the destruction of our civilization

We live in world of great complexity; we live in the crystalline world and the biological world and we live in a a world of technical and technological order and clarity, and a world of personal and social disorder and confusion.

In the crystalline world atoms combine in ways determined by atomic structure that never varies. Whereas in the biological world, especially after this world has taken on a conscious component, we can begin to speak about creation in that this biological world is reflexive. It is a world with multiple feedback loops wherein the outputs affect the inputs and this is often determined by complex and constantly variable interactions.

A person can walk the corridors of any big city hospital and observe the effectiveness of human rationality in action. One can also visit the UN building in NYC or read the morning papers and observe just how ineffective, frustrating and disappointing human rationality can be. Why does human reason perform so well in some matters and so poorly in others?

We live in two very different worlds; a world of technical and technological order and clarity, and a world of personal and social disorder and confusion. We are increasingly able to solve problems in one domain and increasingly endangered by our inability to solve problems in the other.

Normal science, as defined by Thomas Kuhn in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, is successful primarily because it is a domain of knowledge controlled by paradigms. The paradigm defines the standards, principles and methods of the discipline. It is not apparent to the laity but science moves forward in small incremental steps. Science seldom seeks and almost never produces major novelties.

Science solves puzzles. The logic of the paradigm insulates the professional group from problems that are unsolvable by that paradigm. One reason that science progresses so rapidly and with such assurance is because the logic of that paradigm allows the practitioners to work on problems that only their lack of ingenuity will keep them from solving.

Science uses instrumental rationality to solve puzzles. Instrumental rationality is a systematic process for reflecting upon the best action to take to reach an established end. The obvious question becomes `what mode of rationality is available for determining ends?’ Instrumental rationality appears to be of little use in determining such matters as “good” and “right” (at least as has been defined in the discussion of ethics for centuries).

There is a striking difference between the logic of technical problems and that of dialectical problems. The principles, methods and standards for dealing with technical problems and problems of “real life” are as different as night and day. Real life problems cannot be solved only using deductive and inductive reasoning.

Dialectical reasoning methods require the ability to slip quickly between contradictory lines of reasoning. One needs skill to develop a synthesis of one point of view with another. Where technical matters are generally confined to only one well understood frame of reference; real life problems become multi-dimensional totalities.

When we think dialectically we are guided by principles not by procedures. Real life problems span multiple categories and academic disciplines. We need point-counter-point argumentation; we need emancipatory reasoning to resolve dialectical problems. In other words, need critical thinking skills and attitudes to resolve real life problems.

It seems as though many in our society are not sophisticated enough to make the kind of decisions that are required to prevent the destruction of our civilization. It seems to me that we must put a much greater emphasis upon this weakness. I think that the foundation for such an increase in intellectual sophistication requires that, at a minimum, a much greater proportion of our citizens must develop a comprehension of the fundamentals of critical thinking.

convenience

“…that which we call today convenience is in fact inconvenience. Convenience is for one to simplify one’s life and to limit its to the essentials. Then the person is liberated.”
–Elder Paisios the Athonite

belief

Lately I have been thinking about what it means to believe something. For instance what does it mean to believe in God? Or not to believe in such a Being? Why is it so important to come to a decision about these questions? And when one does come to a conclusion about belief in a higher power, how does one decide the character of this being (or how to live in a universe with no higher purpose)? Is this being a Person or more of a divine Power, so to speak? Then there is the issue of how limited language can be in describing a Being as such.

Often people in our culture claim to believe in God, yet their lives do not reflect this conviction. I think this presents a great challenge to those that say they believe in God. I would have much greater respect for them if they lived their life in a constant awareness of God’s abiding presence and lived for love. Often though, this is not the case. I think the moral upper-hand is held by those who refuse to align with a particular belief system and yet live their life committed to the virtues religion often espouses. To me that would take greater faith. This does not mean that one who has faith and lives their life truly committed to their religions ethical code is not equally moral. My point is that when ethical behavior comes forth from the heart and not out of a confidence in divine validation for their actions, it seems to be more genuine. It seems (and I think the thoughtful religious person will agree) belief is a side issue. Both who seek to act in moral ways (the religious and irreligious) act in accordance to their reason, not their belief or lack-thereof in God.

So then we are left with what is the point of belief? There seems to be a lot of belief in a god in our culture, yet our society is decadent, carnal and selfish. Is there not a contradiction here? Ancients called this sin. And sin is as old as the human race. In fact the behavior often categorized as sin seems to be rooted in our animal nature, the fact we evolved from primates, who occasionally display behavior eerily similar to human ’sin’ (premeditated murder for instance has been studied in Chimpanzee communities). Is sin, in fact, a supernatural issue that necessitates a divine intervention or is it just our natural instincts run amuck?

