Sunday, March 11, 2007

Titanic Ignorance and Vertical Paralysis (12.09.10)

Continuing along our line of inquiry, the fifth day of creation must resonate with the third miracle of John. God's activity on the fifth day is rather intriguing, even for Him. First, he fills the waters with fish below and then the sky above with birds that fly "across the face of the firmament" (or the "membrane of heaven," as discussed a couple of posts ago). He creates "everything that moves" according to a divine archetype, but purposely holds back a bit, in that he doesn't fill the earth to capacity. Rather, he leaves that to the generative activity of his creatures.

As an aside, isn't it remarkable that Christianity is still here a whole week after James Cameron destroyed it with empirical evidence?

I don't know how stupid James Cameron is, but I'm guessing that he would fall into the category of "pretty damn." The very idea of trying to find some empirical data capable of disproving the divine reality is just so dopey as to be beyond belief, but nevertheless, a "sign of the times," the "times" being exceedingly congenial to bovine materialists, rationalists, and reductionists. Being so, the only question is why a person who lives in two-dimensional flatland would waste his time trying to prove that spheres do not exist. Of course they do not exist -- not for rocks, not for bacteria, and obviously not for the likes of James Cameron. In the end, Cameron merely proved what for him is an ontological tautology: all spheres are actually circles.

And even if some spheres turn out to be circles, it remains a profound mystery as to how circles ever become spheres. One such instance occurred 3.85 billion years ago, when the cosmos exited the closed circle of material existence and suddenly became filled with "an abundance of creatures" -- a sphere of life. Every scientist who looks at life as a mere horizontal extension of matter is just as metaphysically unsophisticated as James Cameron or any other benighted atheist -- another instance of trying to "turn stones into bread," or quantity into quality. Cameron's little rearrangement of a few deck chairs can hardly keep his meager philosophy -- whatever it is -- afloat.

Along these lines, I skimmed a little piece entitled Will Biology Solve the Universe (TW: William). He's not especially deep, but at least this particular biologist is beginning to think along the correct lines by "turning the cosmos right side up." He is sort of a poor man's Robert Rosen (somewhat more accessibly presented here), whom I relied upon to bolster much of my argument in chapter two of One Cosmos, Biogenesis. Unfortunately, Robert Rosen is not here to further develop his profound ideas, since he died prematurely in 1998.

Early on in writing my book, I established a nice correspondence with Rosen's daughter, who is his literary executrix (being that her father passionately believed that executrix was for kids). She even tentatively agreed to give me a blurb, as she was quite gratified that someone should be so enthusiastic about presenting her father's relatively unknown ideas so clearly.

Looking back, I now see that it was an indiscretion to prematurely spring the prologue and epilogue of the book on her, after which things became distinctly chilly. Despite his revolutionary ideas, her father was nevertheless a strict scientist, and would not have wanted to associate himself with a zany creation myth hatched up in someone's coon den -- or even my zany creation myth, for that matter. It's hard enough to get people to take a new theory seriously without dooming it from the outset by association with the likes of me and Petey. Whatever. Bygones.

In any event, how does one "disprove" that God created life on the fifth day? To even ask the question is to have missed the point, the point being to meditate on the meaning of such a statement. In order to do that, we must examine its entire context, as well as the general metaphysical view that is developed and promulagted in Genesis. And if you are a Christian, you must definitely analyze it teleologically in light of the Gospels, since the Old Testament points to (or in philosophical terms, "entails") the New, while the New Testament illuminates the Old. The correspondence of miracles is just one of a multitude of ways to expand upon this dialectical resonance.

In general, as Tomberg points out, the ingression of life into the cosmos represents the presence of "ensouled movement" in the world. The specific reference to fish and birds implies verticality: creatures above and creatures below the domain of man. There are beings who skirt along the "firmament" above, as well as those who dwell in the dark waters below. As if we didn't know.

Now, the third miracle recorded in the Gospel of John involves an incident in Bethesda, when Jesus comes across a multitude of sick people who are blind, lame, and paralyzed, and who lay by a pool of water that has five porches. Every so often an angel "stirs the water," and someone is healed of his affliction, but only the first one in. Since life is ensouled movement, the implication is that paralysis symbolically represents an absence of life.

