#ancient theology of tragedy

[jeannereames]

WHY YOUR MORALITY IS MY PROBLEM: modern holdovers from ancient theology

James Dobson, founder of the ultra-conservative Focus on the Family organization, reputedly said of the 2012 Sandy Hook mass shooting, “I think we have turned our back on the Scripture and on God Almighty and I think He has allowed judgment to fall upon us.”

As heartless as that sentiment sounds today when addressing the murder of 20 first-graders (and 6 adults) at an elementary school, it reflects a once-common theology that emerged about four thousand years ago in the ancient near east (ANE*), then bled into the Mediterranean basin and developed an astonishingly long half-life. It’s why some Christians (et al.) are so, so concerned with what their neighbors are doing behind closed doors. Or on their front lawns with all those Pride flags.

In some ways, ANE and Mediterranean religion had a lot in common, being traditional and focused largely on sacrifice/action (orthopraxic). Over time, some orthodoxic religions also arose in that area. So, first, let’s do some quick defining.

Orthopraxic religions focus on what one DOES, not what one believes. Performing the sacrifice correctly, honoring the gods/ancestors appropriately…that’s how one shows piety. Infringing against purity laws or other affronts to the gods (impious actions) can result in expulsion from the community. Fights over correct practice can lead to schism in a community.

Orthodoxic religions focus on what one BELIEVES. Thus, they need some form of authoritative text to determine what IS right belief, resulting in the emergence of a canon (e.g., Zoroastrian Avesta, Jewish Tanakh, Christian New Testament, or Muslim Qur’an). In Orthodoxic religions, wrong beliefs (heresy) can result in expulsion from the community. Fights over correct belief can lead to schism in a community.

(There’s yet a third focus, orthopathic, but that largely doesn’t apply here. “Orthopraxic” can also apply to ethics-based religions, but here, it applies to ritual/cultic behavior.)

Most religions have elements of all three, but it matters where the weight falls. Yes, religions can emphasize two sides of the triangle more heavily, less on the third, but even then, one point will be the chief measurement of devoutness among followers. This also helps us understand why two religions might not understand each other very well sometimes. They’re trying to impose one set of “What religion is for” ideas on another, with entirely different assumptions.

The religions of the ANE and Mediterranean had much in common in terms of the purpose of religion: to maintain the health of a community. This depended on the piety of that communities’ members. Their gods weren’t moral in the modern sense, but could be jealous, fickle, and petty.

Why were they gods then?

Because they were immortal and more powerful.

Yet an important difference between (many) ANE and Mediterranean religions were the concepts of sin and “mesharum” (divine justice/equilibrium). If the latter existed (sorta) in Mediterranean society, “sin” really didn’t. Impiety differs as it can include ritual matters too. So, if murder (especially kin murder) created uncleanness anywhere and is a moral/civil matter, menstruation and sex also created uncleanness, but were not moral/civil matters defined as “bad.” So “unclean” ≠ “sin.”

To be unclean is a matter of cultic purity, different from moral purity. Yes, ANE religions also had ritual uncleanness, to be sure. And yes, some things that make one unclean also have intimations of “badness” without being so extreme as murdering someone. Yet I want to underscore the difference because it’s very real and too often ignored/misunderstood/unfairly conflated.

Many Mediterranean religions did not have “sin,” just unclean and impious. MORAL/ETHICAL matters were dictated by civil law and later, philosophic discussion. Not religion. Yet in the ANE, moral infractions were affronts to mesharum (divine order) and were therefore a religious matter. This oversimplifies, but smash-and-grab works for now. We find actions (like iconoclasm) in the ANE that didn’t often apply in the Mediterranean. (Iconoclasm is the deliberate theft, or in extreme cases, destruction of religious icons or structures.)

Yet what both groups shared was a sense that the gods had, well, “bad aim.” If people in a community were impious and/or sinful, that might draw the ire of the gods. Plagues were often seen as divine retribution for the impiety and/or sin of one or more members of that community, but not necessarily all of them. This led to the exile of impious individuals, as well as the ANE “scapegoat” ritual, et al. (If you’re familiar with the plot of the Iliad, Apollo punished the entire Greek army for the impious actions of Agamemnon.)

I could DIE from your impiety/sin committed in my town/community.

That makes your morality my business.

In addition, especially in the ANE, war on earth was believed to reflect war in heaven. Gods had cities and peoples, not the other way around. They chose you, you didn’t god-shop—hence Israel as a “chosen people.” Well, yeah, pretty much every ethnic group was chosen by some god(s). But as a result, if your side lost in a war, then—theoretically—your gods were weaker. Maybe you should go over and start worshiping their gods. Yet that didn’t sit well with most groups, so by the Middle/Late Bronze Age, we see an emerging idea that my god isn’t “weaker” than yours, rather my general “set forth without the gods’ consent,” or my god permitted the other god(s) to win for whatever reason…usually due to sin or a lack of piety among his (or her) people. Of course we find this in the prophetic literature of the Hebrew Bible, but it’s in a lot of other ANE literature too. Nabû or Marduk didn’t lose, they “went to live with” Ashur for however many years—although the winning side will portray the victory as Nabû and Marduk traveling to Nineveh to bow before (e.g., submit to) Assur.

Again, this is simplified, but we don’t see this sort of language used in Greece where Hera would bow to Athena because the city-state of Athens defeated Argos, even if, as promachos (foremost in battle), Athena might be expected to win in any conflict between the two (as in Euripides’ Children of Herakles). Hera is still queen of the gods, and—even more—these are shared deities. We also don’t see it because notions of “sin” don’t apply and only a handful of wars were ever called “sacred”—all of them concerning Delphi and cultic purity. At least one of those is mythical, the second probably didn’t happen, and the third (which certainly did happen) was labeled “sacred” only by one side. Greek gods just weren’t seen to uphold justice in the same way. Roman gods were more concerned with such things, but still not as we find in the ANE.

Ergo, the ANE faced the problem of theodicy: if god/the gods are good/just, why does tragedy happen?

Early explanations for tragedy were simple: those who suffer must have earned their suffering, sometimes referred to as Deuteronomic Theology: “good things happen to good people”/“bad things happen to bad people” (and maybe their neighbors too, by chance).

Pushback against this notion emerged around the same time a more nuanced view of loss in war emerged. People began to ask the corollary: “Why do bad things happen to good people?”

The (c. 1700 BCE) Mesopotamian Ludlul bēl nēmeqi (The Poem of the Righteous Sufferer) attempted an answer. About a thousand years later (600s-500s BCE), the Jewish Book of Job took it on as well. In both, the protagonist asks, “Why does Marduk/Yahweh punish me when I’ve been a faithful servant?” Both protagonists were previously wealthy/powerful, which was seen as divine approval. Losing that wealth/health suggested they had offended their god (and are being punished). Yet each one claims he did not sin—so why?

