tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post3953763322491200148..comments2024-03-27T11:16:36.951-07:00Comments on One Cʘsmos: De-divinization, Dehumanization, and Radical StupidityGagdad Bobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14249005793605006679noreply@blogger.comBlogger14125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-13663164977648783442012-04-26T00:25:57.274-07:002012-04-26T00:25:57.274-07:00When humans developed the ability to choose betwee...When humans developed the ability to choose between good and evil it made them a step higher.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-47709118370874245452012-04-25T07:08:53.545-07:002012-04-25T07:08:53.545-07:00Oh, wow, Van. That's really a shame - obviousl...Oh, wow, Van. That's really a shame - obviously, the guy is literate and intelligent, but then again he's not. And it has nothing to do with color, but rather the willful blindness in assuming that his skin color and yours must necessarily make you at odds. <br /><br />I've seen this mindset in my own family, too. The trouble is, certain experiences become taken for universal: this particular white person had a problem with that person's blackness and treated them poorly: this white person must represent how all white people feel, if not openly then secretly. <br /><br />Once someone gets locked into that mindset, it's very hard if not impossible to shake them out of it.juliehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15975754287030568726noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-64748099902828693262012-04-25T06:48:49.846-07:002012-04-25T06:48:49.846-07:00Somewhat OT, I concluded, ended, a year long conve...Somewhat OT, I concluded, ended, a year long conversation (of sorts) with someone yesterday, who can be summed up as "he dies spiritually, he loses contact with the spiritual per se", and equally so for intellectually... though of course he still aped the forms of both, but his real contact with them was knotted off and sealed with the most self-righteous of lies.<br /><br />There was something not a little horrifying in the sense of righteous indignation which his preferred lie (that his blackness innoculated him against the racism which every white person is knowingly or unknowingly infected with - another of Obamao's Harvard professorsss students). There's something morbidly fascinating, from the point of view of a philosophical coroner I suppose, in seeing this seemingly functioning mind, that has been innoculated against reality, fiercely holding onto lies (and you can walk him through the truth of the lie, and still he denies it) as if they were salvational truth.<br /><br />I'd known it was a lost cause for some time, but still had that hope that I could find that wiggle room in the knot for him, so that he could untie it from the inside, but this last made it clear that it was never even up to being a lost cause:<br /><br />"<i>I would hope to make a seemingly fellow intellectual understand that his being white is dispositive . Not only are you white but you're white in relationship to my being black which gins up some very worthy points of interest in this beloved country. </i>"<br /><br />What's really weird is that phrases like 'fellow intellectual' and 'honorable' he sprinkles about often, Screwy Louie-like, not for what they say about whoever he's talking about, but for the light he feels they cast upon him. Through a glass darkly....<br /><br />This guy has a high level, well respected place in his community, and he is spreading the De-divinization, Dehumanization, and Radical Stupidity of his political faith, far and wide.<br /><br />This year is going to be one for the history books.Van Harveyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08470413719262297062noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-25048112729934482072012-04-25T06:14:36.303-07:002012-04-25T06:14:36.303-07:00"Ironically, these latter are defined by the ..."Ironically, these latter are defined by the regimes in question as the essence of pathology: religion as opiate or mask for illicit power. Thus, <i>before the guillotine falls or the gulags open for business, man is decapitated and imprisoned in an environment intrinsically hostile to man as such </i>-- in which there is no spiritual oxygen, food, or water. And as he dies spiritually, he loses contact with the spiritual per se."<br /><br />Ok, I'd better stop before I repaste the whOle post... just wanted to see that again.Van Harveyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08470413719262297062noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-17315409011813749672012-04-25T06:10:00.924-07:002012-04-25T06:10:00.924-07:00"Thus, "Reason and spirit are the two mo..."Thus, "Reason and spirit are the two modes of constitution of man, which were generalized as the idea of man." This is a -- the -- definitive definition of man, because <b>it cannot be surpassed, only fallen short of</b>. Emphasizing one over the other, or one to the exclusion of the other, results in man being maimed at his ground and center: the dry rot of Moscow or the wet rot of Teheran."<br /><br />One of the prime ways to fall short of them both, is to search for their supposed causes, in a way that elevates those causes (mechanical, materialistic, natch) over what they supposedly caused... the search for an anti-principle that dissolves the thing sought, rather than one which deepens your understanding of that which <i>is</i> there to be found - if sought.Van Harveyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08470413719262297062noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-9905217363834952992012-04-25T05:58:50.577-07:002012-04-25T05:58:50.577-07:00"Note again that this is a definitional (and ..."Note again that this is a definitional (and ontological) statement, in that it goes to what man "is." And it is obviously universal, in that it applies to all men at all times."<br /><br />Bill Clinton says: <i>"Nuh-ah! Doesn't apply to me! You see, it depends upon what your definition of...."</i><br /><br />Of course, if you don't know what a Man is, then 'IS' is right out of the question.Van Harveyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08470413719262297062noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-84860089713302816522012-04-25T05:57:46.122-07:002012-04-25T05:57:46.122-07:00unearthed photo
