the link is surprisingly strong
First of all, thanks to all those who have left so many nice comments on the rantbeast recently. (GASP I AM THE NUMBER ONE GOOGLE RESULT FOR RANTBEAST!) They make me happy. (GASP FRAMEBEAST TOO I AM TEH FAMOUS!!) (Whoa, rantbeast.com is available. Tempting, actually.)
Sunday through Wednesday. Decided to learn XMLHTTPRequest after all, since it's in vogue and such. (Funny to read articles from 2002 about the Semantic Web and XMLHTTPRequest. "Oh noes, Google's using Ajax! We have to tell people about this new technology!") Wrote up an elegant music menu for Smurfer. Then learned that XMLHTTPRequest doesn't work across domains, so off-site Javascript is still the only way for real client-side inclusion, without some kludgy Apache or CGI redirect. If you're going to deem something unsafe, standards people, can you at least make it impossible, rather than force me to do it a gross way? Meh, it's cool, even though it only works from my own site.
There was a party Monday night chez Wiggle. Smurfer is ridiculously awesome at Taboo; a girl on his team didn't even think to use "gender" to describe "sexist," and they still tied our team. Hilariously yellow gathering: we spent ten minutes listing antitasty types of candy and half an hour listing shows from our childhood.
Smurfer and Asmond moved in Tuesday. Smurfer's always been nice to me, so I was looking forward to that. Truthfully, I was a little apprehensive about Asmond; the first time we met, I only saw him purple, so I assumed him rather dry. He's become cooler and cooler, though, from debating the merits of turn-based vs. free-motion RPGs to helping me resolve theological crises and asking for our waitress' number at IHOP (she was hot, seriously). Marvelously green blog, too. This and Toasteroven's frequent droppings by portend well for the coming year. Thinking I may actually have to force myself to not be social sometimes.
Oh, we went to see Fantastic Four Tuesday night after enjoying cheese fries and floats at the Training Table. It was a terrible movie, of course, but I think we all enjoyed it; Smurfer and I, in particular, had a good time analyzing the four-place. It's really funny, because function appears to not match personality at all: the damsel in distress is the clobbering Thing, the protagonist is the pensive Mr. Fantastic, and the source of counsel is the emotionally turgid Invisible Woman. The Human Torch is left with red, but it's clear that his showoff personality keeps him in conflict with Mr. Fantastic for orange.
That's about it, chronologically. Rant time.
Sunday night, I decided that guilt is dumb. In particular, it's lame when people feel unworthy because of psychological maladies, but I can't find the defining line between autoflagellation and godly sorrow, so I just threw it all out. I then thought about spirituality in general, and decided that, while I respect the effects of the Gospel, I don't relate to the basic emotional principles assumed in the First Presidency messages. I don't feel guilty for my sins, I don't feel uplifted by religious observance, and at this point, I quietly assume that people who talk about a relationship with God are deluding themselves, based on my own experiences faking responses to prayers.
"Better to be circumspect before taking such a philosophical leap, though," I told myself. "Take some time to consider the Gospel more deeply." Realizing that I hadn't read my patriarchal blessing in months, I pulled it out of my dresser drawer and studied the first few paragraphs. The words that had disappointed me upon receipt now seemed utterly alien, a veritable mockery of my actual experiences, and I threw it back into the drawer with an expletive, then resumed pacing the apartment. If no spiritual meditation would calm me, perhaps intellectual deliberation could at least slow judgement.
Unsure of my fundamental philosophical beliefs, I decided to work from the ground up, writing the following axiomatic progression.
- I exist.
- I perceive an actually existant universe.
- Our universe obeys unchanging laws.
- Some truths had to be as they are.
- There is meaning in the state of the universe.
- My behaviour is non-deterministic.
- I am obligated to obey ethical laws.
- There is a morally perfect Being.
- This Being created us and communicates with us.
- We deserve to suffer for moral transgressions.
- Jesus of Nazareth atoned for our sins.
- Joseph Smith was a prophet.
- The Book of Mormon is factual.
- The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is uniquely endorsed by God.
I am willing to accept 1, 2, 3, and 6 on faith, because they're intuitive, I see no counter-evidence, and I don't know I would react to their falsity.
Then, writing each line as an heading in a table, I began to list evidences for and against. The weak anthropic principle, for example, hoses on the need for things to be as they are. Likewise, the nature of society, particularly in combination with meme theory, obliterates C.S. Lewis' argument against moral relativism; his argument is at its core that the Golden Rule exists in every society, and what society would endure to pass down records without it?
That's the grand fallacy against hedonism, really: enlightened hedonism, egotistic utilitarianism, really isn't very different from religion. You say people who don't live the Gospel are sad? Yeah, smoking ruins the body. Debt discourages. Stable familial relationships satisfy. These are not revolutionary ideas; they are what any successful parent teaches children. And if you mean people who make good decisions but don't believe in your theology, well, you're both going to screw up sometimes. Sounds a lot smarter to me to just recognize that you're suffering the consequences of your mistake than to harrow yourself up over it. And in my experience, the former is a lot more conducive to putting destructive behaviours behind me.
I'm not looking for a proof of the Gospel; I respect Peirce's point that, when we find a useful, coherent, intuitive system of truth, we should stick with it until we find counter-evidence. At this point, however, I think I've found it; religion seems to me a bundled, closed-source multifunction meme with built-in angst and a promise that if you do it right the buggy parts will be fixed for you. (You say Bill Gates thinks he's God? I'd say God thinks he's Bill Gates.) It's fascinating, but not useful, in my experience, and I do ask, if not for proof, for reasonable doubt of falsity.
