I don't know what the hell I'm saying. . .
Reality proceeds thought, sure. But thought shapes reality also. Right?
Forms of poetry, prose, and media appear to be representations of reality (This statement is problematic, I know. Does poetry imitate actual reality or invent a new reality? I am concerned with form though, so allow me to continue).
Where was I? Yes. Forms of poetry, prose, and media appear to be representations of reality. Now, the form is proceeded by reality and thought, and it is organized thoughtfully (hopefully), then it is presented to us, the great critics, as an apparent representation of---something.
Blah. So the form is affected by reality and thoughts, and reality and thoughts are affected by the form, and we the great critics are affected and effectors all along the way.
All this I have been reflecting on because I am curious of when I started thinking of God as a passive watcher of the episodes of earth.
I know the problem of reconciling evil and a good God has, for a long time, resulted in portraying God as mostly indifferent to our plight.
But I wonder about TV. It's a form. It affects and is affected. I can sit passively and watch a 30 minute special on Darfur which is interrupted by the occasional Burger King commercial, and once my special is over, I don't do anything in response but go grab a rodeo cheeseburger?
Not hard for me to think God is really more interested in rodeo cheeseburgers too. Then I wonder about the Internet. The information super highway is a place where anyone can photoshop the sacred onto the butt of a dog and post it. (Can you see Jesus?)
Whatever my response is to fallen forms, it should be redemptive and creative.
Oh my.....
I did see Jesus. Thats messed up. Now would I have if you did not point out it was there? Or would I have just seen a dog's butt?
Your having a Chicken or the Egg argument. But the kicker is you are having it with yourself. Assuming the void of a split personality. Usually you pick one side and someone else picks another.
Another thing that I noticed is your argument of reality then thought or thought then reality is you reference poetry, prose, and media. These are all very interpretive areas of thought. Some people think one thing and others well, think something other. All that means is in reality can not truly be real if realized through the thought of another.
Ouch, my brain is smoking. I am so lost right now. I have no idea where you are going and mid comment I am lost on what I am trying to say. I guess I am about as mentally deep as the 12 ounce aluminum can of beverage sitting on my desk.
Forms are thoughts given
Forms are thoughts given concrete shape. The only difference between metaphysical and physical is form, not category of reality. Reality is one, just like the Hindu's tell us, we've just been too stubborn to listen. In the west (occasionally the east, but really, historically and ontologically speaking the west) there is a deep need to understand through categorization. It is the life-blood of analytical thought: this is this and that is that, and sometimes this can be that but that can never, I can't stress this enough, ever be this.
We receive the same rush from this that tennis players experience after winning Wimbledon. An intellectual pleasure principle of startling longevity. (see, I just categorized our need to categorize by contrasting the athletic with the academic, physical with the mental, and now I am classifying my explanation as a matter of contrast, metacognitive, is it not?)
That is to say thought and form became two things after we broke the natural and supernatural apart, ripped them apart really and violently at that; we are all still sore from the experience I think. So we have a hug which is the form of love which is the thought. But as you so eruditely elucidated these distinctions decay into ash and cinder when refined in the unavoidable flame of experience.
As for God the clockmaker, yours is the best analogy I have ever heard, honestly. My initial hopeful response is that we often become confused and forget who is made is whose image and just what that means. Since we are made in God's image our faults must be His, hence He likes bad commercials more than bad events because we do. But the reasoning is faulty, of course, as the crafted is not a perfect reflection of the crafter. It lacks the dimensions and therefore lacks the complexity, the simple brilliance of being. The same way that the Pieta (my favorite sculpture) though it is 3 dimensional, is not mobile, or filled with sinew, sanguine and bile like its creator. Even more true for a painting. Music is probably the most genuine of all creations (but that is simply a theory and not a well developed on at that).
In place of the clockmaker I would cast God in the role of the referee whose sons are playing on both teams and thus is forever setting aside his professionalism to play indulge in favoritism. I would go further and exempt God from all responisbility for atrocities on Earth, perpetrated by mankind. Again, one man's opinion, but I am a firm believer, unshakably, that the person who asks, "why would God allow murder/genocide/rape/molestation?" Is intentionally, even if subconsciously, fleeing the obvious answer: God doesn't allow any of that, He allows us and we cause it, or do nothing to stop it. Women are raped because I don't stop it and I am entirely responsible, without question. And so is everyone else. Period. If we wanted to stop it we could. Unquestionably. But like the 30 minute Darfur special that though is too abhorent and we walk away from, leaving it sandwhiched between and big mac and a whopper.
Natural disasters are trickier to tackle because, as far as I know, we don't cause those. Something could be said, now that we can predict them, for not living in places well known for hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, fires, ad infinitum, but I recognize the impracticality of that statement, sound though it may be.
I have no answer that really satisfies our inexhorable craving for knowledge with regard to natural diasters. There's the half-hearted (although potential true as all things are) response that a "fallen" world encapsulates all manner of unpleasentry. Personally I find this notion wanting, but in its place I have nothing to offer and I am at peace with that, for now.
