There was, in the ancient myths, a place called Earth...
There was, in the ancient myths, a place called Earth. Now to speak of the fabled Earthlings who dwelled thereupon is beyond all question a tragic tale, for they wanted nothing more than to be happy, but their inability in this regard surpassed even this desire. Yet they were in all regards the most absurd of all possible creatures, for their favorite of activities was to do just those things which made them less happy, and then invent a multitude of clever reasons as to why these activities, in reality, were doing just the opposite. They had been entrusted by their perplexingly patient Master with the gift of truth, which if they followed, would make them happy, but truth was too simple to be of any good: it just meant doing what Master told them, and anything that fell so far beneath their own brilliant ideas surly could not be of that much value. Among them were always those who possessed what was called wisdom, and they continually urged their fellow earthlings to abandon their quest and simply accept happiness without trying to invent it for themselves, but still more clever reasons were invented as to why this suggestion was altogether worthless. The problem was, everybody really knew that truth and wisdom were right. To this they would respond that un-wisdom was just as right, but that never completely made sense. That was their problem; they could not escape the nagging idea that things needed to make sense.
Then they invented psychology. It was very much like wisdom, although better, because it always agreed with their own ideas. What better solution could possibly exist: they could have truth, without having to worry about whether it was true! The problem in the first place, you see, was that truth had always been so strangely centered on what Master said; it was almost as though he thought that he knew more about what they needed than they themselves did. Psychology (which, by the way, was a gift given by one of their greatest prophets of un-wisdom before he made his departure in the customary cigar shaped box), was not the least bit concerned with what Master said, it was only concerned with themselves. Not only that, but Master’s messages, delivered by his rag-tag following of eccentrics who so shamelessly advertised truth, were always tremendously discouraging. All that they ever seemed to say was that the earthlings had messed things up most terribly, and that they were bound for certain doom and much greater unhappiness if they did not take his warnings seriously enough to throw out un-wisdom and psychology and accept the truth he wanted them to have. And he even had the audacity to suggest that this offer was somehow merciful; that they had all been very disobedient and that they really deserved to be stomped out forever and to be more unhappy yet than they were, and that the only escape from this fate was through a most painful sacrifice made by Master himself. They could only marvel at the absurd antics that Master went through to try to get them to follow truth and reason and all his other irrelevant notions. It was all such a waste: even if they wanted it, a plan like that could never really work! It was far to objective and not nearly symbolic and experience-oriented enough to be of any actual merit. And besides, giving up their freedom to invent their own idea of what was best for them was an awfully high price to pay for cheap fire insurance...
BY: Micah Carpenter
posted by Bry... @ 1:31 p.m.
6 comments
6 Comments:
Sorry about that guys... I made a mistake in my posting and erasing of this post...
I meant to ammend it by adding the credit at the bottom...
So.. I will repost your comments with your names attached to it.. that way you can read the comments...
I just thought this satire was good and wanted to post it to bring attention to it... and it worked..)
Blessings!
POST by XERIC
Nice spin – it’s an interesting yet flawed anthropological view of the development of science versus religion. Although convoluted in places, it is clearly told through the view of a Christian lens. The main problem with this argument is the assumption that the earthlings have a Master. A Master implies the presence of a slave or subservient figure. Here, the earthlings are viewed as the slaves of their Master, but they have the option of free will. So, who is this Master? Is he one of the earthlings? Why is he their master, did the earthlings elect him? We need to cover these questions for a more complete picture of these earthlings and their relationship with their Master. The suggestion is akin to saying that a group of penguins must have a master.
This also incorrectly implies that science was invented by the earthlings. Science was invented by earthlings insofar as observation was invented by earthlings. Science is simply the documentation and thesis of objective observation. Nothing more. Earthlings need only to observe the world around them to discover science. Is it possible that they instead invented their own Master? This is only an ancient myth after all.
On a personal note, I have to agree that giving up freedom is a very high price to pay for 'cheap fire insurance'. Much too high. To me, freedom of thought is worth risking the possibility of ‘fire’ - in fact I'd rather be burned at the stake and declared a heretic than blindly follow an invisible 'master'. Besides, if I fail to purchase fire insurance, will I have a fire? Maybe not, nobody knows - I'll take my chances.
"To not be curious about these things is to be three-quarters of the way to being dead."
Dr. David Albert
Professor of Philosophical Foundations of Physics
Columbia University
POST by MICAH CARPENTER
Hi Xeric, you don't know me, but I wrote this bit of satire on humanity. You can find the original post on my blog. Please visit! I think you'll take some interest in it.
First of all, I must say that I agree with you completely when you say that the most critical element to my argument is the existence of "Master". If you notice, I always capitalize the M, and I believer that you, as well as most readers, would make the inferrance that "Master" is God. I don't know precisely know your epistimological position concerning God's existence, but it makes a world of difference (verly literally) what we assumption we opperate from when approaching nearly any question of philosophy. If you do not believe in God, you have every right in the world to call this piece of satire absurd.
However, my intent in writing it was not to tackle the fundamental question of whether or not humans have a transcendent authority figure to whom we owe allegience, but rather to discuss the nature of original sin. My point, therefore, is at least as theological as it is philosophical. I meant to express my belief the essence of human sin and error is that we love to abide by our own rules and moral codes, which, however good in themselves, imply a basic attitude of doing things our own way rather than following the perfect way given to us by God. Look at Adam and Eve. They ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil because they wanted to be more like God...they wanted to do something in a sense very good. Yet they wanted to do something good through something God expressly forbade. This exists in all of humanit; this wanting to be good, but by a goodness which is ultimately of our own construction apart from what God has said is good. That doesn't have much to do with what you wrote, but in the evaluation of any piece of writing, it is important to look at the auther's purpose and actual point.