The answer in both works is similar: there’s not really an answer. Marduk restores Šubši-mašrâ-Šakkan, who ends the poem with a prayer of thanksgiving. Job has a chat with Yahweh, who essentially tells him, “You’re a measly mortal, don’t question me.”

The KEY element in both, however, isn’t the answer, but the assertion that a good person can suffer. They didn’t earn it; it just happened. They remained good and, eventually, their god restored them to their prior station, and then some.

Ergo, if you’re suffering, just be patient. Don’t curse God and die. (As Job is advised to do.)

Today, we may find such an answer wanting but need to recognize it for an advancement on the theology of tragedy.

 Some, however, get stuck in these time-locked answers because they can’t allow their religion to grow. Or rather, they can’t acknowledge that their religion/theology evolves over time, because if it evolves, it wasn’t perfect from the beginning. And that challenges their understanding of their god.

Yet the real fly in the ointment is the notion of a perfect and infallible canon.

This brings me back around to what a canon is. It just means “an authoritative text,” but how that text is understood has nuances. INSPIRED ≠ INFALLIBLE. Most all followers of a canonical text believe it’s inspired by God, but not all (or even most) believe it’s infallible. (Islam is its own category here, note.) That creates some problematic GRAYS.

If it’s only inspired, written by humans with human foibles and history-locked understandings, interpreting it becomes complicated and can lead to disagreements. Taking a literalist view sweeps away the messiness. “God said it; I believe it; that settles it!” Black-and-white.

Those who believe in Biblical literalism/inerrancy (which includes a good chunk of conservative Christian Evangelicals and all Fundamentalists**) will argue ALL the Bible is true. If it’s written by God, it must be perfect from the get-go. Thus, a clash is created between simpler versus more nuanced views: Deuteronomy vs. Job. If an earlier view must be as true as any later one, that reduces everything to the most elementary version. It can’t evolve/grow up, yielding what feels to most like a very archaic (and often harsh) worldview.

In any case, both the traditional orthopraxic and orthodoxic religions of the ANE/Med Basin believed God/gods punished people who offended them. AND these punishments might “spill over” onto family and neighbors.

Ancient divine collateral damage.

Ironically, this is WHY early Christians were prosecuted by the pagan (e.g., traditional) Roman and Greek religious establishments. Christian failure to participate in common civic religious cult could earn divine ire. For their first two/two-and-a-half centuries, Christianity was labeled a religio illicta (illegal religion)—in part for “failure to play well with others.” E.g., make sacrifices to the appropriate Greco-Roman deities. Thus, when disaster struck, a scapegoat was sought. Those antisocial Christians are to blame! They don’t sacrifice to the gods and so, offended XXX god, who is now punishing ALL of us with YYY.

Classic ancient religious thinking, but it’s one reason I find current conservative Christian opposition to Teh Gays, trans folks, etc., enormously ironic. The persecuted have become the persecuting.

I want to emphasize that large sub-groups of Jews, Christians, and Muslims have evolved past such theologies. Yet others have not and stubbornly cling to ancient mindsets. That’s why they argue the mere presence of LGBTQI+ people will bring down the wrath of God on ALL.

Talk of “grooming” and “protecting children” is just an attempt to make palatable a belief they know won’t fly with most people, who they consider deluded by The World (e.g., the devil). Trickery is therefore required. As they’re deeply afraid themselves, they understand fear and use it to motivate others. Many are perfectly happy to make their beds with “unbelievers” long enough to get their agendas passed. God will forgive them.

This, too, is rooted in ancient ideas (discussed above) whereby a people’s own god might employ the enemy to punish them (or others). Thus, a sinful person can be utilized on the way to righteous ends because the victory of God wipes away all else. Using the enemy to effect God’s will just proves that God is in final charge of everything after all. It’s the ultimate PWN.

I hope this helps to explain where these ideas come from, how they originally emerged, and why a subgroup of people still cling to them.

————-

* While Egypt influenced the ANE, as well as Greece and Rome, and is often shoehorned into the ANE, I consider Egypt as NE Africa. It deserves to be treated on its own, or in relation to neighbors such as Kush.

** Fundamentalists and Evangelicals tend to be equated but are not the same. Also, not all Evangelicals are conservatives (although all Fundamentalists are, by definition). Enormous variation exists between Christian denominations, which range from ultra-conservative to (surprise!) ultra-liberal. There is as much of a hard Christian Left as there is a hard Christian Right. We just tend to hear far less about them.

#iconoclasm #mesharum #deuteronomic theology #book of job #poem of the righteous sufferer #ancient theology of tragedy #theodicy #ANE theology #ancient Mediterranean theology #Classics #ancient near east #ancient religion

[ungodlysai]

Can we just appreciate that, despite living in the dark ages, Homer dropped two *HUGE* epics that explored extremely complex relationships, the tragedies of war and human mortality, and Grecian gods that weren’t at all perfect?? This man literally took ancient Grecian history, theology, politics, and science and gave us this godsend.

#the oddyssey #the iliad #homer #homer appreciation #homer the historian #was that accurate? #probably not #but he definitely helped preserve stories such as the Trojan war #greek mythology #Ancient Greek #ancient Grecian theology

[misterlemonztenth]

03-15-24 | Today in 1879 Albert Einstein was born in Wurttemberg, Germany. He would be 145 today. He died in 1955 in Princeton, NJ.

Happy Birthday Albert.

Here are some insights from the one and only Albert Einstein. He is most known as a popular scientist who dramatically changed humanity’s engagement with the world. This post illuminates some of his equally amazing insights beyond the science and beyond the physical.

“I didn't arrive at my understanding of the fundamental laws of the universe through my rational mind.”

2. “Concerning matter, we have been all wrong. What we have called matter is energy, whose vibration has been so lowered as to be perceptible to the senses. Matter is spirit reduced to point of visibility. There is no matter.”

"Time and space are not conditions in which we live, but modes by which we think.

Physical concepts are free creations of the human mind, and are not, however it may seem, determined by the external world."

“Time does not exist – we invented it. Time is what the clock says. The distinction between the past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.”

“I think 99 times and find nothing. I stop thinking, swim in silence, and the truth comes to me."

"The intellect has little to do on the road to discovery. There comes a leap in consciousness, call it intuition or what you will, the solution comes to you and you don’t know how or why.”

"A human being experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty."

"Our separation from each other is an optical illusion."

