Monday, September 22, 2008

God is a Joke and Bill Maher is a Barbaric Idiot

The Boy has had back-to-back sicknesses. Doesn't seem to bother him, but yesterday he called it a night at 5:00AM, when normally he sleeps until 7:30 or 8:00. So if this post ends abruptly, you'll know why. Or, if it doesn't even start, you'll also know why. At the moment, I have no idea what it's even about, so if we never find out... you get the idea.

So, what is the subject of today's post? I don't know, let me look around.... Notes and books everywhere.... This is what happens when I take two days off from blogging. I lose the thread, and even if I do find it, it's no longer necessarily connected to the now, and that's where the posts come from.

I think a lot of it has to do with the presence of Future Leader, but it's as if I'm losing my ability to think horizontally, only vertically. You look at other people's kids and say, "look how fast he grew up!" But that's not how it feels with mine. Rather, it's more like moment-to-moment crisis management. I don't mean that in a negative way. It's like being, say, a professional baseball player, in which you have absolutely no time to reflect on the previous game before preparing for the next. In a way, it's liberating, as it frees you from all the petty concerns that can plague you. For example, it is true that the house is a wreck. But we'll clean it in a couple of years, when he starts school. There would be no point before that.

I believe we were discussing evolution and creation. In Christian terms, man is the vertical link that potentially spans all the levels of creation. As Ware writes, he is both microcosm and mediator, and "it is his God-given task to reconcile and harmonize the noetic and the material realms, to bring them to unity, to spiritualize the material, and to render manifest all the latent capacities of the created order."

That's interesting, because you could say the identical thing about Sri Aurobindo, which is again why I think that the two approaches are so compatible. Remember, Aurobindo was educated at Cambridge, and had no knowledge of his homeland at the time he returned there in his early 20's. As such -- in contrast to a commenter the other day who suggested that he was influenced by Rudolf Steiner -- I think he was influenced by both Christianity and western science -- including the theory of evolution -- and applied them to Indian metaphysics. So when Aurobindo talks about "divinizing matter" or reconciling all the levels of creation, he is really talking like an Orthodox Christian.

It's all very Jewish as well. Ware quotes a venerable rabbi who writes that man is called "to advance from rung to rung until, through him, everything is united." Note that there is no unity in the absence of the ascent. True unity cannot be achieved horizontally, not in principle or in fact.

This is why I wrote in my book that the scientific search for a "theory of everything" is totally misguided, at least to the extent that anyone imagines it will account for the higher levels of creation. Even an apprentice Raccoon knows full well that that will never happen. At best, it will account for the lowest rung, and even then, only for people who don't know about the rest of the ladder, which necessarily has a lowest rung. In other words, it will be a satisfying theory for simpleminded flatlanders and lizards who crawl on their bellies. It will have no relevance to Upright Man, except to demonstrate the "relative unity" of that particular plane of reality. But we already know that each rung in the ladder necessarily has relative unity as a result of God's involution, so we won't really have learned anything.

This is imprecisely what Petey was referring to on p. 254 of my book, where it is written: Your man in Nirvana reporting from the serene of the climb. Before caterpultering your buddhafly, lotus pray: last rung in's a written gag, so your seenill grammar and gravidad may not be malapropriate for my laughty revelation. Don't worry, it's just aphasia go through before the noesis in your head becomes real. Ascent you a son, amen for a child's job! That's the New Man, we're just putting him on.

There are so many ways to approach this passage for those who wish to take the time (some of which are found in the footnoetics), but you may be sure that it is not mere nonsense. Rather, it is attempting to use language in a holographic manner, in order to "mirror" the multidimensional fulsomeness of the higher realms. There are so many idiots out there, such as Bill Maher, who take scripture literally, and then attack it for being so literal. As such, when he attacks religion, he is really attacking his own stupidity.

Since this stupidity seems to be "going around," especially among our educated classes, I wanted to make sure that my "scripture" could not be taken that way. Indeed, I wanted to make certain that it would be impenetrable to the barbarous likes of a Bill Maher. My laughty revelation doesn't contain anything that isn't already in scripture. Indeed, that is obviously where I playgiarized the ideas from. It's just that where authorized scripture proceeds from vertical to horizontal (or holographic to linear) in order to reach man and speak to him "where he is," I attempted to do the opposite, since modern man abuses God's courtesy, and even imagines himself superior to revelation. But he only ends up making himself more appallingly stupid, for example, as evidenced by this brilliant and edgy observation by Maher:

"You can't be a rational person six days of the week and put on a suit and make rational decisions and go to work and, on one day of the week, go to a building and think you're drinking the blood of a 2,000-year-old space god."