It is in this context the the tension between science and religion develops. In some ways, I feel as though I may have been in error to this in such a way as allowed this polarization to come across. The point was not to dismiss science or psychology as something inherently contrary to God's will: you are right in saying that earthlings did not invent science. It is rather this way of using science that we have invented; using it to avoid the some of the fundamental questions of philosophy through which we must wrestle with the existence of a Creator, and as a substitute for God's revealed truth, rather than one aspect of it.
I like the quote by Dr. Albert. It saddens me that so many Christians seem to be 3/4 intellectually dead. Ironically, the absence of questioning and curiosity is an environment in which real faith cannot live. Faith, in my understanding, is the choice to fully accept something as true, as the result of a rational process built upon our best epistimological assumptions. Without questioning, it is impossible to arrive at a set of views in which we can place intellectual, personal, and, I would assert, spiritual confidence. I still question my beliefs everyday-yet my faith grows stronger. I hope that my faith is more than just cheap fire insurrance. I would believe what I do even if eternity were not a consideration. Yet viewing things in that light (for a theist like me) does make the object of my faith take on a new sense of importance.
I hope that this has shed more light on my spin of human history. I always enjoy learning more about the views of others who, like me, have a passionate desire to understand the nature of life, but who approach it very differently. It always gives me new things to think about!
It's interesting to me that you're so willing to hand over your mind, and a few hundred years of psychology, for a theological platitude that doesn't even read as nicely as Footprints.
I love the poster my Anglican friend has on her office door: "Jesus died to take away your sins, not your mind." If anything, psychology has removed humanity's sense of its own superiority (and the superiority of Believers) and replaced it with the need to constantly challenge what we know and believe, not only about ourselves but about God, too.
Marcu Borg would say that the stories we read in the Bible are true; they're just not factual. And I would say that reading your blog hasn't brought me an inch closer to my Christian faith. In fact, it makes me shake my hand and wonder why, if God deemed it worthy and neccesary to give us our brain and the gift of critical thinking, do we so readily hand it back and say, "No thanks, God. You do our thinking for us."
Don't write back to this with 10 quotes from Scripture. Use your God-given brain, and remember that God is constantly revealed in the present, "Not in the former things."
Your friend,
Boaz
Boaz, it seems that your comment was addressed to the post which I originated,and I must ask you to consider: how did I originate it, and what led me to do so? I used (to borrow your words) "My God given brain and gift for critical thinking." I never suggested that God wants us to ask Him do all the thinking for us; on the contrary, I believe it glorifies Him when we use the cognitive abilities He gave us and make our own choices as stewards of the moral law He has given to us. I'm talking about when we think that we can make up our own rules. I speak of psychology insofar as it has been used for this purpose, not insofar as it has helped us be better stewards of our minds and lives: for the latter, I am gratefull.
Xeric, you are asking some good epistimological questions. I will address the last one first (about sinning against your hand or foot) because I find it the most compelling, and helpful in addressing the rest. It seems absurd to talk about sinning against a part of my own body, but is it really? Let us define sin as "wrongful activity", in which something has been treated inapropriately. In a basic sense this is what morality must concern: what we choose to do can only have moral implications if there is an appropriate or inappropriate way to act toward that which our choices involve. (ex. it is wrong for me to choose to shoot you because you have a right, and I don't have the right to violate it.) Would it be an appropriate action for me to shoot myself in the foot? My foot cannot think; it cannot will, but it is a part of me which serves a purpose, and I have acted against that purpose, and that of the whole, by inflicting violence against it. In other words, shooting my foot is innapropriate to the role that it has, and my proper relation thereto.
So, what does this have to do with moral obligation to God? Clearly, the God you talk about is very different from the God I whom I believe, so we'll never agree on some things, but I think that the basic principle stands: If we act in a way that is contrary or innapropriate to the manner of its design or to the way in which it fits in with the system in which it properly opperates, we have sinned. In this way, all sin is against ourselves as much as it is against God: it's against they way God made us to be, or, in your worldview, against the embodiment of God's spirit. We all have a basic duty to WHAT we are as beings, regardless of what we claim as the source of this being-hood.
This is where we must divide: I believe that God is the transcendant, personal creator of all other existent things, and as such, has given all things a proper function and role. That is what makes God's way perfect: perfection is for a being to fully exhibit its proper role or state of existence, and to thus be in a right relation to the whole of existence, so that it can as a whole exhibit a right relation to the will of its creater. God designed, perfect must be whatever He meant it to be.
What is the difference between God's way and man's? I will not speak of particulars, for examples there are to numerous to be worth mentioning (anything immoral that is done.) But in principle, Man's way is just that: an internal disliking of any law outside of Man's own making which he ought to respect. (or at least disliking the idea that it is outside of him.)
I'm afraid that I have given you a terribly long-winded answer-and I didn't even get to all of your questions. The last one, about God's revealed truth, is an epistomological biggy, if you will. I can't answer it here, but I've done some thinking about that lately, and I might post something on my own blog. Thanks for your patience-I'd be more than happy to return the favor!
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