Something I considered interesting: Susan B. Anthony, one of the huge feminists and advocate of women's rights, once called abortion "the horrible crime of child-murder". The point I hold particularly close is that which she makes in saying, "Much as I deplore the horrible crime of child-murder, earnestly as I desire its suppression, I cannot believe with* the writer of the above-mentioned article, that such a law would have the desired effect. It seems to be only mowing off the top of the noxious weed, while the root remains."
An example, I think, in which the systematic worldview really needs to be employed. But I won't get into it.
(This information found on p.45 of "50 Things You're Not Supposed To Know", by Russ Kick, gratefully borrowed from Sal of companionableills - thanks!)
*['Believe with' doesn't make very much sense to me, but that's how it was written.]
It seems to me there are two sides of the spectrum for dealing with emotion (stemming from two perceptions of it):
In an instance of the first, a person does not perceive emotion as something not of oneself. The anger I am feeling is me. This is one version of me: the angry version. I don't recognize emotion as something that is happening to me, nor do I recognize it really as something at all. This, I think, is often a person with a temper, a person out-of-control, or a person who buries emotions or is unable to deal with or work through them.
In an instance of the second, on the other hand, a person views emotions as something. Emotions are tangible and there and, though inevitable and unavoidable, things that can be dealt with. There is with this perspective the danger, however, in dehumanizing emotions. It is so extremely possible to think about and analyze emotions so much that they aren't emotions anymore - reactions become dull or nonexistent and even another encounter with the trigger of the emotion can elicit no emotional response.
(Some people, of course, fall under neither of these categories. I suppose I haven't quite figured out those ones.)
It is interesting to me the ways in which the two kinds of people use the mediums of emotional expression (music, art, poetry, etc.). These mediums, undoubtedly, are potentially consuming - music, from my experience, especially (but perhaps this is only because it is the one to which I am closest). A person of the first perspective, it seems, is more susceptible to being consumed. I would definitely consider these mediums of expression demonstrations or substantiations of emotion, and so, a person that does not recognize (emotion) these mediums of expression as something of which to be wary, or something that can be manipulated to one's benefit, far more easily falls victim. It is far more difficult to defend yourself against an enemy when he is not visible. Contrarily, a person of the second perspective, by employing these mediums of expression as a means of substantiation, more often is able to make them tangible (there should be a verb for this) enough, conceptualize them enough that they are no longer abstract, to be able to work with them.
So many organizations, Christian ones the top among them, seem to say, "You are so valuable! You are so wonderful! Believe in yourself!" They stress the importance of self-esteem. It is very frustrating for me.
I do not believe that humanity deserves self-esteem. God doesn't need you. The world doesn't need you. The world needs God, and you do as well. We do not deserve or in any way need self-esteem; what we need is God-esteem. What we need is humility: the ability to recognize the nature of our humanity, and then to throw ourselves before God anyway. The ability to say, "Lord, take this shell of a soul and make it whole again, so that it can work for you." We do not need self-esteem. We do not need any inkling, any shadow of the dirty lie that we can make any sort of good on our 'merit' alone.
Currently reading: aforementioned book, and its sequel
Currently listening to: soundtrack to Notre-Dame
Seattle Sessions acoustic EP, by the Classic Crime (Yay, I have it!)
We're So Far Away, Mae
Saturday, November 24, 2007
Sunday, November 11, 2007
God is free and more from there.
Quite stream-of-consciousness and all over the place, I'm sorry:
Our group in TOK did a presentation Friday on free will, and the question was raised: Is God free? My bit:
God is not bound to do good works; good works are bound to be done by God. He is the paradigm. The standard. The original. You might ask, "Then what makes it good? Who decided that what God does is good?" Irrelevant. Things are only good because God did them. God is free to do whatever He pleases. We must understand that we are made in God's image, we are created in love, and that our very bodies, souls, world, and reality are put together, run by good. So every action that is not reconciled with God is one that is directly against our nature and the way we were made. God made us in such a way that we run on good so it is essentially stupid (I don't mean to be accusatory - I am the most stupid of them all) to try to work any differently - it is like a bird trying to fly without using its wings. There is such a thing as good and evil in the world, a true force of right and wrong. But we cannot think that God is somehow bound by this force and the reason He is so great is that He fulfills its wishes perfectly. God is this force. The reason God is great is not that He strives for or reaches perfection the best - He is the reason we know what perfection is. He is the only thing - force, power, standard - we answer to. To believe otherwise - that there is some standard that God fulfills (or, in some cases, to believe that there is some standard that it is impossible for something to fulfill and so God does not exist) - is to believe that there is another force or power that God answers to, which is to believe there is another god. Where does it go from there? Thus, God is the standard. We are not like God in our endeavor of perfection (because God is not in an endeavor of perfection), we are in an endeavor of God.
