Archive for Philosopher’s Corner

Jun 24
Candle in the Dark
Posted by Ethan, Philosopher's Corner

This is the information age. But that does not necessarily make it the age of knowledge and wisdom. More than anything else, it is an inundation of misinformation and trivia which we then need to sift through to find a few kernels of truth.

Our candle of knowledge may be shining brighter, but the result seems to be only to show how much greater the expanse of ignorant darkness is. The more I learn, the more I realize how limited my knowledge really is.

Hello Socrates.

I have been blessed with an insatiable curiosity spanning almost everything, petering out just short of celebrity gossip and fashion. It is possible that if I was only interested in one aspect of a single narrow subject I might come to understand if fully. But then I wouldn’t be able to understand how it integrates with the rest of this wonderous creation we call the Universe.

I am doomed to be a generalist with all the related ignorance this entails, and I am much happier this way. There is always more to learn, so life will never become boring.

When I research something, an event in history for example, I learn a little about the event. At the same time I am also introduced to myriad related events and people who all have their own stories with further branches leading off of them.

As a young lad, I would play what I called the Encyclopedia Game. This involved opening an encyclopedia at random and reading an article. At the end there would be a list of “see also” articles. I would then go to one of these and proceed in this way for hours. This was in a time when the internet was nothing more than speculative fiction touched on by only a few of the more prescient Sci-Fi authors.

I was also using an encyclopedia set from the fifties, which included an article on the benefits of DDT and other such anachronistic lore. So as an added benefit I was getting a bit of a History lesson as well.

Today with the internet it is easy to get swept down the rabbit hole of linked “see alsos.” It is not unusual to spend hours jumping from link to link until one has completely forgotten their original question.

The internet is also dangerous because it is a multi-functional tool. Research is really only a minor portion of its make up. Entertainment, marketing, gossip, speculation, propaganda, and more is all funneled through the same search engines. It is no wonder people often give up in frustration before learning anything useful.

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Apr 15
Human Worship on the Rise
Posted by Ethan, Philosopher's Corner

(WARNING: The following may be found offensive to the easily offended, so if you are one of those please do us both a favor and do not read it. Thank you and God bless.)

According to statistics provided by the department of Religions, Cults, and Crackpots, the number of people who worship humanity is on the rise.

The worship of humans is an ancient practice codified by the Catholic Church during the first few centuries of their existence. Their dogma dictates that their followers must pray to human saints because “God doesn’t want to talk to you.” And because of some fancy liturgical foot work that this reporter was not on the proper narcotics to comprehend, Jesus, who was apparently human, is also God, so “he doesn’t want to talk to you either.” Therefore all requests should be addressed to the appropriate saint, each of whom oversees a particular department.

Care must be taken however since prayers addressed to the wrong department will not be returned. “It’s a big problem” declared Catholic spokesman Father Muhammad bin Arafat. “The whole reason so many people can’t find love is because they are addressing their prayers to Saint Valentine who only handles communication between established lovers. St. Raphael runs the dating service.”

Over the centuries many Christian religions have splintered from Catholicism. These splinter groups fall into one of three main categories:

1)      Jesus may be God, but he’s human enough to pray to.
2)      Jesus is not God, so we can pray to him.
3)      Hey, if Martin Luther could do it, so can I.

A fourth category is reserved exclusively for Cults: If I start my own religion I can require conjugal relations from my entire flock and acquire all their material wealth as well.

When asked what the Jews think of this growing phenomenon, Rabbi Robert O’Reilly replied, “Hey if you’re not one of God’s chosen people, what else can you do? I mean there are always cows, but Baal moved to India to work in tech support.”

Many people are moving the worship of humans out of the churches and into their daily lives. Rituals include viewing hate spewing bigots on pseudo-news shows and the application of bumper stickers.  Mary Worth, a long time practitioner, proudly displays the backside of her SUV which claims on one side that what Jesus would really do is drive a 9MPG luxury vehicle and vote a straight republican ticket. On the other side it proclaims that “All Human life is Sacred” until the moment of birth when they can be safely ignored once they’re pushed into the crushing poverty of an inner city ghetto or beyond the walls of a national border. The rest of God’s creation can be exploited and abused for humanities pleasure, since the rapture will save those of us worth saving before we are killed by our own filth. Those worth saving are basically “Me and my friends,” explained Mary, “You probably voted against banning gay marriages, so you are going to hell.”

At last count the number to be saved was 144,000. Since the number of people to be saved in the rapture is set, the more babies saved from abortion, the more people will be condemned to eternal damnation and hell’s fire.