There are many other points I raised in the opening paragraph of this essay that I would like to address later, but the hour is late. I will continue to mull over these thoughts in my head and will hopefully be posting some more musings later this week.

this is my body

“And he took bread, and gave thanks, and brake it, and gave unto them, saying, This is my body which is given for you: this do in remembrance of me.” Luke 22.19

The lyrical prose of the King James Bible always inspires me. This morning it was quiet, the faint sound of music drifted in the background, as I slowly read the Bible for the first time in a long while. I happened to come across the narrative of the Last Supper in St Luke’s gospel. I imagined all the medieval portraits that suspend the moment that I was reading. And as I made my way through the archaic words, something powerful descended on me as I read the words “This is my body”. I realized that I had in fact never quite grasped what Jesus meant. He meant much more than the bread in his hands, in the same hands that would later be outstretched on a cruel instrument of torture, the same bread that faithful Christians believe is transformed every Sunday into his very bodily presence. Indeed, the image of the crucifix, often placed above the altar where the Eucharist is offered, where the same words have been chanted for millennia, is Jesus still saying “This is my body”. But he is not referring to the actions of the ecclesial authorities below him and the incantations they speak. No, that would diminish Jesus into another instrument of control, a symbol that is used for manipulation rather than for freedom.

There is something of more substance to those words, something more earthy. It is a terrible sin that these words have turned into the playground of theologians, endlessly speculating with Aristotelian metaphysics what these words mean, reducing them to merely magic. Jesus was not a prophet for the intellectual elite, the powerful, the religious. He was a man who surrounded himself with things from the ground; the wood he used for carpentry, the fruit of the vine that made wine he would drink joyfully with his friends (enjoyed to such an extent that he was accused of being a drunkard) and other human beings, his friends who he claimed were his family, more than his own blood relatives (Luke 8.21). If we put these words, “this is my body”, into perspective, into the context of the life of Jesus and not transplant them to a realm they do not belong (metaphysics), then can we begin to comprehend what he meant and glean the spiritual truth that these words offer.

Jesus did not merely mean the bread in his hands was his body, nor was he referring to his execution by crucifixion. “This is my body” meant “THIS is my body”. One can never “see” ones own body; one cannot peer into their insides and see their body working. No, our body is more tangible, more readily at hand. My body is this chair I am sitting on, the wooden bookcase next to me, the Icon of the Virgin across the room, the small statue of the Buddha on my dresser, my neighbor, my lover, my friends. My body is constituted of all of these things. My body is not in me, but outside me. My body doesn’t move, I move in my body. “This is my body” means we are not disconnected elements of matter, each one of us shares the same material that makes up all of life. We are all one body.

A holy mystery indeed! But not the ones theologians banter about and preachers preach about. The mystery has been in front of our eyes the entire time, the holiness is us, is life surrounding us; the sky, the trees, the animals, the ocean, the mountains, the music that continually enfolds us, the poetry that wraps around every moment. It is the movement of time and space, it is the spin of the earth on its axis, it is the kiss we share with one we love. “This is my body, this is my body, this is my body” –begin to realize that everything around you is your body. If Jesus is in fact the Son of God, God manifested in the flesh, then everything is also God’s body. You are a part of God’s body, I am a part of God’s body. The bird by the window is God’s body, the ants that busily go about their day are God’s body, the trees are God’s body.

Yet in the end, we are left with the image of the crucifix. Jesus dying alone and in despair. And so, did Jesus die for the spiritual satisfaction of an angry God with an insatiable appetite for blood due to the sins of humanity? I tend to think not. In fact, I am comfortable to say Jesus died for any type of metaphysical necessity. Jesus died for his body. His arms outstretched on that tree were enfolding all of creation, “this IS my body”. He died for his belief that God is in all. And this is the message of Jesus, despite its accretions of law and philosophy by theologians and politicians for two thousand years. He was not a God-man, a divine savior figure to bring stability to the cosmos. Jesus was a radical dissident, showing that love always leads to death and instability. This is true spirituality.

whisper

Just as in earthly life lovers long for the moment when they are able to breathe forth their love for each other, to let their souls blend in a soft whisper, so the mystic longs for the moment when in prayer he can, as it were, creep into God. -Søren Kierkegaard

lived in bars – cat power

A song that I have recently been listening to and have really enjoyed the lyrics is Cat Power’s ‘Lived in Bars’. Chan Marshall is one of my favorite musicians and is a brilliant lyricist. I find this song so powerful as she deals with her alcoholism and all that goes along with that lifestyle. There seems to be an admision that while a lifestyle dedicated to the moment and drinking is fun (and even fulfilling), it can lead to a dead-end and emptiness. “There’s nothing like living in a bottle/And nothing like ending it all for the world” is a verse in particular I believe encapsulates this. Anyway, I have posted the lyrics and the YouTube link to the video at the bottom. Enjoy.

