Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Socrates' 'Ethical Rationalism'
There is a doctrine entitled 'ethical rationalism' which originates with Socrates' statement that "no one errs willingly." Socrates explains that for example if a man wanted to harm another this could only occur in ignorance. No one errs or does evil willingly. This is the core of the doctrine of 'ethical rationalism'. One may in fact set out to hurt someone and in fact, inflict a great deal of suffering into the lives of one, a few, many or very many people. History is full of countless dramas like this! Evenso, it is a mistake, it is ignorance, as Socrates indicates, that leads to malice! Ignorance and ignorance alone.
Hence, it behooves us to do an inventory of our own lives and reckon whether we have done something or left something undone which in fact hurt someone deeply. Since all of the lives at once on earth seem to be intertwined in a unique historical manner we can imagine that it is possible that there might be someone out there who has been harmed by me, and I am not even aware of it, in fact, I may never ever be aware that I have caused someone pain. Yes, it certainly is possible that you can harm someone without even knowing that you are doing so. The point Socrates makes is that however you choose to mess up nature or hurt animals, or mislead people, in that same moment you are actually ignorant. Ironic? Perhaps.
Ironic, or logical? Is it not logical that I have often erred at first and then later realized that I was not as good on the guitar or whatever as I thought I was "back in the day"? But as I came to 'know' more and 'know better' how to do something that I realized that I was indeed ignorant and acted so, thus harming the balance, the harmony, the beauty and the feelings of nature. Though I may have cursed in the begining, eventually I realized that the real ballgame was staying mentally balanced, all the time. This is the key and the essence of authentic learning---later knowledge gives advanced hindsight. Be humble, go easy on yourself and others. One who errs by harming fellow human beings, errs in not grasping that the fundamental essence of truth is love and that god is nothing more or less than love. He or she fails to see that it is only in the act of loving and forgiving oneself that one became capable of mastering their particular "game" be it golf, or violin, or teaching. Hence, it follows that the only manner in which to actually become excellent at any discipline at all is to practice love.
The only game there is as Ram Dass wrote in his lovely book. Sure, you can play lesser games, 'headgames' for example, or become a master virtuoso on an instrument, but if your goal is to employ this virtuosity toward nefarious ends, for example, pride or vanity, the desire to control others or somehow become one of the 'cool people' is glamour which is a grand illusion, and a fundamental lie, since at root, reality is not 'glamorous'---everything is equally interdependent so as to be complete which the story of Indra's Net expresses so well. The universe itself is a jewel---so which jewel among all of the jewels is the best jewel? You see my point.
The only real game is love. To love truly and not in a selfish, me-first manner. To love truly---what can this mean? Oddly enough it means to 'let things be' what they are. Forgiveness, "Everytime I got it made, I let it rain on my parade, sings Peter Cetera. Yes, there will be rainy days. There will be sunny days too! 'Wu-wei' is the Taoist expression---doing nothing, or letting things be what they are, and even more, consciously allowing that things are as they have to be and simply are. "Is it raining?" "Yes!" "Shit!!" But look at that reaction---to swear is to lie, to think that things should be other than what they actually are, as with the rain and wetness. Which is why Jesus said, "do not swear---neither concerning the things on earth because that is the Lord's footstool, nor on heavenly things..." Matthew Chapter v: "Do not break your oath, but fulfill to the Lord the vows you have made.' 34 But I tell you, do not swear an oath at all: either by heaven, for it is God's throne; 35 or by the earth, for it is his footstool; or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the Great King. 36 And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make even one hair white or black. 37 All you need to say is simply 'Yes,' or 'No'; anything beyond this comes from the evil one." Fascinating!
Do not mess things up any more than you are already going to have to do since you are a mere human being, but understand that the real ballgame is concerning love and all the other scorecards are puny and irrelevant. No 'prima donnas', no big dogs or important people---except in terms of the great ballgame which Jesus coached. He was sent to be a type of coach, the ultimate act of service. Do not make idols of anything, including the son of god, and the bible. Idolatry is idolatry, period.