“When something vibrates, the electrons of the entire universe resonate with it. Everything is connected. The greatest tragedy of human existence is the illusion of separateness.”

“Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.”

“We are souls dressed up in sacred biochemical garments and our bodies are the instruments through which our souls play their music.”

“When you examine the lives of the most influential people who have ever walked among us, you discover one thread that winds through them all. They have been aligned first with their spiritual nature and only then with their physical selves.”

“The true value of a human being can be found in the degree to which he has attained liberation from the self.”

“The ancients knew something, which we seem to have forgotten.”

“The more I learn of physics, the more I am drawn to metaphysics.”

“One thing I have learned in a long life: that all our science, measured against reality, is primitive and childlike. We still do not know one thousandth of one percent of what nature has revealed to us. It is entirely possible that behind the perception of our senses, worlds are hidden of which we are unaware.”

“I’m not an atheist. The problem involved is too vast for our limited minds. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books.”

"The common idea that I am an atheist is based on a big mistake. Anyone who interprets my scientific theories this way, did not understand them."

"Everything is determined, every beginning and ending, by forces over which we have no control. It is determined for the insect, as well as for the star. Human beings, vegetables, or cosmic dust, we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible piper."

“The religion of the future will be a cosmic religion. It will transcend a personal God and avoid dogma and theology.”

“Energy cannot be created or destroyed, it can only be changed from one form to another.”

“Everything is energy and that is all there is to it. Match the frequency of the reality you want and you can not help but get that reality. It can be no other way. This is not philosophy. This is physics.”

"I am happy because I want nothing from anyone. I do not care about money. Decorations, titles or distinctions mean nothing to me. I do not crave praise. I claim credit for nothing. A happy man is too satisfied with the present to dwell too much on the future." misterlemonztenth.tumblr.com/archive

#misterlemonztenth #original post #albert einstein #portrait #princeton

[wesleyhill]

Returning to Dust

A homily on 2 Corinthians 5:21 preached on Ash Wednesday 2024 at Pillar Church, Holland, Michigan

A few years ago, a beloved friend and colleague told me that she was heading to see a doctor. She had noticed some strange, dark purple bruises on the tops of several of her toes. She couldn’t remember kicking something too hard or tripping over something. She was sure it was nothing, she told me.

Martha was my friend’s name. She was an Anglican priest, a professor of pastoral theology, and a sought-after preacher and speaker. Never married, she was a queen of hospitality. She cooked lavishly and masterfully. She sang loudly, operatically, often ensuring that the descants weren’t neglected in our seminary chapel services. She painted. She had two enormous standard poodles whom she adored. She was so full of life.

Within a matter of days, she had an explanation for the bruising on her toes. She was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia, a fast-growing cancer that starts in the bone marrow and then proceeds to the blood. All of us who knew Martha, who had been the grateful recipients of her joy and zest for life, were in shock.

This was at the end of 2013. By the time Ash Wednesday of 2014 came around, Martha had been through three rounds of chemotherapy and was then in the hospital. She asked if some of us would come to her room and give her ashes and pray the liturgy with her.

I recall stepping into her room and into the light of her smile. Her arms were reddened with rashes, and she was wearing a handknit scarf over her shaved head. She was visibly weaker than I’d ever seen her, but I laughed at the 8” by 10” on her wall — a color photo from her visit to an antique store several weeks earlier at which she had donned an ancient Roman soldier’s helmet and brandished a broadsword, teeth clenched in mock rage. There was still plenty of fight left in her, I said, and she agreed.

And then we began to pray: “Almighty and everlasting God, you hate nothing you have made and forgive the sins of all who are penitent: Create and make in us new and contrite hearts, that we, worthily lamenting our sins and acknowledging our wretchedness, may obtain of you, the God of all mercy, perfect remission and forgiveness; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.”

Sean, the priest who was with us, then read these words from Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians: “For our sake God made Christ to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Christ we might become the righteousness of God.”

And then Sean dipped his thumb in ashes and made the sign of the cross on Martha’s forehead. I remember thinking her skin looked too taut and unnaturally shiny. Sean said to Martha, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

There are probably as many different reasons you are here in church tonight as there are people in the room. But I suspect that almost all of us — to some degree, whether knowingly or unwittingly — are here because we want to hear good news. We want to believe that there is some hope for us and for those we love. And maybe you are wondering as you sit here, as I was wondering standing next to Martha’s hospital bed, how it is good news that we are dust and that we shall one day return to dust?

There are two ways — two separate but interrelated ways — of thinking about this. In the first place, there’s a sense in which the words you’re about to hear and the symbol you’re going to receive on your forehead are not “good news” in any straightforward sense. Frederick Buechner says that the Christian good news is a tragedy, a comedy, and a fairy tale, but before it is a comedy and a fairy tale, it is first a tragedy. The apostle Paul calls death an enemy to be defeated. It is not good that our lives are cut off by cancer, famine, war, despair, or any of the million other calamities that can end our days on earth. And before we can really take to heart the good news of Easter — “Death has been swallowed up in victory” — we need to face squarely the depth of the tragedy we’re in. Death was not God’s original good purpose for us. Death is a thief and a tyrant.

So the good news that we proclaim here on Ash Wednesday is not that death is somehow not as bad as it seems, that it’s maybe more of a friend than a foe. No, the good news is that, in spite of the tragedy of death, we have a Lord and Savior who has conquered death by dying. Christ Jesus came into the world to share our human plight, to take on his shoulders all our pain and sin, and to go all the way into our bleakest human experience — death — and to emerge triumphant from the tomb on the third day.

So it isn’t the fact that we’re going to die that is itself the good news. You already know that, and you don’t need to come to church to hear me tell you about it or receive ashes to inform you about something you weren’t aware of. It’s rather that the announcement about our dying is the tragic prelude to the best news we could hope to hear — that the unconditional Friend of sinners has triumphed over death, and he now says with outstretched arms to everyone who will receive him, “Peace be with you” and “Nothing will ever be able to separate you from my love.”

But I think we can turn this around and come at it from the other direction, so to speak. Christ the Lord has journeyed to us, to share our death as the human being who is God, and so overcome it. But that means that in some deep sense our dying can now become our movement toward Jesus, toward the God who formed us from the dust at first.

It is still true that death is an enemy — but not only an enemy. Listen to how the New Testament scholar Morna Hooker has made this point: “Because Christ is fully one with [humanity] in all [our] experiences, these [experiences] can now be understood in terms of life in Christ.” Our dying, in other words, isn’t only our sharing in the miserable condition of Adam. It is our sharing in Jesus’ experience of the condition of Adam. We don’t go to death by ourselves. Jesus has already gone there ahead of us, and when we die, we are with him.

