tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post6216741544536319356..comments2024-03-18T19:37:21.040-07:00Comments on One Cʘsmos: Atheism and the Wings of Irreligious FaithGagdad Bobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14249005793605006679noreply@blogger.comBlogger14125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-16717556124040234202011-02-25T00:45:51.365-08:002011-02-25T00:45:51.365-08:00Therefore, instead of taking an absurd leap of fai...Therefore, instead of taking an absurd leap of faith into faithlessness, or believing in disbelief, one might as well illuminate the muddleman and just be a believer, period. <br /><br />The muddleman is the precurser of darkness and it's always best not to muddle anyways.<br /><br />Leftists are never satisfied muddling their own business which is why they muddle everyone elses.<br /><br />Besides, if leftists did simply muddle their own business they would either cut themselves out or become dis-illusioned soon enough.USS Ben USN (Ret)https://www.blogger.com/profile/07492369604790651538noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-84400858052197845582011-02-25T00:34:14.511-08:002011-02-25T00:34:14.511-08:00Could be worse.--Yeah, how?--Could be raining fire...Could be worse.--Yeah, how?--Could be raining fire.<br /><br />That is a smidgin worse than Skully after an all-you-can-eat buffalo wings hootinanny.USS Ben USN (Ret)https://www.blogger.com/profile/07492369604790651538noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-55563187477882899212011-02-24T16:24:03.360-08:002011-02-24T16:24:03.360-08:00Apropos, I noticed Beginning to Pray on the sideba...Apropos, I noticed <i>Beginning to Pray</i> on the sidebar the other day, and having heard of it before over at the Anchoress' place decided to pick it up.<br /><br />So, from today's post, the various As of D.C. and the following:<br /><br /><i>In other words, when Christ meets and mingles with a soul, a "new man" is created, each new in his own way.</i><br /><br />And from the intro to <i>Beginning to Pray</i>:<br /><br />"I expected nothing good from my reading, so I counted the chapters of the four Gospels to be sure I read the shortest, not to waste time unnecessarily. I started to read St. Mark's Gospel.<br /><br />While I was reading the beginning of St. Mark's Gospel, before I reached the third chapter, I suddenly became aware that on the other side of my desk there was a presence. And the certainty was so strong that it was Christ standing there that it has never left me. This was the real turning point. Because Christ was alive and had been in his presence I could say with certainty that what the Gospel said ... was true... History I had to believe, the Resurrection I knew for a fact. I did not discover, as you see, the Gospel beginning with its first message of the Annunciation, and it did not unfold for me as a story which one can believe or disbelieve. It began as an event that left all problems of disbelief behind because it was a direct and personal experience."juliehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15975754287030568726noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-47945599935613572672011-02-24T13:54:06.150-08:002011-02-24T13:54:06.150-08:00Not at all; I loathe him, too.
Even after getting...Not at all; I loathe him, too.<br /><br />Even after getting a painting degree, I can't say I know art, but I know what I like ;)juliehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15975754287030568726noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-80313831367838119122011-02-24T13:48:16.212-08:002011-02-24T13:48:16.212-08:00I will accept that there is some merit to abstract...I will accept that there is some merit to abstract art as long as I don't have to give up my loathing of all things Jackson Pollock.mushroomhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07651027035577798096noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-71294116975933682752011-02-24T12:14:13.271-08:002011-02-24T12:14:13.271-08:00" I suppose it's similar to the tenured w..." I suppose it's similar to the tenured who deny the existence of truth. The only way they can experience truth is in an inverted form, for to deny truth is obviously to affirm it. Thus, they live in a world of weird conventions and superstitions that hem them into a kind of pseudo version of truth and reality."<br /><br />Ain't that the Truth.Van Harveyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08470413719262297062noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-18362101424183995702011-02-24T12:08:07.461-08:002011-02-24T12:08:07.461-08:00Julie -
I can't say whether your art colleag...Julie - <br /><br />I can't say whether your art colleague had completely gone over to the dark side, but the fact is: when an individual's spiritual inversion is complete, he or she actually finds the Good literally painful to behold. That's why demons are said to inhabit deserts and caves, that's why they actually are attracted to garbage and decay.<br /><br />And that's why I endeavor to keep a fairly tidy home.willnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-41327851062725581402011-02-24T11:47:16.184-08:002011-02-24T11:47:16.184-08:00Will,