There is still, largely, the mite in the eye of what makes God the standard. The question of what makes what God decides good. What if we weren't bound by that? I think it's silly to be bothered by this. God made us so that good is good and that's how we work. He very well could have made us another way, and we would have run up against the same exact problem. We must remember that we wouldn't be if God hadn't made us. It's like saying, "I'm really bitter about this whole hunger thing. I don't think it's fair that I have to eat all the time, so I'm gonna stop."
More on this later, I think.
In other news, thanks and respect to our veterans, including my father.
Our group in TOK did a presentation Friday on free will, and the question was raised: Is God free? My bit:
God is not bound to do good works; good works are bound to be done by God. He is the paradigm. The standard. The original. You might ask, "Then what makes it good? Who decided that what God does is good?" Irrelevant. Things are only good because God did them. God is free to do whatever He pleases. We must understand that we are made in God's image, we are created in love, and that our very bodies, souls, world, and reality are put together, run by good. So every action that is not reconciled with God is one that is directly against our nature and the way we were made. God made us in such a way that we run on good so it is essentially stupid (I don't mean to be accusatory - I am the most stupid of them all) to try to work any differently - it is like a bird trying to fly without using its wings. There is such a thing as good and evil in the world, a true force of right and wrong. But we cannot think that God is somehow bound by this force and the reason He is so great is that He fulfills its wishes perfectly. God is this force. The reason God is great is not that He strives for or reaches perfection the best - He is the reason we know what perfection is. He is the only thing - force, power, standard - we answer to. To believe otherwise - that there is some standard that God fulfills (or, in some cases, to believe that there is some standard that it is impossible for something to fulfill and so God does not exist) - is to believe that there is another force or power that God answers to, which is to believe there is another god. Where does it go from there? Thus, God is the standard. We are not like God in our endeavor of perfection (because God is not in an endeavor of perfection), we are in an endeavor of God.
There is still, largely, the mite in the eye of what makes God the standard. The question of what makes what God decides good. What if we weren't bound by that? I think it's silly to be bothered by this. God made us so that good is good and that's how we work. He very well could have made us another way, and we would have run up against the same exact problem. We must remember that we wouldn't be if God hadn't made us. It's like saying, "I'm really bitter about this whole hunger thing. I don't think it's fair that I have to eat all the time, so I'm gonna stop."
More on this later, I think.
In other news, thanks and respect to our veterans, including my father.
Saturday, November 10, 2007
Nonchalance, humans suck at loving, this life in time, and perseverence.
Somewhat fragmented post today:
Why, please, is it a good thing to not care what anyone else thinks of you? Isn't that selfish? Isn't that just a clever excuse to get away with anything, to rationalize anything you might have done that you would have felt sorry for? If it's not, "Everyone else does it, so it's okay," it's "The only reason somebody else doesn't do it is that they're not unique and assertive like I am."
Not always the case, of course.
I just think that the only vacuum it's good to live in is the one in which God rules completely.
Humanity sucks at loving, I'm finding. I thought that I had eliminated all expectations of man but I thought wrong, because my standards have recently been lowered a step further. It is very evident to me lately that we are ultimately selfish. As much as we care about someone, as much as we love him or her, it is fundamentally in our nature to choose ourselves when we should choose others, when it is love to choose another. It comes that if there is a decision between doing something for someone else's good and doing something that might make us satisfied or feel good or benefit us, it takes a lot not to choose the latter. It either takes a lot of God making us better or a lot of the kind of love that is in action completely selfless but is only maintained that way because it is entirely selfishly rooted. That is, the kind of love in which it's not really much of a sacrifice at all (because it doesn't feel that way) to us to sacrifice ourselves. (Am I making any sense?)
It seems that we are not loving someone at all each time we don't put him/her first. In that moment we don't love.*
I knew that human love was never perfect, but I was under the impression, for some reason, that it could be pretty much unconditional. I was so wrong though! It takes so much deliberation for it to be even relatively unconditional. It is not easy to love someone all the time, no matter what. (It is impossible to love perfectly - that is, to never screw up, to never hurt [i.e. cause any detriment to] a person - but this is beside the point, I suppose.) We flare up, and lose control, and for a moment don't love. We are apathetic, or lazy, and forget to always be loving. We are stubborn, hold grudges, and are unable to eliminate baggage enough to just allow love to flow. We are judgmental, or not understanding, and it warps our perspectives.
We don't only fail in love under ignorance, we also fail under precise clarity.
I am very bothered recently by the nature in me that stops me from loving when I am perfectly aware that I should, the way in which I could, and what is stopping me from doing so.
I suppose I am just discouraged, and sad. Humanity rears its ugly head always, it seems, when I least expect it.
The best we can do, I think, and what we are obligated to do, is to love deliberately and furiously. A common theme for me of late, I suppose.
*The truth in this depends on, of course, what you consider 'love' to be, and instances in which 'love' is not.
It seems lately that endings are never good. Even if that which is ending was not good, the best we can hope for is bittersweet, for there's always the longing for it to have been better.