Or listen to how George MacDonald says it: “The Son of God suffered unto death, not that [human beings] might not suffer, but that their sufferings might be like His.” It isn’t that Jesus suffered death so that we don’t have to. We are still made of dust, and we will all of us return to dust. But Jesus’ dying means that when we return to dust in our caskets or in the crematorium, our dying isn’t just the final experience of solitary suffering we have to somehow find a way to endure. It is our joining Jesus in the suffering he underwent — our final “conformity” to him, as Paul describes it.

This is what that text from 2 Corinthians that we read in my friend Martha’s hospital room is all about: “For our sake God made Christ to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Christ we might become the righteousness of God.” It’s what Luther called the “great exchange.” Christ takes to himself the whole human condition and experience. He tastes every last drop of it. He goes all the way down into the fathomless darkness of death. And the outcome is that we, in our suffering and mortality, in our journey toward becoming dust, become in and through him God’s own beloved forever. Death is real, but it has lost its sting. It has been defanged. It is now our final passage into the arms of the God who loves us eternally.

My friend Martha died eleven months after her cancer diagnosis. When she first received the diagnosis, she was adamant that she would beat the leukemia. “God has more work for me to do here,” she said firmly. “Pray for my healing, don’t pray for a good dying.” But by the end, she had faced with hard-won honesty and humility and a beautiful Christian hope the fact that she was dust and was now returning to dust. And she said, with the martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer, “This is the end — for me the beginning of life.”

Amen.

[j-femmescoli]

books i read in 2023

my goal was to read a book a week and while the timeline wasn't perfectly even, i did manage to get it to add up (and then some!). this year i focused on religion and philosophy as well as classics (of which im counting both as traditional "ancient or pre-modern famous and outstanding" types of books, but also famous more modern books). i also bolded some books that were really good in my opinion that have really stuck with me so if you are interested in the genre i'd suggest those

st joan by bernard shaw (play)

mary and your everyday life by bernard haring (theology)

theology of liberation by gustavo gutierrez (theology)

magnificat by elizabeth ruth obbard (theology)

piedras labradas by victor montejo (poetry)

the boy who was raised as a dog by bruce perry and maia szalavitz (psychology)

4 great plays by ibsen - the dollhouse, ghosts, the wild duck, and an enemy of the people by henry ibsen (plays obvi)

the night of the iguanas by tennessee williams (play)

being logical by dq mcinerny (idk sociology maybe? it was about recognizing and avoiding bad-faith arguments and logical fallacies)

the alchemist by paolo coelho (classics)

frankenstein by mary shelly (classics)

an american tragedy by theodore dreiser (classics)

is this wifi organic? by dave farina (idk how to classify this one either but it was also about recognizing bad-faith arguments, specifically when it comes to pseudoscience)

the nicaraguan church and the revolution by joseph muligan (theology, history)

catholic social teaching: our best kept secret by peter henriot, edward deberri, and michael schultheis (theology)

beowulf (classics)

sapiens by yuval noah harari (anthropology)

the church and the second sex by mary daly (theology)

mary in the new testament edited by raymond brown, karl donfried, joseph fitzmyer, and john reumann (theology)

a catholic devotion to mary by oscar lukefahr (theology)

1001 nights / arabian nights trans. sir richard burton (classics)

a house on mango street by sandra cisneros (poetry)

primary source readings in catholic church history edited by robert feduccia and nick wagner (theology)

doing faithjustice by fred kammer, sj (theology)

winds of change by isaac asimov (sci-fi)

the sound and the fury by william faulkner (classics)

una ciudad de la españa cristiana hace mil años by claudio sanchez-albornoz (history)

the glass menajerie by tennessee williams (play)

reinventing the enemy's language by joy harjo and gloria bird (indigenous women writers anthology)

the great gatsby by f scott fitzgerald *reread* (classics)

the bell jar by sylvia plath (classics)

the kite runner by khaled hosseini (classics)

one nation, under gods by peter manseau (history)

development as freedom by amartya sen (economic / political philosophy)

women in ministry: four views edited by bonnidell and robert g clouse (practical theology)

mother of god: a history of the virgin mary by miri rubin (theology / history)

a study in scarlet and the sign of four by sir arthur conan doyle (classics)

adventures of sherlock holmes by sir arthur conan doyle (classics)

the casebook of sherlock holmes by sir arthur conan doyle (classics)

the valley of fear by sir arthur conan doyle (classics)

the memoirs of sherlock holmes by sir arthur conan doyle (classics)

the return of sherlock holmes by sir arthur conan doyle (classics)

the hound of the baskervilles by sir arthur conan doyle (classics)

his last bow by sir arthur conan doyle (classics)

the fundamentals of ethics, fourth edition by russ shafer landau (philosophy)

dracula by bram stoker (classics) (yes i'm counting dracula daily)

desde mi silencio by carmen gomez (poetry)

happiness in this life, excerpts from the homilies of pope francis (theology)

the vigilante / the snake / the chrysanthemums by john steinbeck (classics)

quest for the living god by sister beth johnson *reread* (theology)

the adventures of tom sawyer by mark twain (classics)

the adventures of huckleberry finn by mark twain (classics)

the boys in the boat by daniel james brown (history)

and that's all folks, ending the year with some classics, plus my mom insisted i read the boys in the boat while im home for christmas because she wanted to see the movie lol. i got so many books for christmas so i'll be startin off strong next year too, and my goal is finishing my collection of john steinbeck, by which i mean obtaining as well as reading everything i can find by him. here's my list from 2022 and i'll see you next year

#books #bookblr #reading #literature #classic lit #john steinbeck #philosophy #religion #classics #sherlock holmes #mystery #psychology #theology #history #poetry #sociology

[nicosraf]

hi ! i apparently always want to send you asks so here are 2 questions :

- last night i had a dream where ABM had been translated in my first language (french). now i’m wondering, have you said anything about translations ? are fan translations encouraged ?

- as a writer who writes about divinity do you have any advice for a writer-to-be who is trying to write about divinity ? it’s not about the same god(s)/religion but i think a lot of themes on godhood are similar no matter the culture (morality and cruelty of the divine, omniscience and omnipotence,…)

Hello!! :)

For your first question, because of legal/rights reasons, you are not allowed to translate ABM FOR PROFIT, unless you are a publisher intending to buy the rights for translations. As in, you can't sell the ABM you translated. I genuinely wish that you could, but it's a legal issue

That said, FREE fan translations are cool with me and should be alright legally. I 100% support !

