OK, fine. I know what you’re thinking. So here’s the modernistic logic to back it up. Two axioms:
- Humans are crazy
- Hugo is human
Conclusion:
- Hugo is crazy.
That, my friends, is really all that there is to it. If we deny our pre-modern heritage, we deny our humanity. The internet is dangerous, I should probably have been unplugged a long time ago.
Vell, Hugo’s just zis guy, y’know?
Watch Equilibrium. Give more suggestions in the comments.
20 responses so far ↓
1 Hugo // Nov 30, 2007 at 6:41 am
People debate God, around and around, searching for proof, providing disproofs.
Modernistic words, to describe a pre-modernistic idea. In my opinion? You guys are wasting your time. But that’s just me, and I’m a bit of a nut-case. I have a foot in modernism, and a foot in pre-modernism, for I have searched long and hard to unify humanity in my mind. And in my mind, I have succeeded. Now the impossible task is just to share my madness with the world! Muhahahahaha!
Crazy scientist.
2 Al Lovejoy // Nov 30, 2007 at 9:22 am
I think the only scientific definition I’ve heard for insanity, within the expanding diversities of obsessive-compulsive disorders found on the wonky playing fields of rehabilitative mental health, is roughly anyone who does the same thing repeatedly, yet expects a different outcome to the behaviour pattern driven by that modus of thinking and the ensuing self-destructive decision making processes each time.
What our Buddhist friends would call: Experiencing continuous alternative happiness.
And while I should probably bite my tongue while it is still in my cheek - let’s instead just get my other foot in my mouth - while we observe (that is kinda Step 1. of empiricism innit?) Christ, who was also challenged to His face by the sceptics of His time and who demanded proof in the form of “signs”. What Terry Pratchett would call magic, happy clappies call miracles and what we were taught (in a reduced way) to call science…(possibly not constrained to natural sciences but supernatural science. Science, but more so. Feel me?)
Christ told them: Watch this…
See, and let me establish a precedent to all future comments I may make here. This seems to be a step up from the seething mindless babel found on blogs like Prometheus and to a lesser degree - Facebook concerning Christian fundamentalism - so it lends itself to serious debate and hopefully - exploration into developing a new species of thinking. I’m of the opinion that deconstructing arguments without reconstructing an antithesis to them is merely making a noise that sounds intellectual. Rusty cognitive understanding without the grease to wheel it forward into a better spotlight of collective illumination.
And I will remain on the side of the fence of the historical Person and teachings of Christ, albeit peering over that vibacrete wall from time to time at the didactic knife fight being waged furiously between fundamentalist atheists and fundamentalist Christians, each with their banners screaming absolute denouncement, militant chants and slogans - and hurling blazing, mouldy second-hand arguments at each other. And both stubbornly trying to batter the other into a technical insignificance somewhere in a non-existent corner of that amphitheatre hosting the Circus Maximus. Funny thing is - the only difference between the two sides once the noise subsides and the weapons and armour are stripped away - is one side spells itself with a Capital Letter.
That does not deserve serious attention, except possibly by a neo-post-modern editor with a punctuation fetish. In my decided cynical opinion: toss a couple of vrot tomatoes at both sides - and keep watching the fun.
Jesus Christ managed to reconstruct religion and the understanding of the science of the day - existentially - simply by living out what He taught.
Becoming ultimately, what Terry Pratchett would call a zombie - will do that for you. And it would be interesting to take this discussion there…(No gladiators allowed)
3 Hugo // Nov 30, 2007 at 9:31 am
Amen, brother! Amen to that!
Humanity is a story culture. Humanity speaks in tongues. The happy clappy’s, they speak the language of angels. The scientists speak the language of men.
The happy clappy’s have made the mistake of thinking they are speaking the language of men, and have therefore created another meaningless language, the language of angels. The scientists make the same mistake, they think the hapyp clappy’s are speaking the language of men, and therefore think them stupid, for it does not make sense.
Pre-modernism understood the language of angels. It was a story culture. The power of stories can move mountains, if you have but the faith of a mustard seed. Modernism is the language of men. Without the language of angels, without the power of stories, we kill. We murder. Our diplomacy fails, for we can no longer communicate, for we no longer have “God”.
Now I come to you, and I can speak both. I can translate. I can translate the language of angels, to the language of men, and vice versa. But still, you will not hear. And I can handle snake venom, for science has given me anti-venom.
What is a messiah? A messiah is someone who can write the next chapter, building on everything that has come before. And who determines who is a messiah and who is not? The audience. Only the audience. The audience gets to decide if they like the chapter that is being written or not. They can choose to enjoy the story, or they can choose to reject the story. Their choice. If they reject all stories though, their existence will be hell. They will miss the life that can be described as an eternal life, the life that is part of the bigger story of humanity.