We’ve lived in bars
And danced on tables
Hotels trains and ships that sail
We swim with sharks
And fly with aeroplanes in the air

Send in the trumpets
The marching wheelchairs
Open the blankets and give them some air
Swords and arches bones and cement
The light and the dark of the innocent of men

We know your house so very well
And we will wake you once we’ve walked up
All your stairs

There’s nothing like living in a bottle
And nothing like ending it all for the world
We’re so glad you will come back
Every living lion will lay in your lap
The kid has a homecoming the champion the horse
Who’s gonna play drums guitar or organ with chorus
As far as we’ve walked from both ends of sand
Never have we caught a glimpse of this man

We know your house so very well
And we will bust down your door if you’re not there

We’ve lived in bars
And danced on tables
Hotels trains and ships that sail
We swim with sharks
And fly with aeroplanes out of here
Out of here

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVGgGW1ZalY&feature=channel

holy fool

Climbing the winding stone steps that rose into the pulpit, he felt a peace come over him. As it almost always did. The pulpit was a secure place, solidly clinging to the huge pillar, raised above the crowd, wrapping close around him. And the elevation, along with the ornate carvings and the focused lighting, reinforced the authority of the words he spoke there. God’s words. He held up the large, gilded book for all to see, then opened it and read. His voice, amplified, filled the grand old church, rising with emotion as he concluded. “…God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise. God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong. God chose what is low and despised in the world, even the things that are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.” The words echoed and disappeared, leaving a powerful stillness. But then another voice piped up, from almost directly below the pulpit.

“Amen, brother! Preach it!”

An amused murmur rose from the people, and he smiled generously. Once in a while there were strange moments like this. Last week, a tall, gangly fellow had stepped into the aisle during the prayers and sprawled out face down on the stone floor. But the congregation was very understanding. There was a psychiatric care halfway house not far from the church, and people from there often showed up for services. Some of them regularly. So occasionally there were minor disturbances, but he’d learned to just smile and carry on, as he did now. Their presence added a little color to the church, he thought. And didn’t Jesus try to be friendly with social misfits like these?

Two weeks later there was another incident, involving a man he had never seen there before. Probably a new resident at the halfway house. It was in the second or third row, right in the middle of his sermon; all of a sudden the man’s head lolled back and snoring was heard. At first this was ignored. And he had continued to preach, just raising his voice a little and watching the scene out of the corner of his eye. But then the snoring got louder and people started looking and there were some laughs, so an usher approached the man. The sleeping eyes popped open and stared at the usher. Then a gruff voice. “The sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath!” The volume of this proclamation, and the laughter that warmly welcomed it, sent the usher scurrying away.

It had been difficult enough to get back into the flow of his message after that; but the next week was even worse. The man―who he later found out was named John―showed up again, and again sat up front. This time, however, John did not fall asleep but listened intently. Throughout the sermon John stared at him. And there were no interruptions as he preached eloquently on the building block of society, the family, ordained by God as the fundamental human community. He finished with an Amen as usual, closed the large bible, and turned to descend the steps. That’s when John spoke up.

“Who are my mother and my brothers?” John cried out. And spread both arms wide. “Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother―amen, preacher?” He hesitated. So John answered himself, “Amen!” Then wrapped an arm around the person sitting on either side―a young man to the left and an elderly woman to the right―and gave each a loud, smacking kiss on the cheek. “Amen!”

That scene inspired him to preach about peace the next Sunday. Specifically the passage that concludes, “For God is not a God of confusion, but of peace.” About orderliness in worship. But he didn’t limit himself to that; he also spoke about how Christians can spread their peace throughout the wider society. How Christians can be a calming influence in a world full of conflict. This time John listened without any outbursts. He was relieved. Perhaps his message had touched something deep in the man’s troubled psyche. As he stepped from the pulpit, he thought he recognized a quiet, thoughtful look on John’s face.