Now, for the q about divinity:

The first thing is not to be embarrassed. I think writing about spiritual/philosophical themes in a sincere way involves a lot of, well, being serious and raw and saying things that you fear aren't profound at all. And I promise that, unless you overcome the fear to be vulnerable, then you're not going to write divinity well.

Religion, theology, spirituality is personal and it's serious, so let it be.

On that note, writing about divine stuff is really tough and really dependent on your own approach and feelings, but I can tell you what helps me:

Try to really conceptualize the omnipotent, the omniscient. There are things that don't make sense about it, don't force them to make sense.

Treat the "plot holes" in theories of god/gods as features, not flaws.

Nature, think about nature.

Before more modern times, life and time was seen pretty cyclically, instead of a line of progress/change. Circles are everywhere in religions and ancient society. Think about circles and returning to the beginning again and doing everything over again.

Morality is about whoever has the monopoly on violence, but kindness and pain are real.

Whats the purpose of worship??

Whats the purpose of living when divine/god life seems to be tragedy and nothing else

Cruelty is easy when you're powerful

Divinity is about being outside understanding. When you're divine, people say, "but that's not possible; You're not possible." I always thought being gay and/or trans is sort of divine in that way, something inexplicable.

Love is something inexplicable, like divinity; when u make it easy to understand, you've made it lose the divine part.

#i hope this is helpful... #A lot of writing about divinity is just sitting with your own thoughts and wondering how much pain and power and nonsense u can imagine #at least for me ! #mine #ask

[qqueenofhades]

One of the great tragedies of human history, in my humble opinion, is how Christianity was originally good before Constantine got ahold of it. In its early years of 33 CE-313 CE, it was a good and kind and just religion built around uplifting the marginalised peoples of the world and the New Testament is explicitly a socialist text. Yet I look at the Christian churches of today and see nothing about them any of the First Christians would even remotely recognise.

There are a lot of complex and delicate arguments to be had (and indeed, scholars have spent several literal millennia having them) about whether Christianity was totally good before the corrupting influence of those bad Romans aligned it with one of the largest and most culturally significant empires in history -- in which case, of course, its interests became about imposing and maintaining imperial control, often brutally, rather than any fidelity to founding precepts about love and care for others etc etc. In my opinion, this is a considerable oversimplification. From its founding, Christianity was subject to major internal crises and schisms, bitter arguments over what counted as "orthodox" (literally, "true") and what was describable as a heresy and for what reasons. The first few centuries of Christianity pre-Roman Catholicism are hardly a picture of peaceful coexistence, and Christianity was also unusual in the ancient world for its intolerance of competing theologies. The Romans were fairly lax about which local gods their subjects worshiped, as long as they also made sacrifices to Roma, Jupiter, and the other Roman pantheon, as that was felt to be an essential civic duty for the welfare of the Roman state. Thus, the Christians' refusal to honor any gods but their own was viewed not just as a religious defiance, but as a threat to public order and Homeland Security, and of course, it's always easy to scapegoat those kinds of people.

Even before the Romans, however, groups of Christians were viciously attacking other Christians, heretics, Jews, "pagans," Greeks or Hellenes (this was before medieval scholars such as Aquinas embarked on a valiant project to "Christianize" Aristotle and otherwise make the Greek philosophers acceptable to the Catholic canon) and definitely not constantly engaged in pure neighborly philanthropy. There are many options for how it could have developed, whether as a local sect in opposition to the Romans, a religion originally specific to a group of people and geographic region like Judaism, or just merely fractured into competing groups that all viewed each other as the enemy and eventually died out. However, it was additionally unusual in antiquity for its aggressive focus on conversion, and its spread beyond traditional tribal and ethnic groups. It was previously felt that each racial or national group of people had their own gods and those were the ones they were expected to stick with, but since the first few generations of Christians were all converts rather than being born into an established tradition, they were seen as "relinquishing" their previous gods, and this was unusual and possibly dangerous.

Constantine is often positioned as the establisher of Christianity in the Roman Empire, but this is also not quite true. He officially decriminalized Christianity after the increased persecutions of the late second and early third century CE, and may have personally been baptized on his deathbed, but this was also debated and he remained cagey about it during his lifetime. It was also not a straight line of uncontroversially Christian emperors from there; there was a guy named Julian the Apostate in the 360s, who rebuked institutional Christianity and tried to make a return to the Roman gods. However, the tide was generally moving toward Christianity, and in the 430s, the emperor Theodosius II issued the Theodosian Code, one of the original comprehensive legal-civic codes that mandated Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire and viewed non-Christians as the same kind of civic threat that Christians themselves had once been. Eventually, after the breakup of the western Roman Empire in 476, Rome -- while no longer the seat of major secular power -- was retained as the seat of religious authority, and became home to the Pope.

As I have written about many times, the legacy of medieval Christianity and medieval Catholicism is very complicated, and takes that reduce it to "the all-powerful church brainwashed everyone everywhere and they always did what it said" are wildly incorrect. It is a deeply flawed institution embedded into deeply flawed human society, and its control was never universal or complete. Indeed, the Catholics would love you to think it was, but the Great Schism of 1054 formalized the split between Greek Eastern Orthodox and Latin Western Catholic rites after centuries of acrimony, and the thirteenth century in particular was a hotbed for challenging and questioning the church (and the growth of new "heresies") in a way not really seen since the original first few centuries. Even in Europe, conversion was slow and patchwork and happened in different regions at different rates, and was always syncretic with local beliefs and magic/folklore traditions. So yes, even as one of the major inheritances of Rome, as Chris Wickham would put it, Christianity was not automatically or unquestioningly superior in medieval Europe. Though of course, it did become so, and allied itself with projects of institutional and generational religious warfare such as the crusades.

Anyway, the minutiae of the early church notwithstanding, it's true that almost invariably, the institutional Catholic church has found itself on the wrong side of history for the past 1700 years or so, and like all religions whose claim to universal and permanent truth means that any attempt to change or modulate its teaching is an existential threat, it has resisted any attempts to scrutinize, analyze, or acknowledge that. Because of Christianity's eventual permanent supremacy in European legal and religious worlds, and its violent exportation to the rest of the world via colonialism and imperialism, its truth-claims have been used to inflict immense systemic and individual suffering. The archconservative elements in the church (of which the recently late Benedict XVI was one), have doubled down on those claims and taken their refusal to modernize as a point of pride, and this is only in regard to Catholics. The churches that I suspect you're talking about, i.e. American evangelical/fundamental churches, owe their intellectual genealogy to Protestantism, and that is a whole OTHER can of worms.