A few bits hold me back. Notably, a passage I believe to be from Screwtape Letters, but which I cannot find, declares that nothing is so awful to the devil as a man from whom God has disappeared but who continues along the same path. It's a pity I can't find the quote, for the expression is dearer to me than the sentiment; indeed, I find it the romanticization of ignorance in the Gospel rather unsettling, the lauding of blind obedience over informed consent, the secrecy of those teachings most precious. Beside that, as Grant points out, sufficient faith can lead in any direction, and I am disinclined to forever observe a Godless religion. Nonetheless, given free will, I believe that the doubly enlightened are doubly condemned, and find reasonably plausible the scenario that God, having seen my tendency toward damnation, has left me in twilight so I cannot find my way to darkness. If this is the case, I tip my hat to Him for His staunch benevolence in ignoring my pleas for guidance.
I've had excellent discussions with 'Brozy and with Toasteroven and Asmond on the topic this week, the latter just last night, at IHOP. 'Brozy kindly helped me whittle the issue down to my lack of a relationship with God, but sadly, I don't particularly desire one, aside from its conduciveness toward a marriage with a girl of her caliber; the discussion drifted into a somber echo of this Sugar Beet article. (I still support the Gospel as a socializing environment for children; heck, they can even grow up on Windows before Linux.) T.O. was great, though I tend to nod along with his explanations instead of actually explaining my objections. Need to stop that. Asmond, in fact, was surprisingly helpful; his thoughts on guilt force me to reconsider my own. Sensible fellow. Says he's only felt really guilty a few times in his life, all of which have prompted him to self-improvement.
The unrivaled epitome of stuff on cats. Yes, it does equal awesome.
My favorite Tolkien Boy piece. High praise in such an extensive and insightful collection.
Potter Potter Potter Potter Potter...and such.
Why you should not swallow Listerine.
You know times are hard when it even hits the supervillian sector.
Thirdmango introduced me to WWWF Grudge Match this morning. I particularly enjoyed Gollum vs. Mini-Me.
6 comments:
Hmmm. I don't think I quite agree with "We deserve to suffer. . . ."
I don't htink it's a matter of deserving or not deserving. I think it's a simple matter of consequence. (Hence the need for a savior--some actions will simply cause pain. We can't make the consequences go away, but the savior can choose to have them shifted to him.)
Let's pretend I spelled that right.
Another one. (Apparently I am a comment hog.)
Thanks for the compliment.
"And that is where the troughs come in. You must have often wondered why the Enemy does not make more use of His power to be sensibly present to human souls in any degree He chooses and at any moment. But you now see that the Irresistible and the Indisputable are the two weapons which the very nature of His scheme forbids him to use. Merely to override a human will (as His felt presence in any but the faintest and most mitigated degree would certainly do) would be for Him useless. He cannot ravish. He can only woo. For His ignoble idea is to eat the cake and have it; the creatures are to be one with Him, but yet themselves; merely to cancel them, or assimilate them, will not serve. He is prepared to do a little overriding at the beginning. He will set them off with communications of His presence which, though faint, seem great to them, with emotional sweetness, and easy conquest over temptation. But he never allows this state of affairs to last long. Sooner or later He withdraws, if not in fact, at least from their conscious experience, all those supports and incentives. He leaves the creature to stand up on its own legs- to carry out from the will alone duties which have lost all relish. It is during such trough periods, much more than during the peak periods, that it is growing into the sort of creature He wants it to be. Hence the prayers offered in the state of dryness are those which please Him best. We can drag our patients along by continual temptation, because we design them only for the table, and the more their will is interfered with the better. He cannot 'tempt' to virtue as we do to vice. He wants them to learn to walk and must thereforetake away his hand; and if only the will to walk is really there He is pleased even with their stumbles. Do not be deceived, Wormwood. Our cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do our Enemy's will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys."
from C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters.
I feel not only gratified but complimented. Thanks for the link to my story. Someday, you'll have to tell me what you like about it, and then I can reproduce it in later works.
This blog is always so insightful.
"We should continue to become acquainted with human experience through history and philosophy, science and poetry, art and religion... One of the most important things in the world is freedom of the mind; from this all other freedoms spring. Such freedom is necessarily dangerous, for one cannot think right without running the risk of thinking wrong, but generally more thinking is the antidote for the evils that spring from wrong thinking. More thinking is required, and we should all exercise our God-given right to think and be unafraid to express our opinions, with proper respect for those to whom we talk and proper acknowledgment of our own shortcomings.
We must preserve freedom of the mind in the church and resist all efforts to suppress it. The church is not so much concerned with whether the thoughts of its members are orthodox or heterodox as it is that they shall have thoughts.
And while all members should respect, support, and heed the teachings of the authorities of the church, no one should accept a statement and base his or her testimony upon it, no matter who makes it, until he or she has, under mature examination, found it to be true and worthwhile; then one's logical deductions may be confirmed by the spirit of revelation to his or her spirit, because real conversion must come from within..."
-Hugh B. Brown (An Abundant Life)
I found this to be comforting when I first read it. It is also part of the reason I still hold on to the church in some way.
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