Jesus heals a certain man who had been paralyzed for 38 years, which is to say "restores the faculty of ensouled movement." But this does not happen as a result of a random "stirring of the waters." Rather, it occurs after Jesus says to him, "Rise, take up your bed and walk." According to Tomberg, the words "rise" and "take up your bed" refer back to the fifth day of creation, "namely the creation of ensouled movement in the vertical ['rise up'] and in the horizontal ['walk']."

Now movement ("ensouled life") is cosmic in its significance, as I argued in Biogenesis. Tomberg elaborates: "the human being stands within a stream of cosmic energies -- his thoughts in the streams of the thought world, his feelings in the streams of the world's psychic forces, and his impulses of will are immersed in the streams of world-will-energy and are 'plugged into' them."

Therefore, just as someone "who holds his breath and takes in no more air will suffocate, so will someone who cuts himself off from the streams of cosmic energies become paralyzed." It is specifically this "cutting off," or self-willed vertical exile, that represents the quintessence of sin, which is why Jesus later encounters the man in the temple and says to him, "Sin no more, lest a worse thing come upon you," buddy.

James Cameron is as good an example as any of a paralyzed -- not to say completely lame -- excuse for a man. What is specifically denied him -- not by God, of course, but by himself -- is vertical movement. He is a vertical paraplegic, so that he can neither rise nor walk, although he is obviously capable of slithering about on the ground. He reclines by the waters (the so-called "crypt of Jesus") and omnipotently reverses the fifth day of creation, just as one would expect an envious god to do. For he is a fully dopeutized King of this World. He can do anything, even miraculously undo miracles. Being an envious little godling, he naturally wants others to share in his horizontal prison, thus the fervent enviangelism of his "bad news" on the Deiscoffery Channel.

The third miracle -- and it is a miracle -- is the "re-'plugging in'" of human beings "into the ensouled movement of the world," which through sin, "had become cut off and thereby paralyzed." As such, this miracle is the archetype of repentance or metanoia, when one consciously "turns around" and reconnects with man's proper habitat, the vertical. Just like his most famous creature, Cameron has sunk beneath the dark waters, the gravity of man's fall being what it is.

40 comments:

Anonymous said...

"He is a vertical paraplegic, so that he can neither rise nor walk, although he is obviously capable of slithering about on the ground."


Coons we have here today witnessed another Gagdad Bob round-up, where the lame, the slithering, and the venomous among us are routinely flushed out of their hiding holes and slaughtered. Let's celebrate -let's have a festival - let's heat up the cookers - let's eat some freshly fried snake. Yummmmmmm

Anonymous said...

Funny you should talk about snakes; we're going for a hike in the park today, and the first thing my husband said when he woke up was "Shouldn't we be worried about snakes?" (He's concerned about the dogs getting bitten.)

I'll keep a close eye on the trail, but I do wonder if it's the reptiles I should be watching out for ; )

Anonymous said...

One of my earliest memories is of a rattlesnake roundup in Texas. I was about three, but I remember a lot about that day.

More recently, I've eaten rattlesnake here in Arizona; tastes a bit like lemony chicken.

Anonymous said...

People like Cameron have great spiritual potential; it is axiomatic that those who resist God with all of their might make the most fervent God lovers when they turn around (as they often do when they are old). It's like the compression of a spring--when it rebounds it contains enormous energy.

God de-bunkers are those on the final slippery slope before falling off a precipice into full conversion.

This is why they de-bunk; they feel the approaching mass of God and their impending immersion into same and get anxious. They lash out in fear and trepidation.

Substance addiction, likewise, is a symptom of an impending conversion. It is the final pit of fear (hitting bottom) that provides the psychic force for a glorious resurgence.

People who appear to hate/debunk God are actually under His active care, being compressed, heated, destroyed, in preparation for a closer walk. It's part of a soul's education.

Folks who are indifferent to God are those who are furthest out of His light at the moment. Their turn will come.

That is what's going on with Cameron, in my opinon. He'll repent, possibly on his deathbed but maybe well before, and he will do so with great depth and sincerity.