#blackcur-rants #ask #history #ancient history #medieval history #history of religion

[utilitycaster]

I don't mind a discussion of the gods and their roles in Exandria, I do think they can be really interesting to have - especially for what it might say about a specific character. Incuriosity is one of my least favorite character traits, so asking questions is good!! But ngl some of the more recent arguments do take me out of the story, because they feel less Exandrian and more a 21st century discussion you might read on Twitter, if that makes sense?

To be honest...I'm not entirely sure which specific arguments this refers to? The discussions in the most recent episode, to give an example, still rest on the (in-universe, provable) premise the gods and the afterlife are real, whereas a modern day argument is far more likely to be about whether the gods exist in the first place. This feels much more like Enlightenment-era arguments of theology and the rise of Deism to me.

Everything that's been said that I can recall offhand fits in-universe, and I think more to the point I believe that complicated feelings about religion and the use of higher powers as a way to shift blame are a great constant of humanity (or personhood/mortality in the context of Exandria). Like, the idea of "why would the gods create a world in which there is suffering/why don't they intervene during tragedies/what have the gods done for me" is both an ancient argument and one that continues into the present day, and it is valid for Imogen to explore it; it's just that the answer of "let's kill them" the Vanguard puts forth is stupid. Deanna and FRIDA's arguments both feel very understandable to me from their perspectives. Deanna was brought back from death by her husband and by a cleric and, based on what we know of resurrection, her own will (ie, her soul was willing) - all those three people are ultimately much more culpable in this than the Dawnfather, but when she ends up finding that coming back after so long is strange and unsettling, it's easier to blame a remote and powerful entity than a random stranger, her husband, and certainly herself. FRIDA was awoken from sleep that they found peaceful in its emptiness, and finds their awakened experience to be much messier and stranger, and so yeah, they're projecting onto the gods and believe they also wish to rest. People throughout all of history have projected their own will, or anger onto ideas of a higher power, and I don't see why it would be different in a world where those higher powers are, objectively, real.

I know I tend to come down pretty hard on modern, 21st century (and usually, Christian and Westernized) understandings being projected onto fantasy settings, but I guess what I'm saying here is that these theological questions are not uniquely Christian, western, nor modern; they're fairly universal.

#answered #Anonymous #critical role spoilers

[sag-dab-sar]

🤍My Religion🤍

I am IzkurEreškigal, my religious name meaning "Ereškigal has called."

𒄑𒆳𒀭𒊩𒌆𒆠𒃲

Here is a list of Gods & spirits I worship.

I am a Sumerian and Hellenic polytheist revivalist— I worship them together as one practice. My understanding, cosmology, & theology lean heavily towards Sumerian, specifically Ur III and prior but will take from later periods. I still learn the ancient Hellenic point of view and apply them as necessary in order to respect both 'pantheons', even if I lean Sumerian.

I separately practice Jinja Shinto 神社神道. Not something that I share super often. I seek guidance from an official shrine (Jinja) if I feel I need it. More info for the interested.

I also recently started exploring Mariolatry, primarily as Our Lady of Sorrows, Mater Dolorosa. Here is what she means to me—she is strength in the face of tragedy—and much more but I don't know if I'll ever be able to put it into words. I don't see Mary as a goddess but it is more akin to the worship of heros such as Herakles.

My concept of the divine is primarily hard polytheism, the Gods are real, individual, powerful beings. They can be both imminently present in our world and transcendent beings in their divine realms. They are not all powerful, all knowing, nor all good; we as humans cannot fully understand them.

I am devoted to My Queen Ereškigal who I consider my personal God within Sumerian theology. I am also devoted to "The Sun", as Amaterasu-Ōmikami— this means I worship no other solar Gods, or if I do, I specifically avoid their solar aspect e.g Apollo & Utu. I believe Athena was present at my birth and is special to me.

Hellenic Oikos worship, based on Labrys Religious Community, is an important aspect for me. I don't follow any particular Greek calendar at the moment. Due to resources most of my practice is informed by Attic tradition though I'd love to explore traditions from Peloponnese where my ancestors are from.

I practiced divination (haven't in awhile) primarily cartomancy, I have a decent amount of decks; I like dice and want to try other forms of casting.

I have been a pagan then polytheist for 13 years. Its a winding journey, my timeline is here.

Aside from my religious ideals my life is guided by the concepts of sonder & "The more I learn the more I realize how much I don't know"

#reposting this so its a separate post #underlines are all hyperlinks!

[never-was-has-been]

Transcript if preferred:

"Our Separation from each other is an Optical Illusion"

Concerning matter, we've been all wrong. What we have called matter, is energy, whose vibration has been so lowered as to be perceptible to the senses.

Matter is spirit reduced to a point of visibility. There is no matter.

Time and space are not conditions in which we live, but modes by which we think. Physical concepts are the free creations of the human mind and are not, however it may seem, determined by the external world.

Time does not exist. We (humans) invented it. Time is what the clock says. The distinction between the past, present and future, is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.

The intellect has little to do on the road to discovery. There comes a leap in consciousness, call it intuition or what you will, the solution comes to you and you don't know how or why.

I didn't arrive at my understanding of the fundamental laws of the universe through my rational mind. I think 99 times and find nothing. I stop thinking, swim in silence, and the truth comes to me.

When you examine the lives of the most influential people who have ever walked among us, you discover one thread that winds through them all. They have been aligned first with their spiritual nature and only then with their physical selves.

A human being experiences themself, their thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. Our Separation from each other is an Optical Illusion.

When something vibrates, the electrons of the entire universe resonate with it. Everything is connected. The greatest tragedy of human existence is the illusion of separateness.

The true value of a human being can be found in the degree to which they have attained liberation from the self.

We are souls dressed up in biochemical garments and our bodies are the instruments through which our souls play their instruments.

The more I learn of physics, the more I am drawn to metaphysics. One thing I have learned in a long life: that all our science measured against reality, is primitive and childlike.

We still do not know one thousandth of one percent of what nature has revealed to us. It is entirely possible that behind the perception of of senses, worlds are hidden of which we are unaware. The ancients knew something which we seem to have forgotten.

I am not an atheist. The problem involved is too vast for our limited minds.

We are in a position of a little child entering a huge library with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. The common idea that I am an Atheist is based on a big mistake. Anyone that interprets my scientific theories this way, did not understand them.

Everything is determined for the insect as well as the star. Human beings, vegetables, or cosmic dust, we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible piper.

The religion of the future will be a cosmic religion. It will transcend a personal God and avoid dogma and theology.

Everything is energy and that is all there is to it.