It used to trouble me that this life was so short and minimal compared to what eternal life should be. How could that be? Why would God have even given it to us? What's the purpose? But I'm developing a new perspective. I am so limited by my perception of time and am trying very much to overcome that. Suddenly I'm seeing this life as only a moment of truth, of sorts. A decision. A climax. A struggle. It's organized in the confines of time perhaps to indicate its impermanence and temporality (dictionary.com says the word is "temporalness" but I prefer this) in comparison to eternal life. I think, maybe, I am seeing it as a momentary break in eternal life. It is the means of reaching eternal life (and I'll point out that by eternal life I mean the afterlife inclusively) or, rather, the road you walk before you get there.
This is really, really hard for me to express. Do I make any sense?
I know I'm not done falling; I know I'll never be. My only goal - and still a very lofty one - is to always get up knowing a little something more.
"Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts."
Winston Churchill
"Successful men keep moving."
Conrad Hilton
"For a just man falleth seven times, and riseth up again."
Proberbs 24:16
Current music:
The Classic Crime's new Seattle acoustic EP, except minus all the songs that aren't on their purevolume, because Circuit City and Wal-Mart and work hate me and don't have it in stock. :(
Still Fighting It and Fred Jones, part 2, by Ben Folds
Currently reading:
nothing. :( Every time I pick up a book I feel guilty because I should be doing homework.
Why, please, is it a good thing to not care what anyone else thinks of you? Isn't that selfish? Isn't that just a clever excuse to get away with anything, to rationalize anything you might have done that you would have felt sorry for? If it's not, "Everyone else does it, so it's okay," it's "The only reason somebody else doesn't do it is that they're not unique and assertive like I am."
Not always the case, of course.
I just think that the only vacuum it's good to live in is the one in which God rules completely.
Humanity sucks at loving, I'm finding. I thought that I had eliminated all expectations of man but I thought wrong, because my standards have recently been lowered a step further. It is very evident to me lately that we are ultimately selfish. As much as we care about someone, as much as we love him or her, it is fundamentally in our nature to choose ourselves when we should choose others, when it is love to choose another. It comes that if there is a decision between doing something for someone else's good and doing something that might make us satisfied or feel good or benefit us, it takes a lot not to choose the latter. It either takes a lot of God making us better or a lot of the kind of love that is in action completely selfless but is only maintained that way because it is entirely selfishly rooted. That is, the kind of love in which it's not really much of a sacrifice at all (because it doesn't feel that way) to us to sacrifice ourselves. (Am I making any sense?)
It seems that we are not loving someone at all each time we don't put him/her first. In that moment we don't love.*
I knew that human love was never perfect, but I was under the impression, for some reason, that it could be pretty much unconditional. I was so wrong though! It takes so much deliberation for it to be even relatively unconditional. It is not easy to love someone all the time, no matter what. (It is impossible to love perfectly - that is, to never screw up, to never hurt [i.e. cause any detriment to] a person - but this is beside the point, I suppose.) We flare up, and lose control, and for a moment don't love. We are apathetic, or lazy, and forget to always be loving. We are stubborn, hold grudges, and are unable to eliminate baggage enough to just allow love to flow. We are judgmental, or not understanding, and it warps our perspectives.
We don't only fail in love under ignorance, we also fail under precise clarity.
I am very bothered recently by the nature in me that stops me from loving when I am perfectly aware that I should, the way in which I could, and what is stopping me from doing so.
I suppose I am just discouraged, and sad. Humanity rears its ugly head always, it seems, when I least expect it.
The best we can do, I think, and what we are obligated to do, is to love deliberately and furiously. A common theme for me of late, I suppose.
*The truth in this depends on, of course, what you consider 'love' to be, and instances in which 'love' is not.
It seems lately that endings are never good. Even if that which is ending was not good, the best we can hope for is bittersweet, for there's always the longing for it to have been better.
It used to trouble me that this life was so short and minimal compared to what eternal life should be. How could that be? Why would God have even given it to us? What's the purpose? But I'm developing a new perspective. I am so limited by my perception of time and am trying very much to overcome that. Suddenly I'm seeing this life as only a moment of truth, of sorts. A decision. A climax. A struggle. It's organized in the confines of time perhaps to indicate its impermanence and temporality (dictionary.com says the word is "temporalness" but I prefer this) in comparison to eternal life. I think, maybe, I am seeing it as a momentary break in eternal life. It is the means of reaching eternal life (and I'll point out that by eternal life I mean the afterlife inclusively) or, rather, the road you walk before you get there.
This is really, really hard for me to express. Do I make any sense?
I know I'm not done falling; I know I'll never be. My only goal - and still a very lofty one - is to always get up knowing a little something more.
"Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts."
Winston Churchill
"Successful men keep moving."
Conrad Hilton
"For a just man falleth seven times, and riseth up again."
Proberbs 24:16
Current music:
The Classic Crime's new Seattle acoustic EP, except minus all the songs that aren't on their purevolume, because Circuit City and Wal-Mart and work hate me and don't have it in stock. :(
Still Fighting It and Fred Jones, part 2, by Ben Folds
Currently reading:
nothing. :( Every time I pick up a book I feel guilty because I should be doing homework.
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