Letter to Thomas

Thomas,

Thanks for the Best Answer to your question and in response to your comments, I would love to discuss matters of faith any time you like. You may be surprised (or disappointed) to know that I have been (a) born again Christian THREE times in my youth but I kept finding Christianity too hard to maintain a belief in.

First off was the idea that I saw kids doing bad things and saying "it's okay, I'm saved."

My second disillusionment was the idea that "do unto others" is a form of abuse, as in "figure out what other people need and give it to them whether they want it or not." That is pretty much how I interact with folks on YAP, treating them as I want to be treated, and they are appalled because the golden rule is a formula for abuse. Luckily I am not a Christian so I don't try to pretend that it is anything but a psychological purge, doing what I think is best for others. It would require more humility than I have to say "God doesn't want me to 'Do unto others' God wants me to leave them the heck alone." Luckily you have the bible to blame for following this abusive rule.

Thirdly, when I got re-involved with religion in my twenties, I got a glimpse of the worldly money and power aspect of Christianity, and it freaked me the hell out. I kept telling myself "it's the message, not the messenger" but it was like being Alice in Wonderland trying to pretend everything was normal.

I have known many great Christians who have been models of goodness and humility. I have also known good Hindus who would give a stranger the shirt off their backs. I have known religious Jews who were models of generosity and tolerance. I have frankly known charitable and gentle Satanists (not the atheist kind, the voodoo-y "I can do magic" kind. Frankly I have a tremendous respect for the power of good in faith, just not any interest in anyone's religion.

When I was in college, I read about Taoism and thought nothing of it. Then I read a silly little book by a guy named Benjamin Hoff called "The Tao of Pooh" (Taoism as explained by Winnie the Pooh) and it changed my life. I had always hated Pooh growing up as he represented stupid and lazy to me. It was my earliest training to impose myself on the world whether mechanically, like my dad, or verbally like my mom. I had no real idea that you could accept the world AS IS without imposing values on it, like sin or karma or salvation, the eight-fold path, the Ten Commandments or the five pillars of Islam.

I am happy to just be in the world, and as I do not fear any afterlife, salvation, and hellfire neither interest nor terrify me. I believe we are our own hell and the world as it is is heaven enough if I just get out of my own way.

So yeah, I am sure your personal journey is equally if not more compelling, and like me, you are not looking for a new religion. But I also don't think you are going to hell for not believing in the Tao (things as they are) so this imperative on your part may somewhat mess up our dynamic.

Sorry to run on so long. Your turn.
Harry


*PS: If I believed that folks who didn't accept Jesus were going to burn for all eternity I would be pretty anxious to convince them too. Its not the motive but the message I am at odds with.

Past Glories Revisited

I was going through some old links and thought I would repost some other people's video stuff that I liked in the past year:

Dylan's "Gates of Eden" Covered by Bryan Ferry
Gates of Eden Artwork by h g lowry

Yanzo, I'm Jealous 
(Despite the fact that he abuses the Lord's Name)

Favorite Scene from "To Have or Have Not" 

(Do You See Anything Kid?)

Movies in Real Life: Ghostbusters 
 (New York City Library)

 
Lucky Escape 
(Short film from Ireland)

 Skhizein 
 (Short animation from France)
 

 Jihadist Bloopers

Notes from my Book "The Universe"

What Is Believable?

What I believe is so determines what is reality. What one believes is central to how one sees the world. The question of knowledge vs. belief, what each is or isn't is a basis for understanding what role theory has in answering our why questions and what role faith has in answering how questions.

All knowledge is belief. Things we encounter through experience, that are described by others that are deduced or that are intuited – these are merely information. Just as a CD needs a CD player, information needs a filter. Every individual's filters are unique, despite our overwhelming attempts to find commonality with the filters of others and consistency in our own. We attempt to transform information into facts, but fail because ultimately we cannot know the experiences of any other person, and the communal experience is just a strand or rationalized thread, when our internal experience is a tapestry. What passes for science is a lattice of hypotheses, or in layman's terms, reasoned opinion.

Anyone who careful examines the fabric of their day to day experiences finds many things that defy logical explanation, many things which are inconsistencies, both in the self and in the world. We lie to ourselves to make the earth spin properly on it's axis.

How Do I Know Right From Wrong?

Belief is an individual's attempt to fill in the void we face when we examine our life as it is; we dread a universe that is a complete mystery, that has no morality, logic or rules. Can existence be a free-for-all? Most of us say some form of “God forbid.” So in some sense, our gods forbid it.

I accept, with some humility, the extreme likelihood that everything I believe about the world may be wrong, in that the tale of history (a tale, not a fact) is that of mankind again and again getting it wrong. The best ideas men have ever conjured have proved erroneous over time. Everything I believe may be hogwash, but someone has to wash the hog, and belief in nothing has no claim to a better odds of being right. That being said, I have very strong beliefs about the nature of things.

I think reality is a complex interweave, a push-me pull-you universe where every action has complex, nearly innumerable results, much too multi-layered to be anticipated by any schema. I cannot responsibly predict the outcomes of my actions, so does that exonerate me from responsibility? Can I even act responsibly to some small degree?

Large events rise from infinitesimal causes. Since a myriad of events trigger my actions as well as arising from them, every event within and without me is part of a greater chain of causes and effects. Free will as such is an illusion. But what decisions flow through me end up defining me, and so I have an essential responsibility to make the best possible decisions, not because I am accountable for them, but because they account for me.

One component of me, as given, is a conscience. I must follow the dictates of my conscience to be the person I am meant to be. If not, then I was meant to be a villain. To some degree I am, automatically, because again reality is a complex interweave and I am unaware of most of the strands I am altering by my choices. Mandated choices, but for me, very real choices. Just as I get excited by the final battle in a movie even when I have seen it 100 times, I am invested in my choices because they define me. Nothing is black and white, but every shade of gray has a better shade and a worse shade, and it is my job to better these gradations.

What Is Reality?

Thoughtful believers have always struggled with the concept of the infinite. Stoics believed in infinite regression, that if the world is infinite you are not one point but all points. At some point in an infinite circle, 30 degrees becomes 31 degrees, and 90 becomes 0. Infinity takes all the uniqueness out of things. Any point in an infinite circle is all points and no point. When you have laughed on a Tuesday, you have also cried on that Tuesday and felt nothing on that same Tuesday. What difference how you react to anything today? All ways infinity equals non-existence.

Think of it this way. If you and your friends sit at a table that is infinitely long and infinitely wide, where exactly would you sit? Anywhere you could sit you would be effectively alone. Now picture a table infinitely long, but only 2 feet wide. All of your friends could sit at it, but someone can still pass you the salt.

The finite part of reality (the two feet wide) is the part that science looks at. It is also the part that makes you you and not also a strawberry. The infinite part of the universe is the meaningful part of it, the realm of faith, is that which makes the difference between you and a strawberry significant. Science handles the limited universe and mythologies* address the rest.

* I say mythologies because as I said above, most of what most people have believed for most of history has been wrong. Until Jesus returns or Shiva destroys the world to build a new one, I will define these as mythologies, meaning diverse beliefs. In no way is the term meant to be disrespectful or to cast aspersions on any belief system.

Copyright h.g.lowry 2013