths.
Psalm 77
The devil is hard on my face again. This will be a long battle.
Would the righteous to remain.
God, why this uncertain existence?
"As you do not know the way the spirit comes to the bones in the womb of a woman with child, so you do not know the work of God who makes everything."
We are veiled.
Oh Lord, touch me now.
Long and ponderous into the mist. Is my reason everything? Can my mind so easily compass the universe? What a lie! What a lie!
Fiercely, fiercely deny the end. It is not so.
Let all things their creator bless. And worship Him in humbleness. Oh praise him, alleluia. Praise, praise the Father praise the Son. And praise the Spirit three in one. Oh praise Him, Oh praise him... Alleluia... Alleluia .... alleluia..
I'm a wretch! Turn away from me. Turn away from me. Turn away from me.
His clothing was aflame.
Turn away from me!
O Lord...
Then, there came a word, of what he should accomplish on the day then peter spoke to make of them a tabernacle place a cloud appeared in glory as an accolade, they fell on the ground a voice arrived the voice of God the face of God covered in a cloud....
Fire. Fire. Fire.
What he said to them, the voice of God, my most beloved son. Consider what he says to you. Consider what's to come. The prophecy was put to death and so will the son.
Lost in the cloud a sign: son of man, son of God!
My God, my God, my God, my God, My God almighty. You are my God. Apart from you, I want no other.
If you are false, reality is not real. My life, my vision, my sight, my world, my universe is tied to you.
I don't know what this world portends.
Shadow am I like a suspicion that's never confirmed but it's never denied.
More like the absence of something.
I can sense the void by the sound of the air rushing in.
Thou rushing wind that art so strong, ye clouds that sail in heaven along, O praise him, Alleluia!
Will it ever be on earth as it is in heaven?
Oh my God
Lord I believe, in mercy grant me grace. To know thee blessed savior more and more, I can do naught without thee, show thy face. Spirit help my unbelief.
Totus Tuus.
Amen. Forgive me, Lord. Amen.
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
This is Me.
"Were you always interested in religion?"
"I can't remember when I wasn't. My sisters and I had to go to Sunday school and all that, and then we had to go to a church camp, a little Presbyterian church camp. In Pittsburgh the Presbyterians are real high-church -- it's a social thing -- and I despised it. But this was really low-church, Fundamentalist theology, and the first ideas I'd ever heard. It was metaphysics for children. It's the only metaphysics that people do teach children, and then you spend the rest of your life looking for something that good. You see undergraduates trying to study philosophy, and that's not it. Then they try psychology, and that's not it. They find it in literature, and they find it in poetry. I was going along happily without it, and then in college I hit theology and said: 'This is it. This is it.' " And so it has been.
-Annie Dillard
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