Friday, September 30, 2011

The Hare Who Looked At The Stars

Digging up old stories and retouching them.

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He walked past the meadow, into the woods. The birds had told him to go there. The setting sun colored the valley walls around him a bright red and he counted one, two, sixty streams of water gushing down the face of the valley.

Why this place? He wondered.

A swallow flew past and told him to keep going. He walked on, stepping past the broken branches and through the dead leaves. He heard whispers.

It was a small burrow in the ground, underneath a huge tree root, nearly covered by brown leaves.

A little rabbit with dark grey fur peered out. Hello? He said, hoping he was not disturbing it. The rabbit poked out further, cautious yet curious.

Is it you? He asked it.

The rabbit stepped out now, no longer hesitant. It walked up to him.

You wanted to hear a story? The rabbit whispered. He nodded his head, bent down and looked into its eyes.

I do not remember much; only what my ancestors told me, said the rabbit.

Go on.

His name no one knows. Perhaps he never had one. But we called him the Hare, for that was what he was. He lived here, in these woods and had many friends. A swallow, a fox, a squirrel, even a frog.

Keeping silent he listened as the rabbit continued.

He was brave and went to many far away places and helped rid these woods of dangerous creatures. The rabbit paused. The listener took the opportunity to ponder its words.

Did you see a meadow as you came here? It asked. He nodded. There is a tree there, a single tree in a field of flowers.

Yes, I saw it.

The hare would meet with is friends there and they would share stories with one another.

And the rabbit told the story of the Hare and his adventures.

He kept silent for awhile, but then wondered out loud. I do not understand though, he said, why they say this Hare is so special.

The rabbit thought for awhile then started.

Once before the sun rose the Hare looked up into the dark sky, looked up at the stars. He said something we never understood.

What did he say?

He said, Are they not beautiful?

Hearing that he laughed. Thank you dear rabbit. I understand now. With a smile on his face he stroked its soft fur, rose and walked away.

Saturday, September 24, 2011

Of existential issues - redux

I posted this quote awhile back and it's worth thinking about again. In speaking of the deeper issues in life, an author writes:

The emotionally mature adult can face up to the complexity and evil of the world. He can bear knowing that he is ignorant. He is content to achieve that which is within his reach. What is possible contents him, even when it falls short of the apparent ideal. No longer so sure of all the answers, or even whether there are answers, he is too busy working to achieve his reasonable goals to torment himself with such overwhelming questions.

We must be grateful, however, that some people cannot escape asking such questions, and seeking answers, for the results of those enterprises have sometimes been great literature, philosophy, theology - to our immeasurable profit.


What then, of the unlucky few where such existential questions torment them so? My conjecture - based on but a limited sample from observation - is that they either reject meaning (in life) or postulate some higher power (very often God) to explain it all.

In the meanwhile, I am reminded to ask: After all the deep thinking, where is the evidence?

Thursday, September 15, 2011

Vaguely Dreaming

Talking to my ex-colleague. She is curious about my new job. She mentions how she would like to do something else (but who does not?). Then she talks about money; we are young people, we have plans. Stability, money to be saved. No doubt. Having (somewhat) removed myself from the rat-race, it's curious to once again look in from the outside and pity them. But being once a member of the 9-5 pack, it's understandable. The routine is addictive but the emptiness often overpowering.

I remember, when I was younger, how I would endlessly daydream. I crafted hour long movies in my mind (unfortunately the plots and characters and set pieces are forgotten or, perhaps, they have evolved into the stories floating around in my mind today). The fact that I didn't go to school probably made it worse. Even then, when I was still in school, I remember how in the middle of my English class a hole in the ground opened and I slid and fell into a more exciting world.

"But does he love me?" she asks. I'm sorry, but I'm the wrong person. Even a man can only speculate what another man thinks, not to mention feels. "Hmm..." I answered.

My Ancient Near East anthology of texts have arrived, by "standard mail" which as it turns out is faster than international courier (I am still waiting for my other orders sent by this method. Amazon you so weird.). Opening the book, I flip through the pages. Most of the translations are what the layman would identify as "Bible English". But perhaps that might be the most appropriate. In listening to a lecture on Wisdom Literature, the lecturer (most certainly no KJV-onlyist) quotes from the King James Version as it fully "captures the majesty" of the text.

I look at my dear pet, Lane, and feel sad. One day she will die and there will be no chorus of barks to greet us when we arrive home. Again, I go back to my younger days when it first struck me that I will die. In fear I imagined a heaven, a much better place, but could not. And in my more secular times, I imagined a final end of non-existence and could not imagine that as well.

Then I wonder, as my dog looks at me, does she feel sad knowing that I, too, will die?

Monday, September 12, 2011

Thinking About the Gospels (Part 1)

Here is an example on how awareness of 1st century literary style when reading the Gospels is important:

The Jesus story is tooooo fake!!! I read the first part of the bible story if fit [sic] into todays context, you will realize its the same as a conman story. Just that the people illustrated in the bible seems gullible or maybe uneducated.

If Jesus exists in todays era, do you honestly think u guys will be his disciple and s**t like that?

Example, his disciples Simon and Andrew the fishermens.

Here it goes:

As Jesus was walking beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon called Peter and his brother Andrew. They were casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. 19“Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will make you fishers of men.” 20At once they left their nets and followed him.

