• "The world is a comedy to those that think, a tragedy to those who feel."**
• All attempts by the individual, termed 'consciousness,' to attempt to map an order or purpose unto 'the other' will be met with failure, as 'the other' is non-rational and random.***
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[I'm not sure if this is a good time to post this but thinking about it gave me a headache. The permutations are complicated ...so, I'm posting it anyways.]
I hate large philosophical terms like 'existentialism'...'positivism'...'ecumenism'... 'phenomenalism'… bullsh*t-ism. But, three random things have occurred recently to bring me to write about an ism today. First, a former colleague lost his family house to a fire. For anyone familiar with Black Tinkerbell's blog, that is the reason for this post. (Blogger's permission required.) Secondly, yesterday was the annual World Food Festival in Mid-Town…that's between 40th St. and 56th St. on 9th Av., Manhattan. I had the intruiging company of the beautiful atheist. Conversing with her was…interesting in an end-of-life kinda way. (I assume that is what one is when they have 'no religion/spiritual beliefs'.) Thirdly, I walked into Mass today to hear the monotonous priest reading an excerpt from The Gospel of John. (Yes, I was 5 whole minutes late.) It was the prayer of Jesus just before his crucifixion.
I told you they were random events. Well, … almost random.
In Black Tinkerbell's post, she almost agonizes over the meaning of life. I think we've all done this at some point in our adolescence-to-maturity metamorphosis. It usually hits us when someone we know meets real tragedy; when disaster becomes personal to us.
In talking with the beautiful atheist, she told me about how she attempted to deal with the death of her boyfriend. She was a mature teenager. The type that people expect to have most of the answers. The type that people look up to for inspiration. The type that no one thinks to ask if life is less-than-perfect. She resorted to drinking as a way out. She had no religion and so there was no, 'It is well' to avail herself of. (By the way, if you know someone who's met tragedy, plzzzzz DON'T tell them 'It is well'! Say something you really understand and mean, something original …OR SHUT UP!) It set me thinking about how you pull through life when there is nothing to…………………….. just, when there is nothing.
The monotonous priest was less dramatic. If you're familiar with the prayer of Jesus, you might know that it speaks about His present and our future. Anyways, somehow, the priest found a way to turn his homily into a discourse on our purpose in life. And, while he lost me in the drift of his sermon, I stayed awake sufficiently enough to hear him concur with what I've always thought life means…assuming life has a 'meaning'.
However, before we get to all that, a couple of comments about existentialism and Walpole's quotation. I already said that I hate isms. However, I love Walpole's words. I always have. Mainly because the world amuses me and aggravates me alternately, depending on whether I am thinking or feeling. In short, all of the quote applies to me.
Existentialism, on the other hand, tells me that the Individual and all 'it's' choices are all that matter. The world is random. God, if he exists, is indifferent. Life is meaningless. Anyone with religious beliefs recoils at the thought that God might not exist as who or what we think. We are jolted into denial that life, as we know it, may have absolutely NO meaning or purpose. We want to think that we wake up in the morning for a reason; that our loved ones have not died in vain; that our privations for the sake of morality are not ignored and that we will be compensated by karma or the Eternal Ones; that 7 virgins await us when we offer up our lives to blow up the kaffirs…. In fact, we want to believe.
Unfortunately, everything as you fear it, is a possibility. We may be here for nothing - merely to live, breathe, and to die. The Big Bang may account for everything we know today as well as for what tomorrow reveals. The Almighty may be nothing than a filler for the eternal questions that we are too cowardly to answer. I think Voltaire tells us that if God did not exist, it would be necessary to create Him. This is what existentialism forces us to contemplate.
I do not believe you can fully appreciate the Deity until you consider - and accept - that He may not exist as you think Him to be.
Stop. Think. God may not exist. (Do it.)
Sh!t… then I'm totally screwed.
Pause again. Deep breath. Let's move on… in a future post. [Stay Tuned.]
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* A philosophy that emphasizes the uniqueness and isolation of the individual experience in a hostile or indifferent universe, regards human experience as unexplainable, and stresses freedom of choice and responsibility for the consequences of one's acts.
**Horace Walpole, 1717 – 1797
***Albert Camus (pronounced 'Kamy'), 1913 - 1960
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7 comments:
Its a beautiful spring day and I would very much like to sit quietly with you on the parade ground and watch the world go by.
Does God exist or not?Agelong question. To my mind,the polemics on (divine)existentialism or externality reveals that man's knowledge to offer conclusion to foreclose all conclusions about exixtentialism or religious (as it were) externalism proves to be of lesser capacity in the (philosophical) adventurisms of the theology.
emmm... In English, what does that mean???
In my candid view, i think the idea of fruitful thoughts on existentialism should begin by asking:"God, do you exist...?" rather than a parochially pedagogic insinuations about what is not lost but which the idle are tiredlessly groping for!
even though the first sentence is plane enough for comprehension, note that man's capacity to comprehence the many-sided nature of God is quite finite.this leads to the second sentence!
Good to see you are thinking 'bout things like this, bro. My observation is that you are tilting towards agnosticism. That has always been the 'rational' conclusion. But 'man' cannot live by 'bread' (in this context: reason/rationality) alone, says the so-called holy book and so we need to invent God. The problem is despite notions to the contrary we have on the whole made him/her in our own image. ay from England, send me an email sometime, pal.
"...Not the least of my problems is that I can hardly even imagine what kind of an experience a geniune, self - authenticating religious experience would be. Without somehow destroying me in the process, how could God reveal himself in a way that would leave no room for doubt? If there were no room for doubt, there would be no room for me..."
- Frederick Buechner
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