Anybody who really does find such "hig...Will,<br /><br /><i>Anybody who really does find such "higher things" as sunshine, flowers, kittens, Christianity, etc., truly revolting is somebody to whom I'm going to give wide berth.</i><br /><br />I once took an art class where one of my fellow students was like that. We went to the museum across the street to see some watercolors by <a href="http://www.pauljenkins.net/works/wate.html" rel="nofollow">Paul Jenkins</a>, and when the teacher asked what people thought, he <i>hated</i> it. The brightness of the colors was too cheerful, too <i>pure</i>. Me, I'm not often much of an abstract fan, but these were just gorgeous. The photos on his website don't do them justice, they were like visual Jolly Ranchers.<br /><br />Anyway, I can understand being unmoved by the abstract, but his visceral dislike of the essential purity of the colors was shocking, to the point that most of the rest of the class steered clear of him after that.juliehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15975754287030568726noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-78678760081744689992011-02-24T10:51:37.770-08:002011-02-24T10:51:37.770-08:00In other words, when Christ meets and mingles with...<i>In other words, when Christ meets and mingles with a soul, a "new man" is created, each new in his own way. It is not possible to create a theology in an additive way, out of all these very personal experiences. Even so, there is no escaping the fact that Certain ideas are only clear when formulated, but others are only clear when alluded to (DC). </i><br /><br />Wow, does that ever <a href="http://robinstarfish.blogspot.com/2011/02/calipers.html" rel="nofollow">resonate</a> with me today.robinstarfishhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15665546554663005609noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-73949157274266067772011-02-24T10:46:28.449-08:002011-02-24T10:46:28.449-08:00>>our aversions can be to things both higher...>>our aversions can be to things both higher and lower<<<br /><br />Hmm, I think an aversion to, let's say, classical music - which some people claim to have - is not so much the visceral, stomach-turning aversion that the Don was speaking of, or so I take it. This kind of aversion seems to me to be more on the lines of "Classical music doesn't do anything for me, I find it rather boring."<br /><br />Likewise some people's "aversion" to flowers, train travel, the humor of Dennis Miller, and Tudor-style architecture. This, I think, is not really the aversion of the truly spiritually dead, although if you've taken Amtrak lately . . . <br /><br />Anybody who really does find such "higher things" as sunshine, flowers, kittens, Christianity, etc., truly revolting is somebody to whom I'm going to give wide berth.willnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-67945442310186445572011-02-24T10:21:13.284-08:002011-02-24T10:21:13.284-08:00BTW, I don't care much for what might be calle...BTW, I don't care much for what might be called "vital jazz" of the lower vertical. I much prefer the cerebro-spiritual type that flourished between around '59 and '67....Gagdad Bobhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14249005793605006679noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-7428261618513697022011-02-24T10:18:11.447-08:002011-02-24T10:18:11.447-08:00Also, our aversions can be to things both higher a...Also, our aversions can be to things both higher and lower. Obviously, only the latter are good aversions, so to be repelled by beer or jazz is wrong <i>a priori</i>. God wishes us to be happy and to swing.Gagdad Bobhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14249005793605006679noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-49964388564334953992011-02-24T10:15:53.446-08:002011-02-24T10:15:53.446-08:00The Don is often being a little ironic, but I can ...The Don is often being a little ironic, but I can certainly see, for example, how my son's spontaneous aversion to all things homosexual is a sound council. To tell him he is "homophobic" would be as benighted as telling him one ought to mistreat or bully homosexuals.Gagdad Bobhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14249005793605006679noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-26959914639458024582011-02-24T10:03:32.236-08:002011-02-24T10:03:32.236-08:00>>Grace, like sunlight, falls upon everyone ...>>Grace, like sunlight, falls upon everyone (although not everyone is receptive to it). But instead of conveying light and warmth, the inverted version drops Napalm, or liquid fire<<<br /><br />I think this can also be understood as a counter-evolutionary regression back into God's primal fire. The rain of fire that pelts the atheists is also of God, it IS God, to be sure, but it is the un-sublimated fire that does not produce Light - it's really order reduced to chaos. <br /><br />>>Our spontaneous aversions are often more lucid than our reasoned convictions<<<br /><br />Hmm, well. When jazz music first left the bordellos of New Orleans in the early decades of the 20th C. to spread north to NY, Chicago, Kansas City, etc., it was initially received by northerners with gasps of horror and revulsion, this due to the music's emphasis on sensuality. It's easy to dismiss this reaction as that of a bunch of uptight, intolerant fogies, but . . . it does make me dwell on how much of that we first found ugly and appalling and that, over time, we began to accept and even embrace. (I say this as a jazz fan, btw)<br /><br />I think that often, when we forget or dismiss our initial spontaneous aversions, we go a distance in deadening ourselves, in atrophying our higher senses. <br /><br />I might add, however, that my initial spontaneous aversion to beer has long since been overcome, and that I see no real spiritual failing here.willnoreply@blogger.com