Category Archives: religion

An Ominous Future?

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In 1935 Sinclair Lewis wrote a novel: It Can’t Happen Here, detailing the horrors of a totalitarian dictatorship. In the novel the ‘corpo’ government takes control, restrictions on personal freedoms emerge and the press becomes the voice of the state, dissidents are rounded up and imprisoned or executed and minorities become scapegoats. Young men are conscripted into the quasi-militaristic “Minute Men’ whose task is to seek out and arrest anyone suspected of subversive activities. As people began to realize their loss of freedoms mass demonstrations formed and were brutally put down by the oppressive regime

In America today we see militaristic ICE agents assaulting immigrants deporting them without legal recourse to interminable prison time in Venezuela. We see attempts to suppress free speech in the racist intentions to cancel Diversity Equity and Inclusion programs in colleges and universities. We see ICE agents removing books from public libraries which can only be seen as an attack on education.

This totalitarian wave we’re experiencing is intended to overwhelm us; resistance is necessary; silence is acquiescence.

The Dissolution of Hope

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I’ve been thinking about what happens when life imposes obstacles so overwhelming one loses the hope a better life is within the realm of possibility. A darkness settles in with the realization a livable future doesn’t exist. Socially enabling behaviors, neighborly connections, dissipate, alienation results, hostility develops, obsession finds only the enemy.

Does such a one entertain a death wish or strike back and initiate an evil response?

Moral, Amoral Immoral

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I’m wondering lately what part morality plays in our social behaviors these days, how morally ambivalent we’ve become in our acceptance of the less that morally stellar actions of some of our public figures. The ‘designer’ morality many of us assume these days lacks the omniscient overseer Christian believers have: an entity able to impose punishment or reward for behaviors well spelled out and without compromise.

However, we draw our moral guidelines it seems pretty clear that lack of any moral truths has dangerous implications for personal well-being and for our relationships with our fellow man. Amorality turns into immorality that leads to evil intent, the inclination to replace social benevolence with Will-to-Power.

A Shadow Self

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I guess it’s pretty clear that we are all innately susceptible to wicked behaviors. That, while we maintain a respectable public persona within us burns a shadow-self, a dormant entity that when motivated surfaces to exhibit behaviors that can only be described as evil.

There are various reasons why an evil shadow-self might reveal itself: fear of the Other among them. An obsessive jealousy might ignite one’s Darkside as well as vain responses to threatened identity. Instigators might arouse the shadow-selves in whole populations by demonizing a scapegoat as happened with the witch burnings during the Middle Ages and antisemitism in the 1930’s and 40’s.

When the eruption of the shadow-self occurs, our moral imperatives will likely be overwhelmed allowing our innate wicked behaviors to flood in.

Our Evil Selves

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I’ve been reading that everyone has within them the potential to behave in ways that can only be described as wicked. The idea is that although most of us develop moral values that help us remain socially responsible neighbors, (you know, do unto others as we would have them………..), a shadow self that has the potential to cause us to engage in evil behaviors, lurks within us.

Sometimes obsessions driven by envy, pride, greed or lust can turn us away from the moral guidelines that have made it possible for us to live socially responsible existences. If these obsessions grow and fester, continue unchecked, they may disrupt our sense of identity to such an extent we may forget who we are. When this happens the potential for evil behaviors against our fellows becomes all too possible may even lead us to actions that go far beyond the disquiet that led us initially to the obsessiveness, which can result in a total annihilation of what was initially desired and spiral us downward into self-destruction.

The Sacred and The Profane

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Today’s newspaper carries news of a recently deceased 15-yearold Italian boy, Carlos Acutis, who has been designated by the Church for sainthood. Carlos developed an on-line exhibit of Eucharistic miracles that have occurred over the centuries, which caught the imaginations of the faithful making him prayer-appealable, accrediting to him miracles of healing through his on-line exhibit.

The Church in its infinite wisdom, had Carlos’ body exhumed, organs removed and cosmetically enhanced so pilgrims journeying to Assisi can receive whatever blessing the future saint might grant, the Church, meanwhile holding the increasingly valuable relics.

Faith is a tenuous thing. I suppose it’s necessary, in order to maintain belief, to find new saints and have their body parts available for purchase.

The Sacred and The Profane

Unimpeachable Truths

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I’ve been thinking lately about the multitudes of good and sincere people in the world who have arrived at dramatically conflicting views as to the nature of reality.

Most all of us rely on what we consider to be unimpeachable support sources for our views and usually a contingent of like-minded others that reinforce our beliefs. The evangelical Christian, the Qanon conspiracy buff and the liberal mainstreamer will tend to approach daily occurrences with sets of premises and then conclusions that are quite different. Such conflicting perspectives are the stuff of the social divisiveness manifesting itself these days; the dilemma of free thought in a free society free from coercive oversight, I guess.

I have no answers other than responding with patient tolerance in the knowledge that most everyone deserves respectful acknowledgement of their usually carefully considered views. The hope is that we can all spot disinformation when it presents itself. Hopefully, we can think past the response of the recently interviewed lady asked why she embraces her position on a current controversial idea. ‘I know it’s not true’, she said, ‘but it’s consistent with my beliefs.

The Problem with the Theory of Intelligent Design

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After thinking about for some time, it occurs to me that the problem with the theory of Intelligent Design is that it requires combining and organizing disparate parts into a whole; particularly complex structures may involve evolved parts which are themselves constructed from even more basic components making such a concept unimaginable.

But biological life begins as a whole (single cell amoeba) that evolves from a primordial chemical soup. It grows and evolves from infancy to adolescence to maturity. Only afterward does the evolved being manifest the intelligence to conceive the notion of organized parts.

Eternal Recurrence

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I’ve been reading about the fairly difficult existence that the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche endured over his life time. Given his self-imposed isolation and the debilitating health issues that he endured: fairly constant migraines and nausea, it’s small wonder many of his thoughts were less than uplifting.
But, the physical and mental infirmities led him, I suppose, to one of his most notable ideas.

Eternal recurrence, stated simply, is to “live this life again in all its aspects, every pain and every joy, every thought and sigh and everything unspeakably small and great in the same succession and sequence over and over for ever and ever”, which must have been a pretty horrible idea for Nietzsche given his health and loneliness issues.

So, I’ve been thinking, maybe there’s something to be learned here, you know, make friends, go to the doctor, do good things; if life is indeed cyclical than maybe recurrence wouldn’t be so bad. There still would be periods of boredom to deal with though, I suppose.

The Effete Aesthete

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I’ve been thinking about how visual art is consumed. I’m inclined to believe most people, viewing representational artwork relate favorably or unfavorably as the content reflects their interests: outdoor lovers and landscapes, hunters and wildlife, etc. Then, there are the aesthetes who revel in the beauty of color and composition or disdain the lack thereof. They seek rhythm, form and pictorial depth rather than meaningful subject matter.

The Effete Aesthete takes the visual art experience a step further. She seeks aesthetic nuance, contextual reference or artist intent as basis for value judgement, even though such meaning depends on secondhand interpretation provided by a critic or curator thereby eliminating the need for an honest interpretation of her own. Such action would seem to be a sterile and overrefined approach to visual art viewing.