[lit-ideas] Re: War, no sort of about it

From: "Andy Amago" <aamago@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "lit-ideas" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2005 08:43:57 -0400
> [Original Message]
> From: Eric Yost <eyost1132@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Date: 8/14/2005 3:55:59 PM
> Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: War, no sort of about it
>
> Andy: Marlena, how do Christians reconcile that god
> made both the lion and the lamb, and he made it the lion's job to 
> eat the lamb?
>
> Eric: I'll take a crack at this too. Studies claim that zebras relax 
> in the lion's jaws. Skydivers who have survived great falls report a 
> feeling of utter relaxation and peace as they hurtle toward 
> landfall. "People watching me fall probably suffered more than I did."
>
> The horror is in us. You call that particular horror evil. I'd say 
> it's the horror of trying to avoid suffering and seeing suffering in 
> other beings. The lion's jaws are real and when we see it, and 
> realize there's a chance we could end up there, we call that evil 
> instead of our own healthy self-interest. The horror is the force of 
> our desire not to end in the lion's jaws.
>


Basically you're saying there is no such thing as pain.  You're saying pain
is in the mind of the beholder.  That is a relief to learn.  Does this
apply also to pain that comes from a burn, or only to pain that comes from
fangs being inserted into one's torso?  I'm serious.  Did you hear about
that guy in Alaska who was recently killed by a grizzly?  He was a real
life dances with wolves type looney.  He lived among bears and believed
that bears accepted him as one of them.  He would make videos of himself
communing with bears, saying he would never die by their claws.  It turns
out he recently brought his girlfriend to Alaska and they were camping when
a hungry grizzly attacked him and began to eat him.  His video camera was
on but the lens was capped, but the sound was on.  Those who heard the tape
would disagree that he relaxed as the bear was eating him.  He apparently
was screaming such bloodcurdling screams that the tape wouldn't be aired. 
He was screaming at his girlfriend to hit him with a frying pan.  The
grizzly ate the guy's girlfriend too.  They found his rib cage.  The
mistake he made was going to Alaska and hanging out with bears in a season
when there was limited prey, when the berries were gone and so on.  The
grizzly was hungry and the guy was handy.  The concept of pain was neither
vindicated nor conquered by this experience.

This story to me perfectly captures humanity's relationship with god.  God
loves us, yes, we will commune with him.  Then it's oops, a volcano, a
Holocaust, spina bifida, a plane crash, a beheading.  God that old love bug.



> If people were innately evil, thoroughly rotten to the core, lost 
> causes, we wouldn't know it. Good would be a perversion. Everything 
> you call evil would be normal, and hence invisible to us. If evil is 
> "missing the mark," and we are totally evil, where did the mark come 
> from?
>


Sure we would know.  We have big brains capable of divining the existence
of 10 dimensions.  Of course we would know.  Thinking that the mark has to
be handed to us by a space alien or a tooth fairy is an insult.   



> I'd prefer to think that our personal evolution is away from 
> egocentricity and toward greater ability to see the other. What good 
> is art otherwise? What good science? What good love?
>
>


I agree, our personal evolution is away from egocentricity.  We're inching
toward it, as slowly as Darwin ever imagined physical evolution.  We're a
long way off, or maybe not, if we can harness that big brain and throw off
the blinders of religion.  Regarding what good are art, science, love? 
They're fun, that's all.  They have nothing whatsoever to do with goodness.
We paint pretty pictures, write pretty words, invent lasers better to bop
somebody, even as we pray to hungry grizzlies in the sky who we convince
ourselves love us.



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