JWM said...

No more greasy fried snakes for me.

I quit fryin.

Now I use Cousin Dupree's Bake a Snake.

Crispy on the outside, tender in the middle.
Cousin Dupree's Baka a Snake
is really tasty vittles.


JWM

Gagdad Bob said...

greybeard--

Yes, to be honest, I had thought the whole point of Titanic was that it was a pretty transparent, even ham-handed, Christian parable, Jack being the obvious Jesus figure and all.

Anonymous said...

Having connected recently to fairly sophisticated -- but orthodox -- perspectives on the Resurrection, I conclude that the worst-case based on The Latest Cameron is that we would simply have a subtler knowledge of what Resurrection molecules are and aren't. However, that investigation doesn't shine through as his motive, particularly.

The thesis that he is God haunted is plausible -- drawn to the Romantic numinous, poking and testing around the edges of the data of more traditional belief, not yet ready to investigate the only way possible: hurling all of one's self that can be summoned into the enterprise, even kicking and screaming. But he may have a tap on the shoulder some day. So may we all.

The man at Bethesda in the story displays an element of moral paralysis too. Whining, he had found no friends to help for thirty-eight years, complains rather than asking for healing, hasn't a clue where the healing came from, and has to be tracked down and warned he still is in great danger unless he changes his ways on a deeper level. Then for his final act on the Big Stage he rats out Jesus.

I'm not making this up, and found it quite interesting, having had a few "no good deed goes unpunished" moments myself lately...

robinstarfish said...

Special Feature:

The Robin Starfish Sunday Book Review

ONE COSMOS UNDER GOD is an ENORMOUS CODED SONG, delivering UNCENSORED OM GOODS. It DENOUNCES SMOG ODOR and ENSURES GOOD CONDOM. It has GROUNDED SOME COONS, NUDGED MOROSE COONS and SEDUCED MORON GOONS. Five stars.

Ephrem Antony Gray said...

Hmmm...

I've been fusing together unusual beverages and I may have come up with somethin' tasty.

--

With John, you have to pay attention to everything he wrote down; John is a book like a Mozart piece; Romantics say its too short, Baroques say there are too many notes, but Ol' Johnny would assure you there are as precisely as many as he intended.

Its worth noting that John is the last (chronologically) of the Gospels by quite a long time (20 years?) and thus is a different matter in some ways.

Imagine what it must've been like for him to sit down and write that thing. (In Greek no less...! ;) We don't really, I think, have details as to how the gospel itself was actually written, as in how long, etc. Guess we'll have to wait for the afteryears to ask the brother.

The seven will meet at four.

Hmmmmm.

Anonymous said...

Greybeard,
Your commnets put me in mind of the famous Meister Eckhardt saying, "...the more they blaspheme, the more they praise God".

Gagdad Bob said...

robinstarfish:

Very impressive anagrammery. Will is going to be very jealous...

Of course, I'm just doing my part to help "ENSURE GOD'S COONDOM" on earth.

Anonymous said...

Aha - I was wondering about the "good condom" bit!

Anonymous said...

JulieC,
I'd have to agree with you on the chickeny rattlesnake. Having dined on a freshly slain 5' timber rattler with 5 rednecks high in the hills on the North Carolina Tennessee border, I'd say it tasted like chicken fried in bacon grease (we roasted ours on a campfire).

I wouldn't worry about the dogs and snakes as most canines are able to sniff out a serpent long before they even get close and have an instinctual caution around them.

Ephrem Antony Gray said...

Ohhh... 13.. If you pair the numbers in thirteen (like Bob is doing with 7 - as well did Tomberg) and count inwards like: 1 13, 2 12, 3 11, 4 10, 5 9, 6 8, 7 7!

Or, 13, 24, 33, 40, 45, 48, 49.

So the series you get for the seven miracles/seven days is

7, 12, 15, 16.

Interestingly, if you divide you don't get a symmetrical series, (since division is not communitive) you'd get something like

.14, .33, .6, 1, 1.66, 3, 7
(one seventh, one third, three fifths, one, five thirds, three and seven.)

Count to seven in an incomprehensible fashion!

