Politically, I consider myself a conservative progressive ... for example, I believe in states rights but not to block minimum standards from some, rather to provide a necessary flexibility on how we apply those standards in our communities for all.
I know, I know ... issues like that can get rather nuanced ... and that is why our founders created a republic with a balance of powers (not a one-man, one-vote herd-like democracy) based on levels of representation ... so we could sort it all out as we moved forward ... carefully. (The "moving forward" is the "progressive" part.)
Now, I gotta admit, our Declaration of Independence is a pretty radical document ...
Philosophically, I consider myself a Christian Existentialist ... for example, I believe the values of individual dignity and worth coming out of our Judaic-Christian heritage are supreme ... and without a sense of purpose and destiny expressed in the concept of "God", we descend into brutish chaos as Nietzsche predicted with his "God is dead."
As an Existentialist I believe with Sartre that it is immaterial whether God exists or not. What is material to MY awareness of MY existence (existence preceding awareness) is whether I BELIEVE in God ... or not.
I choose to believe that human existence IS in itself (life is, actually) an expression of purpose and destiny ... therefore God exists.
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Friday, October 26, 2007
There's something going on in the economy ...
There's something going on in the economy that is being covered up ...
Inflation.
The price of oil is going through the roof ... medical and education costs have been mounting (among other things) ... the value of the dollar is falling precipitously ... AND "undocumented" workers aren't sending as much money home to Mexico ...
But the financial wizards tell us that inflation is not growing ...
Are they covering up the numbers until we have a Democrat in the White House to blame everything on?
Inflation.
The price of oil is going through the roof ... medical and education costs have been mounting (among other things) ... the value of the dollar is falling precipitously ... AND "undocumented" workers aren't sending as much money home to Mexico ...
But the financial wizards tell us that inflation is not growing ...
Are they covering up the numbers until we have a Democrat in the White House to blame everything on?
Saturday, October 06, 2007
Am I a Christian Existentialist? - Revisited
On July 26, 2005 I posted Am I a Christian Existentialist?.
I want to come back to it and pose the concept that we are ethical life-forms because we can choose our immediate action based on what we have learned from past experience what we now believe to be the best course of action for what we have also come to believe is the best future for us.
I would further suggest that this is the "God in us", that we can learn from our past and consciously attempt to teach ourselves how to have a better future by what we do in the present.
We can choose based on what we know. Expanding to its limit, the wisest choice is when we know everything ... thus being the oracle of the omnipotent and omniscient—or God—is the highest position for a human being.
It isn't too hard to figure out that there are those who come along and pretend or even think they are oracles of God in order to advance their own selfish ends, leaders who use religion or science to rule for their personal benefit or the benefit of their particular group. They are wolves in sheep clothing. Some do it purposely, like Hitler. Some actually believe what they are doing is ordained by God, like George W. Bush.
Nor is it difficult to realize that the siren song of relative ethics can degenerate into short-sighted selfish behavior. "If I do what is best for my future, then I am doing what is best for the collective future" is the dictum of the coward.
But as a wise man taught, "By their fruit, ye shall know them." For what is the value of one person's wealth if all others are paupers?
That is why in my culture I choose to be labeled a Christian Existentialist ... and because Jesus taught "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God."
I want to come back to it and pose the concept that we are ethical life-forms because we can choose our immediate action based on what we have learned from past experience what we now believe to be the best course of action for what we have also come to believe is the best future for us.
I would further suggest that this is the "God in us", that we can learn from our past and consciously attempt to teach ourselves how to have a better future by what we do in the present.
We can choose based on what we know. Expanding to its limit, the wisest choice is when we know everything ... thus being the oracle of the omnipotent and omniscient—or God—is the highest position for a human being.
It isn't too hard to figure out that there are those who come along and pretend or even think they are oracles of God in order to advance their own selfish ends, leaders who use religion or science to rule for their personal benefit or the benefit of their particular group. They are wolves in sheep clothing. Some do it purposely, like Hitler. Some actually believe what they are doing is ordained by God, like George W. Bush.
Nor is it difficult to realize that the siren song of relative ethics can degenerate into short-sighted selfish behavior. "If I do what is best for my future, then I am doing what is best for the collective future" is the dictum of the coward.
But as a wise man taught, "By their fruit, ye shall know them." For what is the value of one person's wealth if all others are paupers?