And you know what? We better all find God and live in peace, before we meet extra-terrestrial intelligence. For if we have not God, there is little hope. If we do, we can try to communicate with the new life forms, should we ever find them, and maybe we won’t, maybe we will, we sure as hell have not found any proof of their existence yet, I’m afraid the abduction cases are extremely likely all deluded. Extremely likely. But I refuse to say definitely, for only the Sith deal in black and white. The point being, we can communicate with them, and find out if they share our God or not. If not, they might kill us. If they do, what a joyous day that will be! For we will all be writing a magnificent story together!
Amen.
4 Hugo // Nov 30, 2007 at 9:45 am
There have been many claimants. If their claims were not accepted, it is because their stories were not good enough. Even Hitler was considered a Messianic figure, but the story did not have the happy ending his followers had hoped for.
5 Al Lovejoy // Nov 30, 2007 at 9:50 am
I once heard someone say that the real proof of other intelligent life forms out there in deep space is that they refuse to come near us…although less cynically - if the enemy of my enemy is not really my friend - then either I am surrounded by enemies (a condition mental health professionals call paranoia) - or I can choose to see friends I haven’t made yet.
And here we are right back at the foot of a real Christ and his teachings.
6 Hugo // Nov 30, 2007 at 9:56 am
Hehe. Beauty.
Ever heard that thing, from how long ago, that states “everyone wants to write a book”?
It is true.
We all want to write books. We all want to write in the book of life. And we should. And we can.
Tell your story. Tell your story to your close friends. Or if you cannot, start a blog. Start an anonymous blog if you want. But tell your story. Try to not be too self-centred. It can be hard, I know, but tell your story. The problem is humanity has stopped listening. Tell your story with your audience in mind. Try maybe to climb out of your story, sit outside, with the audience, and watch yourself perform. May your story enlighten us. If we fail to understand, it is because we do not know how to listen. Do not let that put you off. Be your own audience. Or let God be your audience. For that is what God is, God is the audience that is watching this story unfold. God is the inspiration that encourages the writing of this story.
Amen.
7 Hugo // Nov 30, 2007 at 9:59 am
Richard Dawkins. I want to hear your story. I know science is an integral part of your story, and that is beautiful. However, that is not enough. I want to see that you are human. A human with flaws, a human with passion. I do see passion in you, I see “God” in you, especially at the end of “The Root of All Evil”. There you were singing praises. There you were worshipping. It was a thing of beauty, that touched everyone that was really listening. That was God.
8 Al Lovejoy // Nov 30, 2007 at 10:18 am
A successful messiah should induce a passionate messianic responsibility in those who follow, yet without a messianic complex developing when that follower crosses over from being influenced to psychotically claiming, to a greater or lesser degree - to be that same messiah by insurgency.
Something that Christ warned would happen to deluded people and their even more deluded followers in his wake. With all the terrible consequences of the collective insanity like WWII.
The rare times that I was taught to think decisively differently about myself and the world around me, were by people who could not help but be like Christ to the next person they come into contact with. People brave enough to try be influenced that deeply and keep their focus in tension.
A sailor does not put his trust in the visible piece of canvas he has rigged as a sail - without the wind and the knowledge of how to harness its power - that canvas is just a piece of rag tied to a length of wood, floating around in an ocean going nowhere. Even the Royal coat of arms painted on it mean nothing, since in that place that symbol has dominion over nothing.
And the fastest route to shipwreck is to give a stupid sailor wind.
9 Hugo // Nov 30, 2007 at 10:37 am
Or don’t start a blog. A diary also works, you are your audience, God is your audience. Use your own language.
Whatever. Just live in the light. Whichever light you choose.
10 gloep // Nov 30, 2007 at 10:50 am
“I think the only scientific definition I’ve heard for insanity, within the expanding diversities of obsessive-compulsive disorders found on the wonky playing fields of rehabilitative mental health, is roughly anyone who does the same thing repeatedly, yet expects a different outcome to the behaviour pattern driven by that modus of thinking and the ensuing self-destructive decision making processes each time.”
Wahaha, umm Hugo - dis dalk die diagnose wat jy soek. Maybe if I blog some more, my thesis will self-propagate and write itself. Yes, yes, I’ll try that today.
11 Hugo // Nov 30, 2007 at 11:00 am
Good Plan!