Stephen Macdonald said...

"life is ensouled movement"

Strikingly beautiful description.

I'm reminded of P.F. Strawson's description of life in his book Individuals: "embodied perceivers". Which we are indeed. But we are so much more, which "ensouled movement" captures so much more fully.

Ephrem Antony Gray said...

Oh, ok. Looking at it, say it like this:

one over seven.
one over three.
point six.
one.
one point six.
three.
seven.

Somehow the number of man, and those numbers of God have a relationship. Like man is an interior reflection of God.

Which is to say, I guess, man is God's idea...

Ephrem Antony Gray said...

ok, point six is three over five, the three over five is, three (Father, Son, Holy Ghost) over five - which is like three triangles attached side by side, three threenesses would be a family.

Still decoding...

Ephrem Antony Gray said...

One over seven (On the seventh day, God rested...)
One over three (Rejoice oh Israel, the Lord your God is one)
Three over Five (God is the head of the man, as the man is the head of the woman...)
One...?

I guess its mirrored or something. Start with one and end with one, so...
one, one point six (God thinks up man)
three?
seven?
Not sure. but then you'd have one over seven...

Not sure if anyone is following me, but I just wanted to write that down. It happened spontaneously in my head...

Ephrem Antony Gray said...

This remind anyone of something?

Ok, enough mathings. gtg...

Anonymous said...

--Coonfucius say “When you live a life without mathings, there’s less joy!”

NoMo said...

River - I'm a little concerned about your "unusual beverages". But more concerned as to why you're not sharing!

Anonymous said...

For he is a fully dopeutized King of this World. He can do anything, even miraculously undo miracles. Being an envious little godling, he naturally wants others to share in his horizontal prison

And how perfectly he has arrayed the Order in his comfy kingdom. Why, he's provided proof, man! His self-convinced stance will assure him that anyone who refutes a bit of what he has--oh, such a perfect word--empirically concluded is immediately suspect, be they learned archeologist, scientist or chemist. The only thing he'll see is, Christianist, and thereby he'll rest his case.

A perfect conclusion to all this is the ability to label. Own the "proof" and then label the dissenters as deniers, rednecks, bible-thumpers, simpletons, Fox News, etc. I think he's in the Camp of the Controllers, actually, and doubt he's hounded by anything except wanting to be significant again.

Van Harvey said...

Taking note of these two passages
"Rise, take up your bed and walk." According to Tomberg, the words "rise" and "take up your bed" refer back to the fifth day of creation, "namely the creation of ensouled movement in the vertical ['rise up'] and in the horizontal ['walk']." and "but purposely holds back a bit, in that he doesn't fill the earth to capacity. Rather, he leaves that to the generative activity of his creatures."

Put me in mind that perhaps his lameness was expressing his refusal to bridge the gap between the vertical and horizontal? God created life on the fifth day, but man still has to fill it with himself, to Live it, none can do it for him?

As he was given ensouled movement, his excuses bridged over, still his thoughts were focused on the horizontal by blaming he who healed him for his transgressions; in short he yet lacked ensouled thought, earning the "Behold, thou art made whole: sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee. " aparently what had blocked him in limb still blocked him in spirit.

His neglect of dynamic activity between heaven and earth still showed as he later fingered Jesus by name. "It is specifically this "cutting off," or self-willed vertical exile, that represents the quintessence of sin", is this an example that miraculous healing can be performed on your physical stuff, but you yourself still have to accept it and actively plug in between heaven and earth - not even the mesiah can do it for you?

Anonymous said...

Re: the great spiritual potential of the great blasphemers...

There is a Hindu tale about a loud and proselytizing atheist who nevertheless found his soul going up to God after his death - because, as much as he denounced Him publicly, in secret he found it impossible to keep his mind off Him.

I hope this isn't a duplicate post...

Van Harvey said...

Joan of Argghh! said of Cameron "... I think he's in the Camp of the Controllers, actually, and doubt he's hounded by anything except wanting to be significant again..."

I think you're right there, Joan. Gagdad's line "Cameron merely proved what for him is an ontological tautology: all spheres are actually circles." fits him to a zero.