Very well then. I merely took revelation back up to where it came from, back upstream to its holographic source. Same thing with the Cosmobliteration section of my book. If these postmodern barbarians cannot appreciate the majesty and mystery of Biblical language, and instead want to kill the spirit with their coroner's approach to Life, then so be it. I'll show them what scripture looks like to the initiated.

Take Maher's boneheaded understanding, as reflected in the above idiotic joke. Let's consider the same thing in terms of my scrypture, and see which stand-up cosmologist is laughtier. In other words, let's re-verticalize what the moron Maher insists upon horizontalizing -- and then laughing at his own stupidity. Let's see him laugh at my scripture, because to laugh at it is to understand it -- and therefore, to understand the Divine. If he were capable of laughing at my joke, then his is no longer funny, just kind of pathetic. Actually, several passages will do. For example

You haven't perceived the hologram to your private particle? Come in, open His presence and report for karmic duty. Why, it's a Tree of Life for those whose wood beleaf. What incanation?!

Mrs. G. is presently in the process of undergoing conversion to Catholicism. She is very much looking forward to her first communion next Easter, as she spends the year preparing the ground to receive it. Maher thinks it's funny that she will "drink the blood of a 2000 year-old space god." But what will really be happening is that the ritual will allow her to better perceive the hologram to her private particle. In fact, I can see the living leaves sprouting on her already, whereas with Maher I see only dead wood. What's funnier?

Reverse worldward descent and cross the bridge of darkness to the father shore.

I don't know about you, but when I attend a religious service -- or even just write a post -- that is precisely what I am doing. It has nothing to do with 2000 year-old space gods, but reascending to the father shore. It has nothing to do with going back in time, but rather, beyond time and up in space like an astralnaut. Ware agrees that "When the intellect is no longer dissipated among external things or dispersed across the world through the senses, it returns to itself; and by means of itself ascends to the thought of God." So,

Take us before and beyond this womentary maninfestation, reveal not the horizontal but our inmost upmost vertical bigending.

And this can only occur now, back in the future of the Eden of our origin: In the garden misty wet with rain, eight miles high, far from the twisted reach of yestermorrow. Insinuate! Now put down the apple and back way slowly, and nobody dies!

In so doing, we are not going from the "natural" to the "supernatural" world. Rather, we are going from the unnatural to the natural world. For as Ware writes, "There is no such thing as 'natural man' existing in separation from God: man cut off from God is in a highly unnatural state." Furthermore -- and this is where politics inevitably meets with the religion of our founders, "the denial of God has gone hand in hand with a cruel repression of man's personal freedom. Nor is this in the least surprising. The only secure basis for a doctrine of human liberty and human dignity is the belief that each man is in God's image."

God dwells in a Light, to which a road is wanting. He who does not become That himself, will never see it.... The man who does not try to raise his spirit above itself, is not worthy to live in the condition of a man. --Angelus Silesius

35 comments:

Anonymous said...

In regards to your holographic scriptures, Bob, I would say that they are explicable with effort; I enjoy working with them for a time and I enjoy the worldplay; however, I cannot sustain my concentration and I become fatigued. I can parse your regular Blogwriting prose, by and large, without strain for an unlimited reading session.

I read alot of Aurobindo, and he used the grand Victorian English style, which I particularly fancy. He liked to write long, intricate, arcane, convoluted sentences, saturated with commas and dependent clauses. The resulting dense paragraphs require alot of enjoyable effort to explicate, somewhat like yours. Reading sessions have to be limited to 5-15 minutes, or numbness sets in.

The Mother wrote straightforward, French inflected, friendly prose that is also very effective and uses the short, sassy sentence to get the message across. Reading sessions must needs be short with her stuff, too, as the ideas are too large to stuff too many in at once... they must be chewed.

What I am trying to say is, my good man, write on! A variety and mixture of the styles shows more versatility than most scriptural writers.

Many passages of the King James Bible start bouncing off my frontal lobes within 30-60 seconds of beginning the session. It is not so much inscrutable as it produces imagery that makes my decoding section wander into historical contexts almost at once; I cannot easily shake the spiritual content free of the archaic language of the text. Anyone else have problems?

Probably this is why scriptures have to be endlessly rewritten to account for generational drift. My pet project is to experiment with scriptures for the Internet Generation, who send short text messages and so forth and think in terms of data/computing. They need a style/content that they can parse without going numb. Anyone have ideas?

Anonymous said...

Bob,

. . .Maher and his ilk are smug in effete prep school ways...they act like the barely post-adolescent drunks in college who mocked everything, especially religion. A friend told me the other day that religion is for people who are afraid to go to hell, and spirituality is for people who have been there. A little to glib, but it connects on this level: Maher has not been to hell. His hell is subcutaneous. He takes it with him everywhere he goes.