In recent decades, secular worship has exploded in popularity. Ever since the advent of mass media, millions of otherwise allegedly intelligent people have worshiped media icons and musicians. Apparently anyone who can convincingly pretend to be someone else for up to two hours at a time is worthy of devotion, as well as anyone who can lip-sync to pre-recorded music tracks and dance at the same time. The liturgy for these idols can be found in checkout lines around the world.

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Ethan Rose is a theologian dedicated to the worship of Fern, the god of noxious plants. He is also a Senior Correspondent to the New York Times, Silly Department, but they have yet to print any of his articles. Oh, and he’s also an author.

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Feb 22
Unanimity
Posted by Ethan, Philosopher's Corner

Tree in NMImagine god not as the creator, but as creation. We and everything else in creation are small parts of this whole. When we are truly aware of this, not just in our minds but in our whole being, then we are truly with god. It is our separation from the rest of creation which causes despair, hatred, negativity in all its forms. It is an unconscious knowledge of this separation which causes longing.

When a child is born it is a newly separated part of god, so new that it is still mostly connected. The newborn are not yet of this perceived reality but must learn through a process of culturalization to give up the heavenly past for the realistic future. So much of childhood seems to deal with pulling children out of the present and propelling them into the future. Just think of the time spent at school, most of which is wasted from a child’s perspective.

By the time adolescence is reached, the disconnection from the divine unity has increased to the point where it is only remembered subconsciously. Adolescents struggle to pull themselves out of the present and into the future. They feel the longing for something lost and unattainable at the same time they are striving for adulthood. By the time adulthood is reached, they are lost, fully in the present, seeking only for things of the perceivable world. Even the love they long for is for one another instead of everyone and everything.

Then comes the mid-life crisis, middle age when the return journey begins. Slowly the middle-aged begin to realize that all this material wealth they’ve been wasting their time with isn’t getting them anywhere. Something is still missing. Longing and erratic behavior return.

Finally old age brings a drawing near to unanimity. Child-like behavior returns and cares of this world seem less important… until we die. And all is one.

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Feb 02
Philosopher’s Corner… the sequel
Posted by Ethan, Philosopher's Corner

Dateline: The Netherlands.

Six to Eight black men, apparently under the orders of a tall white man wearing a mitre, entered the residence of a middle class family where after striking one of the children with a thin tree branch stuffed him in a sack and carried him off. The family was later indicted as accomplices when it was revealed that they showed no surprise and several valuable “gifts” from the kidnappers were found hidden in the family’s shoes.

All charges were subsequently dropped when it became known that this was simply the traditional Yuletide myth of The Netherlands.

Isn’t mythology great when looked at from the proper angle?

Here is another example:
Phaeton meteor ride- The earth was scorched and a thunderbolt from heaven killed him. Afterwards, the sun hid its face for a year.

According to the ancient Greeks, Phaeton, the son of Helios, took his father’s place one day and went on what was a teenage joy ride across the sky. He obviously was not the god his father was and lost control of the sun’s chariot, driving it too close to the earth, so that it was scorched at one point and then frozen at another when he drove too far from the sun. Then, to stop the mayhem, he was shot out of the sky by Artemis, and the whole disaster fell into the sea. The sun hid it’s face for a year.

Now wouldn’t that be a wonderful way to describe the effects of a large meteorite falling to earth?

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Jan 31
Philosopher’s Corner
Posted by Ethan, Philosopher's Corner

Lesson is nothing more than the absence of an E, less one. The one less referred to is the participation of the assumed recipient.

When a lecture is given in whatever form, it is typically for the benefit of the lecturer. It is a one way conversation designed for the satisfaction of whomever is talking to feel that they have gotten their ideas across.  For example, this essay is a lecture, since I have no expectation that it will be read by anyone beyond my wife (she is so beautiful and intelligent) who will edit it. It is a lesson-less one participant-namely the one who will take in its meaning and engage me by refuting, arguing, and/or agreeing with the concepts I am presenting.

Without a rebuttal and/or reply it serves only my own vanity. But with a reply something greater is achieved: a genuine conversation and concerted afford to share knowledge and reach a greater understanding beyond an individual’s ability.

This is why imparting knowledge is a sterile occupation unless it is immediately followed by a discussion.  Socrates was well aware of this, which is perhaps why he developed the famous method which bears his name.

My hope and purpose for writing these blogs is not for my own vanity (yeah, right)-I have a personal journal for that- but rather to reach out and engage another mind who will be interested enough in what I am writing to take it seriously enough to examine it and see where I went wrong or got off track or maybe even where to go next, but in some way challenge my thoughts.  In this way they will encourage me to do the same for them, and so on, until we reach a greater understanding for all concerned.

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