Match the frequency of the reality you want, and you cannot help but get that reality. It can be no other way. This is not philosophy. This is physics. Energy can not be created or destroyed; it can only change from one form to another. I am happy because I want nothing from anyone. I do not care about money. Decorations, titles or distinctions mean nothing to me. I do not crave praise. I claim credit for nothing. A happy man is too satisfied with the present to dwell too much on the future. Life without playing music is inconceivable for me. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music. I get most joy in life out of music..."

~ Attributed quotes of Albert Einstein ~

#Albert Einstein attributed quotes #This is not philosophy #This is physics #Youtube

[saggitarian-freedom-light]

Here are some inspiring words from Albert Einstein: 🙏💫

“I didn't arrive at my understanding of the fundamental laws of the universe through my rational mind.”

“Concerning matter, we have been all wrong. What we have called matter is ENERGY, whose vibration has been so lowered as to be perceptible to the senses. Matter is SPIRIT reduced to point of visibility. There is no matter.”

"Time and space are not conditions in which we live, but modes by which we think.

Physical concepts are free creations of the human mind, and are not, however it may seem, determined by the external world."

“Time does not exist – we invented it. Time is what the clock says. The distinction between the past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.”

“I think 99 times and find nothing. I stop thinking, swim in silence, and the truth comes to me."

"The intellect has little to do on the road to discovery. There comes a leap in consciousness, call it intuition or what you will, the solution comes to you and you don’t know how or why.”

"A human being experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty."

"Our separation from each other is an optical illusion."

“When something vibrates, the electrons of the entire universe resonate with it. Everything is connected. The greatest tragedy of human existence is the illusion of separateness.”

“Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.”

“We are souls dressed up in sacred biochemical garments and our bodies are the instruments through which our souls play their music.”

“When you examine the lives of the most influential people who have ever walked among us, you discover one thread that winds through them all. They have been aligned first with their spiritual nature and only then with their physical selves.”

“The true value of a human being can be found in the degree to which he has attained liberation from the self.”

“The ancients knew something, which we seem to have forgotten.”

“The more I learn of physics, the more I am drawn to metaphysics.”

“One thing I have learned in a long life: that all our science, measured against reality, is primitive and childlike. We still do not know one thousandth of one percent of what nature has revealed to us. It is entirely possible that behind the perception of our senses, worlds are hidden of which we are unaware.”

“I’m not an atheist. The problem involved is too vast for our limited minds. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows SOMEONE must have written those books.”

"The common idea that I am an atheist is based on a big mistake. Anyone who interprets my scientific theories this way, did not understand them."

"Everything is determined, every beginning and ending, by FORCES over which we have no control. It is DETERMINED for the insect, as well as for the star. Human beings, vegetables, or cosmic dust, we all dance to a MYSTERIOUS TUNE, intoned in the distance by an INVISIBLE PIPER."

“The religion of the future will be a cosmic religion. It will transcend a personal God and avoid dogma and theology.”

“Energy cannot be created or destroyed, it can only be changed from one form to another.”

“Everything is energy and that is all there is to it. Match the frequency of the reality you want and you can not help but get that reality. It can be no other way. This is not philosophy. This is physics.”

"I am happy because I want nothing from anyone. I do not care about money. Decorations, titles or distinctions mean nothing to me. I do not crave praise. I claim credit for nothing. A happy man is too satisfied with the present to dwell too much on the future."

[artlevin234]

Sacred Splendor: Unveiling the Legacy of Beis Hamikdash and Beit Hamikdash

Beis Hamikdash: The Dwelling Place of Divine Presence

The term "Beis Hamikdash" or "Beit HaMikdash" translates to the "House of the Holy" in Hebrew and holds profound significance in Jewish history and spirituality. The Beis Hamikdash refers to the ancient Jewish temples that stood in Jerusalem on the Temple Mount. These sacred structures served as the central place of worship, symbolizing the dwelling place of the divine presence among the Jewish people.

Solomon's Temple: Beis Hamikdash I

The first Beis Hamikdash, built by King Solomon in the 10th century BCE, was a magnificent testament to Jewish faith and architectural prowess. It housed the Ark of the Covenant and became the focal point for religious rituals and ceremonies. The grandeur of Solomon's Temple, adorned with gold and precious materials, reflected the spiritual devotion and prosperity of the Israelites during this period.

Exile and Return: The Tragedy of Destruction

Despite its splendor, Solomon's Temple faced destruction with the Babylonian conquest of Jerusalem in 586 BCE. This marked a period of exile for the Jewish people, who mourned the loss of their sacred sanctuary. The return from exile saw the construction of the Second Temple, known as Herod's Temple, a few centuries later.

Herod's Temple: Beis Hamikdash II

Herod's Temple, or the Second Temple, was a monumental reconstruction and expansion of the sacred site. Herod the Great initiated this ambitious project in the 5th century BCE, and the temple complex became an integral part of Jewish life during the Second Temple period. It was in this temple that significant historical events, including the life and teachings of Jesus, unfolded.

The Tragic Repeat: Roman Conquest and Destruction

The fate of Herod's Temple paralleled that of its predecessor. With the Roman conquest of Jerusalem in 70 CE, the Second Temple faced destruction, marking another tragic chapter in Jewish history. The Western Wall, a remnant of Herod's Temple, remains a sacred site for Jewish prayer and reflection, symbolizing both the resilience and the historical tragedy of the Beis Hamikdash.

Beit Hamikdash: A Symbol of Hope and Redemption

The concept of Beit Hamikdash, meaning "House of the Sanctuary" in Hebrew, extends beyond historical structures. It represents the collective hope and yearning for the rebuilding of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem, often referred to as the Third Temple. References to Beit Hamikdash appear in prayers, religious texts, and discussions about the ultimate redemption and messianic era in Jewish theology.

Impact on Jewish Liturgy and Rituals: A Living Legacy

The legacy of Beis Hamikdash and Beit Hamikdash continues to shape Jewish liturgy and rituals. Prayers, such as the Amidah, contain references to the restoration of the Holy Temple. Rituals like Tisha B'Av, a day of mourning for the destruction of the temples, reflect the enduring impact of these sacred structures on the collective memory and religious practices of the Jewish people.

Beis Hamikdash and Beit Hamikdash - Echoes of Holiness

The legacy of Beis Hamikdash and Beit Hamikdash reverberates through Jewish history as echoes of holiness and longing. From the grandeur of Solomon's Temple to the resilience embedded in the Western Wall, these sacred structures embody the spiritual journey of the Jewish people. As the concept of Beit Hamikdash remains a symbol of hope for future redemption, the legacy of these holy sanctuaries endures, inspiring faith, reflection, and a collective yearning for a restored sanctuary in Jerusalem.