Gagdad Bob achieves liftoff while Maher is the lizard on the floor of the fraternity house lounge.

QP said...

While uncharacteristically, patiently awaiting a promotion to the next rung, I clicked on the OC Patsy Cline song link....scrollin' and readin'
and further down the page
on the left I spy:


1.) The Tao Te Ching: An Illustrated Journey by Lao Tzu

2.) Cuisinart GR-3 Griddler Jr, Brushed Stainless... Cuisinart

3.) On Awakening & Remembering: To Know is To Be by Mark Perry

WTF? How's that related to "When You Need a Laugh"? Oh yea, that's my list of recently viewed items. Ha, ha.

I'm easily diverted and amused.

Maher entertains the most extraordinary illusions.

julie said...

Anonymous, I find that with the wordplay it's best, at first, to just kind of let your mind dance over them. Don't think too hard about what they mean right away, just read it fast and think about how it would sound. Wait a bit. Then read it again, slower. If you try to comprehend every wordplay right off the bat, you just get bogged down. Actually, I find the same to be true of a lot of denser writing. Reading it too slow is like trying to read words one letter at a time. The meaning gets lost.

mushroom said...

"For he has put everything under his feet ... And when everything is subject to him, then the Son himself will also be subject to him who subjected everything to him, so that God may be all in all." 1 Cor. 15:27-28

It really is a circular concept.


Marred Maher the Baboon Maroon.

Anonymous said...

Anon said:
"My pet project is to experiment with scriptures for the Internet Generation, who send short text messages and so forth and think in terms of data/computing. They need a style/content that they can parse without going numb. Anyone have ideas?"

Be careful when trying to appeal to the masses by clothing Truth in their language. You will end up doing to scripture what the Nashville sound did to country music.

Unknown said...

"Be careful when trying to appeal to the masses by clothing Truth in their language. You will end up doing to scripture what the Nashville sound did to country music."

Or take a look at (in my opinion) what Eugene Petersen's "The Message" has done. As far as I am concerned if I want to read the bible I will read the bible it doesn't have to be the King James version but at least not an anthology or a paraphrase.

robinstarfish said...

For example, it is true that the house is a wreck. But we'll clean it in a couple of years, when he starts school. There would be no point before that.

Ha ha! What you really mean is when he leaves for college.

There is no point before that. ;-)

Back to the post.

NoMo said...

Anon (9:10) - I've mentioned this here before, but in answer to your request for ideas: Since the Blble is really a collection of sacred books, here is a thematic approach to the overall story that I've found very approachable for someone with the "bible-willies". Plus it uses the TNIV, which I personally like.

Raccoons - here is my secret message of the day!

HBTY
HBTY
HBDN
HBTY
........55.........

julie said...

Robin, I was thinking the same thing :D

robinstarfish said...

Is Bill Maher a Saul of Tarsus? As Maher makes his rounds persecuting believers of all stripes, you have to wonder just how far he can push it before either he snaps or he sees the blinding light.

Stranger things have happened. And I wasn't so different than him before I was struck by holy lightning when and where I least expected it.

julie said...

Boy howdy, that'd be an amazing transformation. The question is, does he have the strength of character to endure that kind of revelation without completely and irrevocably cracking up? Because really, how could he live with himself after that? Facing my own garden-variety personal demons is tough enough. I can't even comprehend what it would be like facing his, especially knowing that he has spent a big portion of his life showering them upon the masses. He also seems the type to think that he's smarter than everyone else; post rev, he'd have to be pretty canny to avoid the trap of believing he's worse than everyone else/ suffering more than everyone else/ holier than everyone else (famous people often have this problem)... or some variant thereof. Anyway, he's lacking a critical element of humility, which is just as serious a problem in the believer as in the unbeliever.

Anyway, I'm trying to picture a Maher filled with joy and wonder and humility and awe. Which is making my brain hurt, because I don't think he's currently capable of such emotions.

That's actually rather tragic.

Ephrem Antony Gray said...

Drinking the blood of a 2000-year-old space God makes it sound really cool, actually.

But there's the simplemindedness again..

Magnus Itland said...

I agree with River there. It sounds like something that would impart cosmic powers or somesuch. Or blow your mind to bits if not properly prepared.

Warren said...

River,

I had the same reaction. If Maher keeps talking like that, he's going to get quite a few young people checking out the Church. Mysterious ways, and all that. ;-)

Anonymous said...

Mmmmm, theophagy.

Anonymous said...

I couldn't agree more that the "TOE" has to include the spiritual.