Eish, it’s Friday…
12 Al Lovejoy // Nov 30, 2007 at 11:03 am
No, china - for that you need sixty billion monkeys sitting in front of sixty billion laptops and typing for sixty billion years - and you still have to hope the little furry buggers don’t reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare instead.
13 Al Lovejoy // Nov 30, 2007 at 11:19 am
A more practical plan would be to visit the Librarian, Ooook - and pop down an aisle into a handy nearby multiverse section, photcopy the thesis already written by another you, sneak back, give the Librarian a banana (Ooook!) and Bob’s your Auntie (or at least a relative cross-dresser)…
14 gloep // Nov 30, 2007 at 11:27 am
And seeing as everyone is Christmas-decoration-mad, the banana could be accompanied by some bright cheery baubles and strategically placed tinsel.
15 Al Lovejoy // Dec 1, 2007 at 12:30 am
I’ve been toying with the idea of writing the real (uncut) Christmas story, although my version takes three years and has unfun stuff like genocidal-infanticide in it.
And if we ever do have a serious discussion about the resurrection - I would like to take it a step further and discuss Christ’s magic/miracles/science.
And kick off with - managing intractable paediatric epilepsy though dietary induced ketosis to achieve progressive demyelinisation.
To show you what I mean - Let’s paint three scenarios and dialogues:
A.) Terry Pratchett.
Mistrum Ridcully bore up and away from the small trembling woman and her dangerously tremored son, he didn’t want to aid them so much as just be rid of them. Especially the woman. “Dean take this child with us to lunch and only feed it what the Bursar eats. And Madam I must insist that you discontinue this…er,…Senior Wrangler!”
b.) Family Physician.
“I want to try something different with you. I am going to give you two lists. The one is a list of foods that you are NOT allowed to feed your boy and a list that he must eat. As much as he wants. This strict diet is going to cause his body to start going into a state of what is known as ketosis. It is when the body starts to kind of consume it’s own fat. The fat that we are interested in is called myelin and is found in the central nervous system. It forms a sheath around the neuron pathways that slowly gets thicker as they are used a lot. By causing the sheath to thin out, the neurons become capable of sort of re-wiring themselves and the symptoms will disappear as the synapses reconnect correctly. However, stress is an important factor. More specifically your stress. See, the stress and fear you and your husband are feeling right now is also being passed onto the boy and that in itself is triggering and intensifying the seizures. In my professional opinion - get him onto the diet immediately and if you have a priest, go call on him or ask him to call on you and pray together. It is a wonderful vehicle of hope and that will help the boy even more.”
Or
C.) Christ speaking to iron age people who considered every mental or neurological disease to be a “demon” - and the cure?
Fire, public stonings or chained away out of sight.
Of course, instead of Dr. Jesus Christ blinding them with all the technical details of the grand neurohistology He designed, which was damaged in that particular patient - and using words that were still thousands of years away from entering human medical lexicons through the morphology of scientific research - He said:
Oh, ye of little faith - This kind [of demon] only comes out with prayer and fasting.
And the kid got cured.
Now I know for a fact that this is a working neurological cure without invasive surgery or suppressive internal medicine - which even has an effect on adults without the benefit of a fast adapting and developing brain! My mother-in-law got cured after I prescribed this to my wife for her and no longer has grand mal seizures and almost all her episodes have become petit-mal and manageable.
Is this what you meant when you said bring two worlds and two languages together by translation and details of personal experience?
16 Al Lovejoy // Dec 1, 2007 at 12:37 am
My humble apologies to Mr. Pratchett - he was esteemed enough to hold a valid place in this discussion, albeit by fictional prose of his.
17 Al Lovejoy // Dec 1, 2007 at 12:41 am
Maybe there is a cure for madness Hugo, I think it might be attained by engaging in the business of exercising intelligence properly.
18 jess // Dec 1, 2007 at 8:09 am
genius, yes? utter genius. methinks. purple.
the colour of heart.
19 Al Lovejoy // Dec 2, 2007 at 10:28 am
Here in the old water
where we trudge,
Wandering the muddy aftermath
That drowned The Tree of Life,
And as we go about our New Planting
We hear a curse.
Old Sailor has tried to grow a memory
Of The Forbidden Tree again
But he could not.
It never survived The Flood…
I die from a plant I ate,
Somewhere in New Eden
and drift back to water memories,
the blood-filled darkness of my birth.
I find the way up to HEAVEN,
And You are there!!
I lie down in HELL,
AND You are here!!
This means: You have always been Here
And somehow You know the way out…
Copyright (c) Al Lovejoy - 2005
20 lousirr // Dec 2, 2007 at 12:05 pm
Amen!
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