But when an usher approached to collect the offering, John suddenly jumped up and grabbed the usher’s long pole with a basket on the end. Then leapt into the aisle, shouting. “Do not think I have come to bring peace on earth―I have not come to bring peace, but a sword!” And immediately John began swinging the pole-and-basket with both hands, like a longsword. A woman shrieked. The rest of the people were frozen. Then two ushers rushed over, and John took a wide swing at them. There were several dodges and lunges. Then the madman was subdued. From behind the altar, as he watched them drag John away down the aisle, he was pretty sure he heard John say, “Yeah―this is more like it!”

The following Sunday, he stationed an usher at each church entrance. If John returned, they were to tell him that those who did not respect the other worshipers here were not welcome. But none of the ushers saw the man. And John’s face was not among those in the first few rows. He climbed into the pulpit with the familiar sense of peace.

But he didn’t even make it through the scripture reading. A loud slam silenced him and he jerked up to see the front doors flying open and John lunging through. The man was surprisingly fast. And completely naked. Streaking up the aisle, John wailed, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb and naked shall I return!” Then the nude man was standing up front, by the altar, with eyes closed and both arms raised. “Blessed be the name of the Lord!”

He could take no more. He shouted from his perch in the pulpit, his angry voice booming through the church. “A God of peace, not confusion!”

John opened his eyes. Looked at him. Then smiled serenely and spread both arms wide. “Who’s more at peace than this?”

As John strode towards the door, none of the ushers tried to grab the naked man. And no one made a sound. So even from way up in the pulpit he heard John say to a woman in the last row, “The kingdom of God has come near to you!” And with a laugh, the fool was gone.

-Paul Munn @ http://cimarronline.blogspot.com/2009/04/very-short-stories.html

from the outposts

God is good. Try not to think like a human.

(Thanks to S.F. Pitman for this)

revolution and necessity

“The only thing that can save the world from complete moral collapse is a spiritual revolution. Christianity, by it’s very nature, demands such a revolution. If Christians would all live up to what they profess to believe, the revolution would happen…The big problem that confronts Christianity is not Christ’s enemies. Persecution has never done much harm to the inner life of the Church as such. The real religious problem exists in the souls of those of us who in their hearts believe in God, and who do recognize their obligation to love Him and serve Him – yet do not!”

-Thomas Merton, The Ascent to Truth, 1951

Thomas Merton is one of the most eloquent writers of the spiritual life from the Christian tradition. He is one of the few human-beings that I believe had a genuine encounter with the ineffable. Near the end of his life he drifted into the mystical traditions of Buddhism, although remaining grounded within the Catholic Church. I think the point he makes here radically challenges the Christian faith and those who follow that particular tradition.

Moreover, in my own recent reading of Martin Buber and Dostoyevsky, I have been thoroughly challenged and my world-view has been brought into question. Who God is continually confronts me. My agnosticism is not so skeptical of God but is more rooted in the evils propagated by religious tradtions in the world. Usually this is associated with the foul alignment of throne and altar. How can a religious tradition avoid violence and the crushing of human bodies and souls? I think it must continue to be revolutionary, challenged by its own radical traditions as Merton asserts. But while being critical of religion, one must also be critical of a godless universe. Doestoyevsky recognizes this in Crime and Punishment where a world without morality is challenged, yet he carefully avoids resolving the tension that arises throughout the novel. Religion offers an answer that an amoral universe without God cannot, but is it really the answer? Buber also recognizes the power of revolution and the danger of atheistic morality. To him God is not necessary to safe-guard morality (he grants that human reason can accomplish that), God is neccessary for hope and purpose. God has a more existensial role. This is an important point and one worth contemplating.

But in the end I think the fundamental problem of any religious system is the belief that God is on the side of the believer, the certainty that the path they follow is the one ordained by God. And does this not lead to arrogance and pride? And when one has that certainty and holds the reins of power, does this not lead to intolerance and violence?

I know my thoughts on Dostoyevsky, Buber and Merton are inadquate and shallow at best. I am hoping within the next few weeks to continue to post as my thoughts from these various works begin to process more thoroughly. I apologize for brevity of this post.

the human animal

“Most moral philosophers consciously or unconsciously assume the essential correctness of our cultural sexual code – family, monogamy, continence, the postulate of privacy, … restriction of intercourse to the marriage bed, etcetera. Having stipulated our cultural code as a whole, they fiddle with details – even such piffle as solemnly discussing whether or not the female breast is an “obscene” sight! But mostly they debate how the human animal can be induced or forced to obey this code, blandly ignoring the high probability that the heartaches and tragedies they see all around them originate in the code itself rather than the failure to abide by the code.”

-Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land

(Thanks to S.F. Pitman for this)