Stephen Macdonald said...

Off the wall music question:

Bob, where's that other great American musical tradtion, country & western?

Hank Williams?
George Jones?
Patsy Cline?

Conspicuously absent...

Gagdad Bob said...

Smoov:

Right now I'm only covering rock and soul in my sidebar list. I'll get to jazz, blues, and country after we've run through my collection, Allman's to Zombies.

Rick said...

Thank you, Dr Bob.

Joan of Arghh said:
“I doubt he's hounded by anything except wanting to be significant again”

Yes. I believe it is something close to that too. I agree with all assessments here. I began to have the same feeling when his Titanic programs – the expeditions especially, seemed more about him and ‘lookie what I can do’ than anything else. I believe that’s exploitation. Which is strange too because the movie Titanic actually takes some time to set straight the grave robber who is after the diamond hidden inside. Freudian slip Dr? Cameron not only exploits the real tragedy – the real people who died, he also has stolen in a sense the discovery made by Dr Ballard. Remember him? People used to remember him associated with this finding and retelling of this maritime disaster. I don’t care for Ballard much either, but Camera-on seems to have pushed him aside by offering even less.

As I said before here, when documentaries (of which I am a still am a big fan – a fan of what they can do) begin to stop teaching anything, or are no longer offering anything worthwhile to the student about the subject itself, I can’t help conclude what they are really about. And they become repulsive. This latest “Tomb of Jesus” effort is obviously just about Mr. Cameron.

Will he finally be satisfied to prove to God that they both don’t exist?

What he doesn’t realize is what you suggest. He is no more, no less significant than anyone of us.

That he may have proven.

Anonymous said...

Bob, your last few posts have been very thought-provoking, and have stimulated a lot of conversation in our house. We really appreciate the fine influence.

(Owing to travel this week I'll be without OC; this is making me very nervous....)

Anonymous said...

Bob said:
"I don't know how stupid James Cameron is, but I'm guessing that he would fall into the category of "pretty damn."

Heh! Now that set my laugh-O-meter off!
Thanks Bob! I believe I om calibrated now.

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

Ms. E said:
"Coons we have here today witnessed another Gagdad Bob round-up, where the lame, the slithering, and the venomous among us are routinely flushed out of their hiding holes and slaughtered."

That was beautiful! I laughed until I cried (symbolically of course).

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

Jwm said...
"No more greasy fried snakes for me.

I quit fryin.

Now I use Cousin Dupree's Bake a Snake."

Good safety tip JWM!For those of us who are cholesterolcally challenged, you just can't beat Dupree's "shake a snake n' bake!"

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

River said:
"With John, you have to pay attention to everything he wrote down; John is a book like a Mozart piece; Romantics say its too short, Baroques say there are too many notes, but Ol' Johnny would assure you there are as precisely as many as he intended."

and: a bunch of math n'stuff.

Good Ol' Johnny Walker! Good stuff to drink when you wanna think.

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

Hoarhey said:
"I wouldn't worry about the dogs and snakes as most canines are able to sniff out a serpent long before they even get close and have an instinctual caution around them."

Hoarhey, you don't know our terrorer Cammilu.
She attacks first and thinks later. Anything that slithers and stupid (but I repeat myself) lefties, transforms her into Cujo.
Fortunately there rattlers are rare here, or she would probably be bitten. She is pretty fast though. :^)

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

Van said:
"His neglect of dynamic activity between heaven and earth still showed as he later fingered Jesus by name. "It is specifically this "cutting off," or self-willed vertical exile, that represents the quintessence of sin", is this an example that miraculous healing can be performed on your physical stuff, but you yourself still have to accept it and actively plug in between heaven and earth - not even the mesiah can do it for you?"

Yepper! It wasn't a coincidence that only one of the lepers healed by Jesus actually made the effort to thank him.

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

"Hey Ben! What are you doing this sunday night?" The obligatory mr. A. Nonymous asked me.

"I'm do stand-up at the OC, after I high-jack the comment section,"
I said.

"Well then, where is everyone else?" A. Non rudely asked.