Yet I haunt the science dailies waiting for the various pioneering efforts to yield fruit. I used to be able to keep track of the fundamentals of quantum theories in so far as you can without the requisite math, but ever since the advent of the string theories, it has gotten beyond me. Now the Higgs boson is the big thing over at CERN. They need to find it or revamp the theories in big ways. It seems they need a boson (Higgs) to function in much the same way that a lepton (photon) does. The Higgs is the mass particle as the photon is the energy particle. But to find it or its after effects isolated they have to create collisions at such a high impact that it is virtually a "time travel" to conditions only found at the "beginning" of our present cosmos.

That possibility creates in me the same feelings that spiritual possibilities do. Either they find the Higgs and confirm the theories even more strongly, or they don't and then have to start somewhat over, because the theories then have to take a new shape. And they will reshape the theories if they have to. The work will demand it, either way.

Rick said...

Robin,
I didn’t want to say…

But there is an upside: the boy soon enough will be sleeping till at least 11am.

Rick said...

Bob,
Quick question. I was digging a hole in the backyard yesterday…or maybe it was sweeping the street…anyway, are there any female trolls?
Not that I’m interested, of course. It’s just…I suddenly couldn’t help not noticing.
I bring it up because I get the sense it’s somehow related to natural selection…or not, as in, if natural selection were true, or "all there is" then there would be female trolls showing up here, right?

Rick said...

I’m partially serious.

Anonymous said...

"the house is a wreck. But we'll clean it in a couple of years, when he starts school. There would be no point before that."

Not funny! Get Leslie some housecleaning help at least once a month, every two weeks better. Sanity matters!

Don't make me come out there.

walt said...

A person like Bill Maher is an extreme case. But if, by chance, he read the sentence that you quoted from Ware -- "When the intellect is no longer dissipated among external things or dispersed across the world through the senses, it returns to itself; and by means of itself ascends to the thought of God." -- he would disagree, of course, but would assume he understood the statement. Because such horizontal creatures believe the word "intellect" refers to what is proceeding in their mind.

But it can be observed: their "intellect" is entirely dissipated amongst externals, for that is their world, and their awareness is completely dispersed through incessant restless reactivity; there is no self to return to, no center or inner stability; and such a state cannot ascend, because it is automatic, and only a subject to the next stimulus.

It will never occur to Maher, or his peers, that the word "intellect" references anything but which they are certain they possess. And so Ware's statement is another example of the secret protecting itself. Or, as you said a little later in the post:
"...we are not going from the "natural" to the "supernatural" world. Rather, we are going from the unnatural to the natural world."

Ephrem Antony Gray said...

With Ware, it is always helpful to read all of his statements with a Chestertonian Oxford Accent.

Van Harvey said...

"I don't know about you, but when I attend a religious service -- or even just write a post -- that is precisely what I am doing. It has nothing to do with 2000 year-old space gods, but reascending to the father shore. It has nothing to do with going back in time, but rather, beyond time and up in space like an astralnaut. Ware agrees that "When the intellect is no longer dissipated among external things or dispersed across the world through the senses, it returns to itself; and by means of itself ascends to the thought of God." "

Nothing to add... just thinking similar thoughts... or twin thoughts of different druthers.

Anonymous said...

Ricky:

There are no female trolls, because they just don't give a s**t about Darwinism. In fact, they all HATE IT. They are all very willing to believe in "O", in more ways than one. However, if you want a contentious woman up in your grill, have a relationship with one. But you already knew that.

Van Harvey said...

julie said...
"Robin, I was thinking the same thing :D"

Heh, me three.

Ricky Raccoon said "Robin,
I didn’t want to say… But there is an upside: the boy soon enough will be sleeping till at least 11am."

Been there... done... and doing that!

Anonymous said...

Nothing to add, except I thought NoMo's secret message shouldn't go unremarked upon. :-) HBTY, NoMo!

Rick said...

Anon,
For the last time, I’m not interested.

Anonymous said...

Geez, even I can’t tell them apart.

Rick said...

HBTY, NoMo!

Sammy Hagar says, hey, not so fast.

julie said...

Doh! It was so obvious, I was just looking in the wrong place :D
HBTY, Nomo! Well, I hope it was, anyway ;)

Anonymous said...

So when Aurobindo talks about "divinizing matter" or reconciling all the levels of creation, he is really talking like an Orthodox Christian

- Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

Biggest Joke. Do some sadhana/yoga/spiritual practice to get what he is saying. He is saying the ultimate form of divination not Christian form.

Anonymous said...

idiots. scary, scary idiots. the lot of you.

Anonymous said...

BOO!

Susannah said...

Nomo! I'm a slowby. Belated HBTY wishes!!

Theme Song

Theme Song