Happier Daysunearthed photo <br /><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Rde-p-CTcYQ/T2dvwYT6D_I/AAAAAAAAJ_o/6uCej9kAXFE/s1600/Harry%2B%2526%2BJohn.png" rel="nofollow">Happier Days</a>gehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02015936407999495181noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-72458229132841833672012-04-24T13:01:17.876-07:002012-04-24T13:01:17.876-07:00By the way, along these same lines, the C.S. Lewis...By the way, along these same lines, <a href="http://booksbycslewis.blogspot.com/" rel="nofollow">the C.S. Lewis blog </a>has been doing a series on the <i>Space Trilogy</i>, especially <i>That Hideous Strength</i>.mushroomhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07651027035577798096noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-2826667469958166462012-04-24T11:14:56.306-07:002012-04-24T11:14:56.306-07:00It's amazing that Israel continued to dedivini...It's amazing that Israel continued to dedivinize and endivinize itself, but it's even more amazing that God continued to shape that process, faithful as ever. <br /><br />Finally, he laid Christ down as the bridge to himself not only to Israel but to all humanity. And we still refuse to walk across it! We even burn it! How many times have we ignored it, tested it skeptically, dumped stuff on it, talked it down, cut its suspensions, burnt its planks, and made it suffer countless little cruelties and neglect because ... why? Because it wasn't OUR bridge? Because we FELT bad? Because we couldn't SEE the other side clearly enough? Because we COULD?<br /><br />Narrow is the way. <br /><br />But even if religious freedom is restricted everywhere, the way is still open to every human heart. <br /><br />The godless DO dominate and control, but they cannot touch our essence. God remembers his people, and he will remember them into resurrection.Tonyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00987042455512485699noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-65631267874938372162012-04-24T10:51:23.951-07:002012-04-24T10:51:23.951-07:00Dedivinizing has enormous consequences, which maim...<i>Dedivinizing has enormous consequences, which maim not only spirit but reason, as history proves time and again.</i><br /><br />I was just thinking about this this morning. <br /><i><br />They set your sanctuary on fire;<br />they profaned the dwelling place of your name, bringing it down to the ground. <br /><br />They said to themselves, “We will utterly subdue them”; they burned all the meeting places of God in the land. </i> (Psalm 74:7-8)<br /><br />The intent was to deny the people of God their identity as a people. In the resultant chaos and despair, the godless hoped to dominate and control.mushroomhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07651027035577798096noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-69967880105413750932012-04-24T10:37:23.161-07:002012-04-24T10:37:23.161-07:00man is decapitated and imprisoned in an environmen...<i>man is decapitated and imprisoned in an environment intrinsically hostile to man as such -- in which there is no spiritual oxygen, food, or water</i><br /><br />Cf. http://chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/1349244?eng=y<br /><br />"fully 59 percent of the world's population today lives with 'high' or 'very high' levels of restrictions on religious freedom"<br /><br />Not all such restrictions are bad. Restrictions on Islamic beheadings are, we should think, rather good.<br /><br />Who suffers most? Evidently, it's Christians.<br /><br /><i>sicut dixit</i>Tonyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00987042455512485699noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-9235715234457459522012-04-24T08:54:06.345-07:002012-04-24T08:54:06.345-07:00Of course, if we don't mind,
it doesn't m...Of course, if we don't mind, <br />it doesn't matter. . .<br /><br />:o)Joan of Argghh!https://www.blogger.com/profile/14729682908266300507noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-75267416624842043742012-04-24T08:52:44.482-07:002012-04-24T08:52:44.482-07:00Yes - in thinking that a brain is enough, the dedi...Yes - in thinking that a brain is enough, the dedivinization begins. Much like saying that genes determine everything about a person. Either way, man is reduced to conscious matter, and of course matter can be manipulated any old way we please...juliehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15975754287030568726noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-84593810196888042382012-04-24T08:41:49.485-07:002012-04-24T08:41:49.485-07:00just as we don't expect to find wings in envir...<i>just as we don't expect to find wings in environments where flight is impossible, or eyes where there is no light, we don't expect to find intellect where truth is impossible</i><br /><br />In our individual evolution, Truth is a vital part of development of the organ of intellect. <br /><br />Some folks think it's enough to just have a brain. There's the trouble.Joan of Argghh!https://www.blogger.com/profile/14729682908266300507noreply@blogger.com