That is why in my culture I choose to be labeled a Christian Existentialist ... and because Jesus taught "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God."
Tuesday, October 02, 2007
Archetypes as interpretive images ...
The way I look at it ... Part III
We have sets of evolved integrated responses on which the awareness of self as an individual being is superimposed.
These sets of integrated responses are "automatically" triggered by our internal/external environment ... and then given culturally appropriate (and accepted) descriptions or interpretive images ... as Joseph Campbell wrote about the masks of God ... each becoming (the description or interpretive image becomes) an archetype.
We become aware of these integrated responses as they occur, such as fear in response to danger, or lust in response to sexual stimuli when we are mature enough to be sexually aroused. (More about the process of fear becoming motivation for fight or flight ... and the forms that our personal fighting or fleeing will take.)
We start off as newborns with these sets of integrated responses—hardwired within a range of variations in all of us—and a fairly blank mental "slate" or awareness of who we are. We are taught a sense of self, a narrative our personal existence, by others ... out of their own narratives of existence ... with the "stories" of the culture's archetypes to explain the emergence of the integrated responses as we mature in body and mind.
We are a boy or a girl. We are of specific ethnic and cultural heritages ... with friends and enemies. We are expected to behave in certain ways ... keep our clothes on and NOT urinate or defecate in public (here in western civilization). We have "invisible fences" put in place around our psyches.
This sense of self (inside the fence), we have labeled our "soul".
Archetypes provide us with mind gates for integrating our sense of self with our internal and external environments. These mind gates allow us to mentally—both consiously as in rituals and storytelling of all kinds, and subconsciously as in dreams—interact and integrate with these "prewired" sets of response—the archetypes evokes the set of responses in us—in preparation for the real thing. The more realistic the evoking of the set of responses, the more realistic we consider the archetype.
When I speak of "we"at this point, I am really speaking of a the limited group of individuals who share similar narratives of existence with me. And maybe I need a new word such as "we-as-me" ... weasme? ... as opposed to the broader sense of "we" as the whole human race ... so I would rewrite ...
This sense of self (inside the fence), weasme have labeled our "soul" ...
I will exploring all these issues in my new play, "On His Steps" ... the story of a fallen warrior trying to find and then reintegrate into a weasme community.
We have sets of evolved integrated responses on which the awareness of self as an individual being is superimposed.
These sets of integrated responses are "automatically" triggered by our internal/external environment ... and then given culturally appropriate (and accepted) descriptions or interpretive images ... as Joseph Campbell wrote about the masks of God ... each becoming (the description or interpretive image becomes) an archetype.
We become aware of these integrated responses as they occur, such as fear in response to danger, or lust in response to sexual stimuli when we are mature enough to be sexually aroused. (More about the process of fear becoming motivation for fight or flight ... and the forms that our personal fighting or fleeing will take.)
We start off as newborns with these sets of integrated responses—hardwired within a range of variations in all of us—and a fairly blank mental "slate" or awareness of who we are. We are taught a sense of self, a narrative our personal existence, by others ... out of their own narratives of existence ... with the "stories" of the culture's archetypes to explain the emergence of the integrated responses as we mature in body and mind.
We are a boy or a girl. We are of specific ethnic and cultural heritages ... with friends and enemies. We are expected to behave in certain ways ... keep our clothes on and NOT urinate or defecate in public (here in western civilization). We have "invisible fences" put in place around our psyches.
This sense of self (inside the fence), we have labeled our "soul".
Archetypes provide us with mind gates for integrating our sense of self with our internal and external environments. These mind gates allow us to mentally—both consiously as in rituals and storytelling of all kinds, and subconsciously as in dreams—interact and integrate with these "prewired" sets of response—the archetypes evokes the set of responses in us—in preparation for the real thing. The more realistic the evoking of the set of responses, the more realistic we consider the archetype.
When I speak of "we"at this point, I am really speaking of a the limited group of individuals who share similar narratives of existence with me. And maybe I need a new word such as "we-as-me" ... weasme? ... as opposed to the broader sense of "we" as the whole human race ... so I would rewrite ...
This sense of self (inside the fence), weasme have labeled our "soul" ...
I will exploring all these issues in my new play, "On His Steps" ... the story of a fallen warrior trying to find and then reintegrate into a weasme community.
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