At any rate let's take one look back at Socrates' 'ethical rationalism' and then wrap it up. There really is no point in kicking oneself because one fucked things up or failed to realize that things they were buying into were fucked (pardon the expletives). Hey that is the name of the game...it's called being finite. It is the essence of the human beings' confusion and shame. Jesus agrees with Socrates: no one does wrong willingly (knowingly), hence those who would act to harm act in ignorance and unknowing. If I really knew what was GOING ON in the universe, and I mean really grasped and understood the entire ballgame, I would "do unto others as they would have done unto them," I would forgive even my enemies, even as they are in the act of causing me pain. Next time: Things being what they are human beings must employ forgiveness, since the majority of people will always be causing harm based upon their ignorance. Once you see life through Jesus' eyes (i.e.love) you will se that everyone deserves to be forgiven "because they do not know what they are doing." ANd he spoke thusly of the men who were causing him very great and palpable pain at the exact moment he was forgiving them. Pretty cool.
Hence, it behooves us to do an inventory of our own lives and reckon whether we have done something or left something undone which in fact hurt someone deeply. Since all of the lives at once on earth seem to be intertwined in a unique historical manner we can imagine that it is possible that there might be someone out there who has been harmed by me, and I am not even aware of it, in fact, I may never ever be aware that I have caused someone pain. Yes, it certainly is possible that you can harm someone without even knowing that you are doing so. The point Socrates makes is that however you choose to mess up nature or hurt animals, or mislead people, in that same moment you are actually ignorant. Ironic? Perhaps.
Ironic, or logical? Is it not logical that I have often erred at first and then later realized that I was not as good on the guitar or whatever as I thought I was "back in the day"? But as I came to 'know' more and 'know better' how to do something that I realized that I was indeed ignorant and acted so, thus harming the balance, the harmony, the beauty and the feelings of nature. Though I may have cursed in the begining, eventually I realized that the real ballgame was staying mentally balanced, all the time. This is the key and the essence of authentic learning---later knowledge gives advanced hindsight. Be humble, go easy on yourself and others. One who errs by harming fellow human beings, errs in not grasping that the fundamental essence of truth is love and that god is nothing more or less than love. He or she fails to see that it is only in the act of loving and forgiving oneself that one became capable of mastering their particular "game" be it golf, or violin, or teaching. Hence, it follows that the only manner in which to actually become excellent at any discipline at all is to practice love.
The only game there is as Ram Dass wrote in his lovely book. Sure, you can play lesser games, 'headgames' for example, or become a master virtuoso on an instrument, but if your goal is to employ this virtuosity toward nefarious ends, for example, pride or vanity, the desire to control others or somehow become one of the 'cool people' is glamour which is a grand illusion, and a fundamental lie, since at root, reality is not 'glamorous'---everything is equally interdependent so as to be complete which the story of Indra's Net expresses so well. The universe itself is a jewel---so which jewel among all of the jewels is the best jewel? You see my point.
The only real game is love. To love truly and not in a selfish, me-first manner. To love truly---what can this mean? Oddly enough it means to 'let things be' what they are. Forgiveness, "Everytime I got it made, I let it rain on my parade, sings Peter Cetera. Yes, there will be rainy days. There will be sunny days too! 'Wu-wei' is the Taoist expression---doing nothing, or letting things be what they are, and even more, consciously allowing that things are as they have to be and simply are. "Is it raining?" "Yes!" "Shit!!" But look at that reaction---to swear is to lie, to think that things should be other than what they actually are, as with the rain and wetness. Which is why Jesus said, "do not swear---neither concerning the things on earth because that is the Lord's footstool, nor on heavenly things..." Matthew Chapter v: "Do not break your oath, but fulfill to the Lord the vows you have made.' 34 But I tell you, do not swear an oath at all: either by heaven, for it is God's throne; 35 or by the earth, for it is his footstool; or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the Great King. 36 And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make even one hair white or black. 37 All you need to say is simply 'Yes,' or 'No'; anything beyond this comes from the evil one." Fascinating!
Do not mess things up any more than you are already going to have to do since you are a mere human being, but understand that the real ballgame is concerning love and all the other scorecards are puny and irrelevant. No 'prima donnas', no big dogs or important people---except in terms of the great ballgame which Jesus coached. He was sent to be a type of coach, the ultimate act of service. Do not make idols of anything, including the son of god, and the bible. Idolatry is idolatry, period.