I applaud your desire to be redemptive, I was thinking the very same thing, with different wording, just last night. That the heart of Christ's teachings, "love your enemy" this and "help those who hurt you" that is grounded in the realization that human beings are inherently valuable and because of this are loved and deserved to be loved and so our actions should be born out of a dual acknowledgement of and desire to protect and promote this reality. At least, this is what my confoundlingly horizoned cognitive capabilities have riddled into psuedo-cohesive thoughts. I don't begin to possess the adjectives to desrcibe the unsustainably impoverished nature of my greviously malnourished consumption and digestion of the mystical.
I hope this faux-respledence of word play and conjecture has served in some small way to momentarily alleviate the ineffable ennui of modern life.
also, you ever going to email about our house venture?
Adam, you comment seems to
Adam, your comment seems to have three parts to it. First, a conversation about categorization. Second, you deal with the classically stated problem of evil. Third, you affirm that you're down with what I call a creative and redemptive response to forms.
To the first part of your comment, I need clarification. Do you think categorizing is...bad? (can I use that term? Counterproductive maybe?) I feel that you could just as easily, and accurately say that, “language is thought given shape.” From here I would find find the statement, “Reality is one,” to be problematic because it implies a thoughtful categorization within itself. (The term one only makes sense compared to zero and two—or many.) Doesn't thought imply category?
Am I misunderstanding you here?
To the second part of your comment, I am conducting research on Chekhov and thought this poem relevant to the discussion. I wrote a paper on the problem of evil my first semester in college too. I forget what my answer was. I'll reread it and if it is substantial, post it for criticism.
As far as creative and redemptive criticism of the world, text, and people is concerned, I hope to develop my thoughts further. Thank you for your addition.
Email soon, I promise.
My complaint was meant in
My complaint was meant in all jest and seriousness and I hope it was taken in a similar fashion :D
I mean to say that to categorize is to much something different, to divide and conquer, because united things are too powerful, too overwhelming. And, since the statement by David, then rehashed by Paul, that God is beyond comprehension I cannot recall many thinkers of the Western world who have readily celebratorily embraced an inability to fathom a being or concept, a real thing. I instead see men, and women, who want to best the unknown, want to disprove, dissect and deconstruct truth, want to name it and own it.
I simply offer that perhaps the best we can hope for is to experience it, and that is an unnumbered joy and furthermore that all we can do is experience. So the decision is left to us, we it be an experience of tiny, digestible pieces that are always just pieces or will it be a submerging in the unknowable whole that will consume and expand us?
I cannot speak for anyone else, but as for myself, the whole is all I want to see, the pieces seem endlessly out of place. I think Mr. Twiss? was it, would agree, as would the Aborigines.
I humbly, patiently, await your email.
good day
That photo is the most
That photo is the most offensive thing I've seen... since your last Jesus pictures. Unfortunately, I know I'll see something equally offensive soon enough.
I aim to please.
Hopefully it will be more offensive. Gotta raise the bar.
Mr. Sacrilegious
Perhaps your spiritual gift is finding offensive "pictures" of Jesus.
I am so tempted to bring THAT up at the next forum you lead regarding faith and the arts.
Thats good. Gives everyone
Thats good. Gives everyone something to look forward too Mr./Mrs Anonymous Hobo.
By the way Brandon, when is your next little forum discussion? Webcam maybe for those of us a state or two away.
EDIT:The answer you entered for the CAPTCHA was not correct.
Doubtful I will be able to
Doubtful I will be able to produce something like that. Whatever content is recorded under my ministry's banner is their property. Doesn't matter though, I have no speaking/moderating engagements the rest of the school year.
I do have some audio from my talk at CCC Christmas break. Maybe I'll post that sometime.
Come On I pour my heart and
Come On
I pour my heart and soul into a response to your thoughts and you reply to the LCD comment. come on!
But really, it's not offensive, if we're going to say that the Lord is omnipresent, that His presence is everywhere, then it is as much in my heart as it is the nether regions of a canine. What's more, if we can find beauty even in the most unpleasing and ugly of circumstances we should be grateful, I think.
A pile of shit with the Almighty's visage is infinitely better than a plain old pile of shit. Right?
We should be more optimistic.
Adam, your comment requires
Adam, your comment requires more thinking for a proper response, which I plan to give. I don't like speaking or writing until I know what I want to say. (Which is why that email I keep intending to write you has been delayed)
The wait is good.
I'm sorry, you failed to answer in the form of a question
What you're all forgetting is that the image cannot be an offensive rendition of Jesus not for the sake of humour or a lack thereof, or even for adam's witty and chuckle-worthy reminder of our general disposition towards offense. No my friends, it is because Jesus, in fact, was not white. I'm willing to go ahead and assume he didn't travel around Galilee in a nice Wool-ite whiteness protected white robe either. Wherefore, the dog picture can only be a just and amusing allegory for white jesus and all accompanying constantinian agendas.
=D Good night and good luck
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