"There drinkin' Johnny Walker that River brought. Unfortunately, I forgot where the party was tonight.
Now I'm missin' all the mathesterical funnyness that River is gnone for." I said.

"'Scuze me while I take a break, and highdolyze my parched throat with some Jonny Walker Red...all by my-sellelelf...gonna be...all by my-selfff...anyone...all by my
hey! Look what I found! A brand knew bottle I forgot I had! Wooooo!" I said as I opened it.

Anonymous said...

"..all by my-sellelelf...gonna be...all by my-selfff...anyone...all by my. . ."

Ben, You Been' funny, cuz we coons know you not A-lone-cooner.

Good thing I tapped out early last night 'cause I was awakened by the rumbling noise of not one, not two, but three big burping-belching rigs this morning at 5 A. argh M. Seems the 28 year old charming Texas farmhouse across the street had to go, had to make room for something bigger and better on an $800,000 dollar LOT - there goes the neighborhood.

This 'good neighbor' will be making a neighborly call on the foreman soon as he shows up - I reckon around 9 or 10; meanwhile I'm just hanging around outside the front door of the Coon Lodge ...all by my-selfff.

junoaul = jou-nohaul at 5 a.m.

Van Harvey said...

Ben,
For this morning, I recommend strong black coffee - circa American-coffeeshop-early-1960's if you can find it, or maybe Starbucks Verona... not to strong or skunky, won't upset the walked-on stomach, but still packs a punch.

wv:drayg
updated wv:oviuyi the sound Ben makes hollering in the snake round up after the fifth walker

Ephrem Antony Gray said...

After having finished Prince's book (They Shall Expel Demons) - and reading Schoun, it becomes clear to me that the gulf between what Prince wrote and what say, Paul wrote, is more or less infinite. This is not to say Prince is wrong, but rather, he is parochial. The limitations of mere reason seem to force certain explanations that are narrow at best. Sometimes, he breaks open into a point of genuine intellection, but seems to shun the idea of it.

And this is how, despite different levels of correctness, Prince could be on the same level as a lot of those science writers-- a religious materialist. Its not that he is permanently stuck there, but that he keeps himself there (for rare moments he will display genuine insight, but doesn't seem to want to 'roll' with it.)

It is almost as though men refuse to awaken their intellect, but why? Obviously some who have, have used it to fashion idols for themselves; but what is a natural human faculty that cannot be used for either good or evil?

And that's the thing- you'll never truly grasp what the occult is, or any of these things without intellection. Or, rather, you will always rely on the explanation given by an intellectual, who may or may not be a person of virtue, and either way, a human nonetheless and still of imperfect vision.

Not sure if I agree with Schoun's discarding of 'transformist evolution', but then again, by the definition of it he is using he may be right.

(Been reading In The Face of The Absolute.)

Again, I have always noticed that really the only thing that is 100% unique about Christianity, and gives it any kind of authority (that is, over other religious thought) is Christ himself. I don't know if Schoun would have agreed, but it seems to me that many other religions get to the point just before Christ, but... well, there can be only one, I guess. Schoun definitely and I mean very clearly grasps him in the abstract, (Speaking about the truth he says, We must dwell in the Truth as the Truth dwells in us...), but I don't know yet about the matter in other levels.

Anyhow, if there is anything Schoun has done for me, I can say that he has aided me in understanding how one can have an absolute and unshakable certainty in God that cannot be cast aside by empirical evidence. Rather, that we recognize that there will be contradictions, but they are not due to God being false (as though he could be) but by the fallen nature of the world, the truth is perverted or twisted (as through a mirror, darkly.)

It seems to me that to a certain extent, the intellect may be capable of doing battle with demons and their ilk; this would make the intellect a gift from God, then. Any ideas about this?

Anonymous said...

Ms. E-
You ratted me out!
I admit it. I was bein' funny. But, I was by mysellff for awhile.
I hope the foreman listens to you.
Trucks at 0500 is uncivilized.

Ven-
Thanks for the coffee tip an. I had a few cups of good Columbian:
Strong and smooth. Smart. Nuanced.

We couldn't find any snakes last night, Cammilu and I. Oscar Von Spock chose to sleep-in.
We did find a gaggle of frogs though.

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