At any rate let's take one look back at Socrates' 'ethical rationalism' and then wrap it up. There really is no point in kicking oneself because one fucked things up or failed to realize that things they were buying into were fucked (pardon the expletives). Hey that is the name of the game...it's called being finite. It is the essence of the human beings' confusion and shame. Jesus agrees with Socrates: no one does wrong willingly (knowingly), hence those who would act to harm act in ignorance and unknowing. If I really knew what was GOING ON in the universe, and I mean really grasped and understood the entire ballgame, I would "do unto others as they would have done unto them," I would forgive even my enemies, even as they are in the act of causing me pain. Next time: Things being what they are human beings must employ forgiveness, since the majority of people will always be causing harm based upon their ignorance. Once you see life through Jesus' eyes (i.e.love) you will se that everyone deserves to be forgiven "because they do not know what they are doing." ANd he spoke thusly of the men who were causing him very great and palpable pain at the exact moment he was forgiving them. Pretty cool.
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Love
The essential meaning of 'love' is to acquiesce and allow to be. Hence, the expression God=Love begins to make sense when we understand God to mean for lack of a better expression 'the way things are'. 'The way things are' in an absolute sense. That is an expression that there is a totality of reality which surrounds and upholds my being, that allows me to participate in this total experience called "reality". If I have thoroughly acquiesced to my nature I will discover love by discovering my natural preferences. In the same a way a daisey blossoms in a field.
We tend to interpret 'love' in a subjectivistic manner, however it may be more fruitfully interpeted "objectively". For example, two people falling in love is not merely a subjective experience, it is also a window into the reality of 'dyadic consciousness,' which is a terrible way of saying it, but I simply do not know how else to describe the fact that a male and female complete themselves physically, mentally and spiritually. There is a way of knowing open to lovers that is not accessible in the singular proposition. Commonly referred to as Yin-Yang of the Tao, there is a whole that cannot be expressed in any other way than as process between polar tendencies. This is what the objective experience of falling in love refers to, we might even call it a "tuning in" or "harmonizing". 'God is love' is the strange expression which makes us wonder whether our romantic and friendly love is not of the same ilk as God's 'love' if you will.
The expression 'Reality TV' misses the mark in my opinion. Reality is all that gets left over, the unknown as well the known. A show about Reality would be a great idea. But that is actually what we call cinematic art. Reality can only be represented through a process of metonymy, each artistic image a fragment which opens to the grasping of the whole.
We tend to interpret 'love' in a subjectivistic manner, however it may be more fruitfully interpeted "objectively". For example, two people falling in love is not merely a subjective experience, it is also a window into the reality of 'dyadic consciousness,' which is a terrible way of saying it, but I simply do not know how else to describe the fact that a male and female complete themselves physically, mentally and spiritually. There is a way of knowing open to lovers that is not accessible in the singular proposition. Commonly referred to as Yin-Yang of the Tao, there is a whole that cannot be expressed in any other way than as process between polar tendencies. This is what the objective experience of falling in love refers to, we might even call it a "tuning in" or "harmonizing". 'God is love' is the strange expression which makes us wonder whether our romantic and friendly love is not of the same ilk as God's 'love' if you will.
The expression 'Reality TV' misses the mark in my opinion. Reality is all that gets left over, the unknown as well the known. A show about Reality would be a great idea. But that is actually what we call cinematic art. Reality can only be represented through a process of metonymy, each artistic image a fragment which opens to the grasping of the whole.
Sunday, September 16, 2007
God is being. God is love.
To say "God is being" is the correct starting point for me---not religion---not theology or science. Being ---"isness"---the way things are---reality. To say that something is, for example 2+2=4, two plus two is four, it equals this, this is what it is. It either is or is not the case, if 2+2 matches four, we can say that these expressions ('2+2', '4') are interchangeable and equivalent.
To say: "all of the items on the desk", includes pencils, laptop, ashtray, camera, notebooks, folders, etc... We speak of "all of the things" on the desk. There is nothing left over, it is "all of the things". To say that "God is being," means that God a) is, exists, and b)exists as 'being'. Yet, we know that all things that can be spoken of, can only be spoken of as 'being' or 'in being'. For example, someone might say, "Well what of black holes, worm hole and other 'entities' which contemporary astrophysics speaks of...?" If a 'black hole' entails a negative meaning, as if to infer 'nothingness' or "absence of being" one must first of all predicate it and say "it is" or "there are black holes"---one must predicate it in being. Hence, even with nothing itself---one must say 'it is'---a patent contradiction! Nothing cannot be thought as Parmenides stated in the ancient period of pre-Socratic philosophy.
To return to the expression 'god is being'---this seems to be redundant. We can say the pencil 'is' but what we mean is that the pencil 'possesses' existence, not that it is existence. In the case of 'god' it is different, we are saying that god is being, like 2+2=4, god=being.
