[lit-ideas] Re: One fewer god
- From: "Mike Geary" <atlas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 26 Aug 2006 23:58:39 -0500
JS:
>>But if I am reading you correctly you are making Pascal's wager and investing
>>in the heavenly hedge fund.<<
Well, no, not really. Pascal was a wussy. But Pascal's dictum about the heart
having reasons that reason doesn't know rings my bell. We believe what we need
to believe to get through life, at least that's what I believe. Whether that
belief is what we were taught as children -- our acculturation (don't you just
love technical terminology?! -- I'm not even sure that 'acculturation' is
technical, but it should be. I love the sound of it -- so learned sounding) --
or some later adaptation of said acculturation -- it doesn't matter. What
matters is that if belief in God gets us through the day, then by gum, there is
a god. If not, then there isn't. I think William James said something akin to
that or along those lines or maybe he didn't. Truth is what gets you through
the day. I believe what I believe with all my heart and soul, but tomorrow
might bring some dramatic tergiversation, but what of that? If said
tergiversation gets me through that day, then yea! Then hurray! I believe in
God when I need to, I don't when I don't need to. I think the same holds true
for God, he only believes in me when I believe in him. I don't know why no one
wonders what God believes in. That seems to me to be much more important than
what we believe. After all, God depends on us believing in him, far more than
we depend on Him believing in us -- hence the fear of atheists. We keep God
going. But what we believe God believes determines our lives. See now, God
has to believe in us just to be. We effect Him, He merely affects us. Why
then don't we call His hand on this? Why don't we just start believing that
God believes what we want God to believe rather than trying to figure out what
God wants us to believe? We have the upper hand in all this. It's time we
started making God believe what we believe. Unless, of course, that's what
we've been doing all along.
Mike Geary
Memphis
----- Original Message -----
From: Jack Spratt
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Saturday, August 26, 2006 7:44 PM
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: One fewer god
Thank you for the response.
In answer to your question; Karl and George, whose ideas and examples are the
seeds that have helped create the world of today. Both had good intentions,
like Jesus, but they launched thoughts and created power hungry followers that
commit death in their names. They in the final analysis are the reason you cry
out to god for 'justice' and blame culture for terrible acts. But Karl, George
were the First Cause and also men and men followed them, perverted them and
created the cultures we own.
I am not sure we should depend on any god to right any wrongs that we have
been caught up in. Call it the choices we make, fate or devine misguidance, as
you said we are alone. Good luck with the vengeance thing.
J.S.
The one thing we lack is a handy utopia
Mike Geary <atlas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
JS:
>>"If you examine all the alternative possibilities to gods (including
Marx, Mao, Hitler and Washington) you will see why gods are difficult to
dismiss."<<
Is that Marx as in Brothers or Karl? And is that Washington the Washington
of George or DC? With Mao and Hitler there's no ambiguity. Their names are
eponymous for crimes against humanity. The very names cry out for a God more
than anything else I know of -- a cry for supernatural retributive justice.
Ah, yes -- but, so what? Justice? What does that mean? It means we're the
good guys, each and everyone of us, we all know that. Arab, Jew and Mexican
too, USA and Germany and (God love 'em) even Norway. We've all got God on our
side (though, due to his mysterious ways, He sure does take his own goddamn
time wreaking vengeance. Praise for a man's ashes is rather late, Lord -- as
Cicero or Cataline or Castro, whoever, once said. So too is vengeance. Do you
hear me, God? De profundis clamavi ad te, Domine. I personally want to see
the bastards who offended me suffer -- and gruesomely). Please don't take my
irritation with God's seeming lack of urgency in coming to my defense as
dismissive of religious belief. I don't believe in God at all, but I do have
enormous religious belief. Culture is religion after all. Culture is the most
horrendous religion of them all because culture defines religion. Defines God!
Yikes! You can be an atheist, if raised in the right culture, but it's not
possible to be an aculturalist. And so, as our culture tell us, Gods are
difficult to dismiss because the alternative is OUR SELVES alone in an
infinitely indifferent universe -- our lives amounting to no more than an
effervescent moment of organismic self-consciousness. We all want our precious
loves and elations and sorrows and sufferings to have everlasting meaning. And
we want vindication. For that we need a God. I have no problem with that.
God will, I trust, right the wrongs done to me -- eventually. And they are
many.
Mike Geary
20 years later
----- Original Message -----
From: Jack Spratt
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Saturday, August 26, 2006 3:22 PM
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: One fewer god
"If you examine all the alternative possibilities to gods (including
Marx, Mao, Hitler and Washington) you will see why gods are difficult to
dismiss."
J.S.
The one thing we lack is a handy utopia.
Andreas Ramos <andreas@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
"I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god
than you do. When you
understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will
understand why I dismiss
yours."
yrs,
andreas
www.andreas.com
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