#beis hamikdash #beit hamikdash

[jamesgalgano]

THEOLOGY FALSIFIED ENDLESSLY

Theology falsified endlessly By james a. galgano

There is no black or white where unintelligible violence falls like acid rain. No matter how one faction or other does proclaim justification without remorse. Remains no logic or ethics to the foolish path taken upon some unforgivable course. Leading nowhere but within an endless maze groundless though violence proclaims God given recourse for abominable efforts made to rectify some unjustified offense. Which doesn’t pass the smell test regarding is there a real premise for such tragedy Rained on the masses, who have become unaware victims to violence unable to see? Why they are innocent targets of some maniacally professed misspent theology. Whose claim to fame, is falsely justified by those clinging to the fringes of ideology. Never spoken by ancient prophets from Mohammed to Christ much to obviously No matter how doctored the words from the past are often misused to proclaim. Within their endless illogic and indefensible doctrine only condemnation remains

[viteribus]

“Energy cannot be created or destroyed, it can only be changed from one form to another.” Albert Einstein

“I didn't arrive at my understanding of the fundamental laws of the universe through my rational mind.”

“Concerning matter, we have been all wrong. What we have called matter is energy, whose vibration has been so lowered as to be perceptible to the senses. Matter is spirit reduced to point of visibility. There is no matter.”

"Time and space are not conditions in which we live, but modes by which we think.

Physical concepts are free creations of the human mind, and are not, however it may seem, determined by the external world."

“Time does not exist – we invented it. Time is what the clock says. The distinction between the past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.”

“I think 99 times and find nothing. I stop thinking, swim in silence, and the truth comes to me."

"The intellect has little to do on the road to discovery. There comes a leap in consciousness, call it intuition or what you will, the solution comes to you and you don’t know how or why.”

"A human being experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty."

"Our separation from each other is an optical illusion."

“When something vibrates, the electrons of the entire universe resonate with it. Everything is connected. The greatest tragedy of human existence is the illusion of separateness.”

“Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.”

“We are souls dressed up in sacred biochemical garments and our bodies are the instruments through which our souls play their music.”

“When you examine the lives of the most influential people who have ever walked among us, you discover one thread that winds through them all. They have been aligned first with their spiritual nature and only then with their physical selves.”

“The true value of a human being can be found in the degree to which he has attained liberation from the self.”

“The ancients knew something, which we seem to have forgotten.”

“The more I learn of physics, the more I am drawn to metaphysics.”

“One thing I have learned in a long life: that all our science, measured against reality, is primitive and childlike. We still do not know one thousandth of one percent of what nature has revealed to us. It is entirely possible that behind the perception of our senses, worlds are hidden of which we are unaware.”

“I’m not an atheist. The problem involved is too vast for our limited minds. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books.”

"The common idea that I am an atheist is based on a big mistake. Anyone who interprets my scientific theories this way, did not understand them."

"Everything is determined, every beginning and ending, by forces over which we have no control. It is determined for the insect, as well as for the star. Human beings, vegetables, or cosmic dust, we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible piper."

“The religion of the future will be a cosmic religion. It will transcend a personal God and avoid dogma and theology.”

“Energy cannot be created or destroyed, it can only be changed from one form to another.”

“Everything is energy and that is all there is to it. Match the frequency of the reality you want and you can not help but get that reality. It can be no other way. This is not philosophy. This is physics.”

"I am happy because I want nothing from anyone. I do not care about money. Decorations, titles or distinctions mean nothing to me. I do not crave praise. I claim credit for nothing. A happy man is too satisfied with the present to dwell too much on the future."

#Hawick #energy #climate emergency

[cajatibetu]

Cambridge companion classical islamic theology pdf

 CAMBRIDGE COMPANION CLASSICAL ISLAMIC THEOLOGY PDF >>Download (Descargar) vk.cc/c7jKeU

  CAMBRIDGE COMPANION CLASSICAL ISLAMIC THEOLOGY PDF >> Leer en línea bit.do/fSmfG

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[stringsofstarlight]

Albert Einstein words of the day.✨🔮🙏🥰🤟🏼

From Albert Einstein—

     “I didn't arrive at my understanding of the fundamental laws of the universe through my rational mind.”“Concerning matter, we have been all wrong. What we have called matter is energy, whose vibration has been so lowered as to be perceptible to the senses. Matter is spirit reduced to point of visibility. There is no matter.”"Time and space are not conditions in which we live, but modes by which we think. Physical concepts are free creations of the human mind, and are not, however it may seem, determined by the external world."“Time does not exist – we invented it. Time is what the clock says. The distinction between the past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.”“I think 99 times and find nothing. I stop thinking, swim in silence, and the truth comes to me.""The intellect has little to do on the road to discovery. There comes a leap in consciousness, call it intuition or what you will, the solution comes to you and you don’t know how or why.”"A human being experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.""Our separation from each other is an optical illusion."“When something vibrates, the electrons of the entire universe resonate with it. Everything is connected. The greatest tragedy of human existence is the illusion of separateness.”“Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.”“We are souls dressed up in sacred biochemical garments and our bodies are the instruments through which our souls play their music.”“When you examine the lives of the most influential people who have ever walked among us, you discover one thread that winds through them all. They have been aligned first with their spiritual nature and only then with their physical selves.”“The true value of a human being can be found in the degree to which he has attained liberation from the self.”“The ancients knew something, which we seem to have forgotten.”“The more I learn of physics, the more I am drawn to metaphysics.”“One thing I have learned in a long life: that all our science, measured against reality, is primitive and childlike. We still do not know one thousandth of one percent of what nature has revealed to us. It is entirely possible that behind the perception of our senses, worlds are hidden of which we are unaware.”“I’m not an atheist. The problem involved is too vast for our limited minds. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books.”"The common idea that I am an atheist is based on a big mistake. Anyone who interprets my scientific theories this way, did not understand them.""Everything is determined, every beginning and ending, by forces over which we have no control. It is determined for the insect, as well as for the star. Human beings, vegetables, or cosmic dust, we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible piper."“The religion of the future will be a cosmic religion. It will transcend a personal God and avoid dogma and theology.”“Energy cannot be created or destroyed, it can only be changed from one form to another.”“Everything is energy and that is all there is to it. Match the frequency of the reality you want and you can not help but get that reality. It can be no other way. This is not philosophy. This is physics.”"I am happy because I want nothing from anyone. I do not care about money. Decorations, titles or distinctions mean nothing to me. I do not crave praise. I claim credit for nothing. A happy man is too satisfied with the present to dwell too much on the future."