Now we must intercede that some things ('beings') are evanescent, appear, disappear...in fact all that we perceive as material comes into being and passes away. Are we saying that god is passing away with all of these beings since 'god is being'? No, we advance one step further...god is being, being after it has been sorted out what really counts as being...what is 'real being' or "really real". With this qualification, we say 'god is real'. By this we mean "the way things really are". This is what the word 'truth' means.
'Truth' contains the element that human beings speak honestly of 'being' or 'beings' but moreover that these words spoken actually line up with the the "way things really are". For example when it is said: '2+2=4' the word matches the way things really are, provided that indeed there is equivalence between the expressions '2+2' and '4'. The equal sign (=) refers to this "match". Unfortunately human beings tend to emphasize the speaker and the words more than the "way things really are". The president says that the Iraq war is about WMD, or fighting terrorists when it is in fact about oil. Hence the words do not match reality. This means that he is mistaken or wrong, however, if he knows that this is not the case, and he says this war is about WMD, then he consciously lies. Human beings are the only mammals known capable of conscious lying. This is what makes human life so very difficult.
Truth occurs when words match up with realities (the way things really are). If God is understood as the totality of 'the way things really are' then god is also equivalent to truth.
Note that the way thing really are by definition exceeds what man or woman can speak of or name or know...This is evident when we consider that the things that appear before me: for example, my desk, and the laptop "stretch beyond" what is evident to my senses---there is an internal, microscopic dimension, and my online connection reaches far beyond my desktop with light signals on fiberoptics, leading even farther out into a global interconnectedness. Certainly when I name my laptop, the greatest part of its 'real being' is unnamed and another aspect is unnameable.
Truth lies more on the side of the 'way things really are' than it does with human speech. If I say "Oh no this is not my laptop," in order to deceive it changes not one iota the real being of the laptop. Human words do not change real being. Truth occurs rather when human beings' words line up with match and name the things that really are. These things are just as real and stable whether named or not.
So too with 'god'. Saying "I do not believe in God, or I believe in God" does not change the fact (equivalence) of god's matching up with the way things really are. God's existence is independent from religion and human effort. Man encounters god when man attempts to discover the truth about the way things really are. One must needs be begin with an open mind neither believing nor disbelieving to encounter truth. If one already "knows" then one does not seek and one does not find.
God equals the way things really are with nothing left over. The way things really are cannot be grasped without entailing the totality of being. For example, if astrophysics could explain 15 billion light years, and astronomical observatories with their computer generated images of the largest ever image of the universe could depict the "known"---it would still fall short of being total knowledge. It is like a Google map, an aerial observation of your hometown, it is quite clear that from the ground there is far more to know than can be observed in a satellite image. Contemporary physicists are tempted to admit that there might be a total knowing of the universe. The very idea is nonsensical! There is not even a total knowing of your toe!! It is axiomatic that there cannot be a total knowing of any one entity (toe) without entailing a total knowing of the universe. Even if all that can be learned about toes is learned, if there is still a missing piece in our picture of the universe, it is possible that the final bit of learning about the toe depends upon a certain "unknown" entity beyond our known universe. Further, though we conceive of the universe as immense and enormous, this 'unknown' bit or piece may turn out to be even more immense entity, or a turtle's back, hence eclipsing our known universe...Hence eclipsing our certain knowldedge of podiatry. This is true of all of human sciences, whether conceived individually or in a potential 'convergence' or 'synthesis' such as cybernetics suggests.
It can be clearly seen at the outset that such a goal or ideal as total knowledge for man, or mankind collectively is from the very start incomprehensible. This is another way of saying that the 'known' can never eclipse 'the unknown'. And this is so in a substantial and essential manner.
The vast enterprise of human technology and progress is a grand illusion, no it is the grand illusion! If you have followed my thought thus far, you may begin to see that the ideal of perfectibility and progress is in fact an alternate god, in fact, an idol. It is the idol of progress that governs nations, and usurps the role of a the real god---the god that is the way things really are. The human being only has one authentic potential, and this is to agree, to fall into harmony with the way things really are. This is true religion.