This story is soooo Disney channel fairytale. Someone just ask u follow him then u will immediately follow him?

I try to convince my self that Jesus is the saviour but the more i read the more skeptic i became thats why i stop reading the bible to at least save my doubt towards the bible storyline

This person was posting on a Christian forum thread about his experience reading (presumably) the Gospel of Mark.

You can tell that:

1. He is reading and treating the story of the First Disciples from a modern perspective.

2. The Gospel stories as such read somewhat absurdly (he compares it to a Disney fairy tale, which tells as much how he has been influenced by such narratives)

3. Unfortunately he doesn't read the parallel narrative in Luke 5 which explains in more detail why the disciples decided to follow Jesus

4. Even more importantly, he is not aware that Mark is the shortest gospel and paints events with broad strokes. As such much detail had to be omitted.

Other important considerations - the Gospels were meant to be read aloud, hence had to be kept short. Likewise, scrolls for writing were not cheap or abundant.

Thus, don't expect a description in minute detail - with footnotes - when reading the Gospels.

This is why asking someone to read from the Bible without giving him or her a proper introduction to the genre, style and content of the book is a bad idea.

Another example would be Revelation, which is routinely made fun of, with no awareness whatsoever of the apocalyptic genre. Also Genesis. To be fair, both Christians and non-Christians fall into the same exegetical errors.

Coming back to the Gospels, we should realize that since these are probably the first books to be given to non-believers to be read it should be important to introduce them to the respective books properly. There are traps that people can fall into when reading the Gospels, such as taking Jesus commands literally (e.g. "hating parents").


By emphasizing on what the Gospels meant to the original audience vs. what it means to you (the example cited above is an example of what happens when the reader is left to interpret it entirely by himself, without recourse to other tools) we would have a much clearer message and help cut down on the sort of responses as that of the reader of the Gospel of Mark above.
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Friday, September 9, 2011

Thinking About Evil (Part 2)

Theodicies* often raise more questions than they answer.

In attempting to sketch out a brief theodicy, I make no claim to providing all the answers. In fact, I suspect if there can ever be one - the most satisfactory answer I have heard being was a Christian apologist's final admission of "I don't know".

In a way, it doesn't hurt to say that you are ultimately ignorant of God's intentions (God being God, this is quite understandable).

Here, I will argue that an "imperfect" ("Imperfect" here is an extremely relative term) world may actually be one that is the "best" (Again, a relative term).

The Role Playing World

Almost all role playing games (offline and especially online) have a leveling system whereby a character starts at the level 1 and works his or her way up to a maximum level (or in some cases, there is no limit).

The character often starts without anything and works their way up. They gain experience, items and money.

This is considered to be quite enjoyable, rewarding and even fulfilling for most people.

Yet it raises an interesting question - why don't we have a perfect world where everybody is equal in level and has unlimited money, experience and items? Ask any RPG player and most, if not all, would give you a bewildered look.

This is because anyone who has played such games know that the most fun comes from building up your character and that a character that starts out with a maximum of all possible benefits will bore the player very very quickly.

In my personal experience of cheating to get a maximum of everything immediately, the game gets old very quickly. The excitement and challenge is gone, there is nothing left to do.

Granted, RPGs mimic real life. Yet, if it is so much better to live in a "perfect" world, why do people find such worlds immensely boring, indeed, even silly or "bad"?

And there is a limit to this analogy. People don't really die or get hurt in these games. Yet the basic premises are there and the results are intriguing.

An objection would be that God could create a perfect world where people won't get bored.

Firstly, some religious scriptures do claim this, just not yet.

Secondly, could he actually? Or, would he actually? After all, if he could and if it was better, we would be living in a perfect world right now. Perhaps a world where people need to learn and build themselves up is somehow a better one.

True, the end goal might be perfection or as close to it as we can get.

Yet from experience, an immediate state of perfection often leaves people somehow unsatisfied.

I offer this as a preliminary sketch. My thinking on this, of course, constantly develops.

If, however, I was asked where is the point of a little child being brutally murdered - either for the sake of the sanctity of free will, of learning from experience or for some other higher purpose I would still honestly say, "I don't know".
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* That is, a reconciliation of God and evil.

Thursday, September 1, 2011

Thinking About Evil (Part 1)

It is often argued that a good God would not allow evil* to exist or occur. This argument is usually based not from any particular religious scripture, but on moral intuition.

As it stands, the idea that "God would not allow evil" is at best conjecture. Indeed, many non-theists admit that this is an unfounded theological assumption, to say that God "must not allow evil" - which amounts to saying what God can or cannot do! Of course, they would then go on to say that if such a God would allow evil to occur, then he is not worthy of our worship (another moral intuition).

Let me therefore introduce another reasonable assumption. Suppose God exists and evil exists. Is it not reasonable to assume that our moral abhorrence of evil stems not from ourselves, but from the God who created us?

In this scenario, the same morality which we use to dismiss God is the same morality which was give to us by God.

The question still remains as to why would God allow evil. However, assuming that our knowledge of good and evil is equivalent (actually, I would argue that it is inferior) to that of God we must therefore look to other alternatives as to why a good God would allow evil to exist (rather than concluding that he therefore does not exist, which is a non-sequitur).
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* I would like to note that the problem of evil is not an objection to God's existence but to God's character.