True religion is falling into harmony (subjectively) with the way things really are (objectively). It is acceptance and nothing more. All of human error has emerged by the attempt to "make things better". In fact this "do goodism", this civic duty, this fixing things, making the world a better place, etc...is the great lie. It is the core of political life and it is a lie, both for politicians and their subjects. The entire American democracy is based upon false foundations and the mistaken sense that human beings can make a "difference" ("be all that you can be"). The current conflicts in the middle east and the political lies which must be erected in order to mobilize human effort to make war render evidently clear how far astray the entire culture has drifted. And note this, it is not merely the lies of President Bush and his staff which generate this, but the very ideals such as freedom and democracy, these are indeed truly incorrect and idolatrous, if god is undertood as truth and being. It appears as though a religion (christianity) was needed to build America. The fact that this religion has almost nothing to do with its founder's teachings is irrelevant. The religion was encouraged because it in fact is the lie that the nation state needed in order to consolidate the will of the people as it conquered, and destroyed this land's native peoples, all the while creating the right kind of lies (education) to tell the children, the flag to wave, etc... Christianity is a civic religion and not the truth!
Granted, the original violation against Christ's teachings occurred long before America with the founding of the "church". Of all the baffling things Jesus reportedly said, "God is Love" stands alone as being entirely baffling. It is inconceivable in terms of any church or theology currently dominating american life. How can 'god'---an apparently objective being, be a merely subjective feeling? And if god is love, then how can one grasp the creation of a material world? In other words how does love design, organize, engineer physics and material being, time, space...? These questions alone are sufficient if pondered adequately to destroy the premises of religious dogma. If one adequately ponders 'god is love', one can realize how arbitrary, theoretical and hollow the entire edifice of theology really is...Further, one can grasp that it is precisely this edifice which darkens mankind's vision of the truth. It is the "great lie" truth lies in the other direction.
Love is all that human beings are actually capable of. Love meaning surrender, and acceptance of the way things really are.
To say: "all of the items on the desk", includes pencils, laptop, ashtray, camera, notebooks, folders, etc... We speak of "all of the things" on the desk. There is nothing left over, it is "all of the things". To say that "God is being," means that God a) is, exists, and b)exists as 'being'. Yet, we know that all things that can be spoken of, can only be spoken of as 'being' or 'in being'. For example, someone might say, "Well what of black holes, worm hole and other 'entities' which contemporary astrophysics speaks of...?" If a 'black hole' entails a negative meaning, as if to infer 'nothingness' or "absence of being" one must first of all predicate it and say "it is" or "there are black holes"---one must predicate it in being. Hence, even with nothing itself---one must say 'it is'---a patent contradiction! Nothing cannot be thought as Parmenides stated in the ancient period of pre-Socratic philosophy.
To return to the expression 'god is being'---this seems to be redundant. We can say the pencil 'is' but what we mean is that the pencil 'possesses' existence, not that it is existence. In the case of 'god' it is different, we are saying that god is being, like 2+2=4, god=being.
Now we must intercede that some things ('beings') are evanescent, appear, disappear...in fact all that we perceive as material comes into being and passes away. Are we saying that god is passing away with all of these beings since 'god is being'? No, we advance one step further...god is being, being after it has been sorted out what really counts as being...what is 'real being' or "really real". With this qualification, we say 'god is real'. By this we mean "the way things really are". This is what the word 'truth' means.
'Truth' contains the element that human beings speak honestly of 'being' or 'beings' but moreover that these words spoken actually line up with the the "way things really are". For example when it is said: '2+2=4' the word matches the way things really are, provided that indeed there is equivalence between the expressions '2+2' and '4'. The equal sign (=) refers to this "match". Unfortunately human beings tend to emphasize the speaker and the words more than the "way things really are". The president says that the Iraq war is about WMD, or fighting terrorists when it is in fact about oil. Hence the words do not match reality. This means that he is mistaken or wrong, however, if he knows that this is not the case, and he says this war is about WMD, then he consciously lies. Human beings are the only mammals known capable of conscious lying. This is what makes human life so very difficult.
Truth occurs when words match up with realities (the way things really are). If God is understood as the totality of 'the way things really are' then god is also equivalent to truth.
Note that the way thing really are by definition exceeds what man or woman can speak of or name or know...This is evident when we consider that the things that appear before me: for example, my desk, and the laptop "stretch beyond" what is evident to my senses---there is an internal, microscopic dimension, and my online connection reaches far beyond my desktop with light signals on fiberoptics, leading even farther out into a global interconnectedness. Certainly when I name my laptop, the greatest part of its 'real being' is unnamed and another aspect is unnameable.
Truth lies more on the side of the 'way things really are' than it does with human speech. If I say "Oh no this is not my laptop," in order to deceive it changes not one iota the real being of the laptop. Human words do not change real being. Truth occurs rather when human beings' words line up with match and name the things that really are. These things are just as real and stable whether named or not.
So too with 'god'. Saying "I do not believe in God, or I believe in God" does not change the fact (equivalence) of god's matching up with the way things really are. God's existence is independent from religion and human effort. Man encounters god when man attempts to discover the truth about the way things really are. One must needs be begin with an open mind neither believing nor disbelieving to encounter truth. If one already "knows" then one does not seek and one does not find.
God equals the way things really are with nothing left over. The way things really are cannot be grasped without entailing the totality of being. For example, if astrophysics could explain 15 billion light years, and astronomical observatories with their computer generated images of the largest ever image of the universe could depict the "known"---it would still fall short of being total knowledge. It is like a Google map, an aerial observation of your hometown, it is quite clear that from the ground there is far more to know than can be observed in a satellite image. Contemporary physicists are tempted to admit that there might be a total knowing of the universe. The very idea is nonsensical! There is not even a total knowing of your toe!! It is axiomatic that there cannot be a total knowing of any one entity (toe) without entailing a total knowing of the universe. Even if all that can be learned about toes is learned, if there is still a missing piece in our picture of the universe, it is possible that the final bit of learning about the toe depends upon a certain "unknown" entity beyond our known universe. Further, though we conceive of the universe as immense and enormous, this 'unknown' bit or piece may turn out to be even more immense entity, or a turtle's back, hence eclipsing our known universe...Hence eclipsing our certain knowldedge of podiatry. This is true of all of human sciences, whether conceived individually or in a potential 'convergence' or 'synthesis' such as cybernetics suggests.
It can be clearly seen at the outset that such a goal or ideal as total knowledge for man, or mankind collectively is from the very start incomprehensible. This is another way of saying that the 'known' can never eclipse 'the unknown'. And this is so in a substantial and essential manner.
The vast enterprise of human technology and progress is a grand illusion, no it is the grand illusion! If you have followed my thought thus far, you may begin to see that the ideal of perfectibility and progress is in fact an alternate god, in fact, an idol. It is the idol of progress that governs nations, and usurps the role of a the real god---the god that is the way things really are. The human being only has one authentic potential, and this is to agree, to fall into harmony with the way things really are. This is true religion.
True religion is falling into harmony (subjectively) with the way things really are (objectively). It is acceptance and nothing more. All of human error has emerged by the attempt to "make things better". In fact this "do goodism", this civic duty, this fixing things, making the world a better place, etc...is the great lie. It is the core of political life and it is a lie, both for politicians and their subjects. The entire American democracy is based upon false foundations and the mistaken sense that human beings can make a "difference" ("be all that you can be"). The current conflicts in the middle east and the political lies which must be erected in order to mobilize human effort to make war render evidently clear how far astray the entire culture has drifted. And note this, it is not merely the lies of President Bush and his staff which generate this, but the very ideals such as freedom and democracy, these are indeed truly incorrect and idolatrous, if god is undertood as truth and being. It appears as though a religion (christianity) was needed to build America. The fact that this religion has almost nothing to do with its founder's teachings is irrelevant. The religion was encouraged because it in fact is the lie that the nation state needed in order to consolidate the will of the people as it conquered, and destroyed this land's native peoples, all the while creating the right kind of lies (education) to tell the children, the flag to wave, etc... Christianity is a civic religion and not the truth!
Granted, the original violation against Christ's teachings occurred long before America with the founding of the "church". Of all the baffling things Jesus reportedly said, "God is Love" stands alone as being entirely baffling. It is inconceivable in terms of any church or theology currently dominating american life. How can 'god'---an apparently objective being, be a merely subjective feeling? And if god is love, then how can one grasp the creation of a material world? In other words how does love design, organize, engineer physics and material being, time, space...? These questions alone are sufficient if pondered adequately to destroy the premises of religious dogma. If one adequately ponders 'god is love', one can realize how arbitrary, theoretical and hollow the entire edifice of theology really is...Further, one can grasp that it is precisely this edifice which darkens mankind's vision of the truth. It is the "great lie" truth lies in the other direction.
Love is all that human beings are actually capable of. Love meaning surrender, and acceptance of the way things really are.
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