Dare Devils all of us.

We are dare devils all of us,
Jumping canyons and defying death,
All of us, each one of us simply by living are spitting in death's face.
We mock death with every heartbeat
with every breath we undermine death's ability to gain the upper hand.
Such silly hubris,
This is why we feel guilty,
It's because we realize that we have the selfish audacity to think it is our right as creatures to exist.
And so we create gods
Some of us only need one,
Gods and prophets that we can martyr,
Sacrifices on which we can hang our endless guilt,
You hang Jesus Christ and throw your stones and spears into his bleeding chest with every breath and impure thought.
An environment of misplaced accusation will eventually make man choose to act guilty in order to simply be congruent with his surroundings by which means he maintains his fair sanity.
Tithe and suffer and pray.
Daredevils I tell you,
Would you rather be crucified or would you rather crucify someone and have their blood on your hands or in your taste buds where guilt lives,
These are your choices,
Think hard.
Pray.

Waging War (Politics Aside)

Wage war on yourself,
Pull the temple down on your head,
Those who don't get dragged through the mud don't appreciate what they have,
Those who are born to a Christ never understand what it is to believe in a Christ,
Wage war on yourself,
Pull the temple down on your head,
Those who are self- sufficient and who are also selfish beget cancerous thoughts,
Those who are wicked are lost to their frenzy,
Wage war on yourself,
Pull the Temple down on your head,
Consider yourself absurd and ugly for just one moment,
and then make peace with it,
Believe in something that no one dares,
And that everyone despises,
make it work,
Love the ugly, cripple child that you are,
look at it and confess your undying devotion,
And then wage all out unceasing war on yourself,
that is what love for yourself is.
That is where you learn to sweat blood and be sick for your passions.
Only then does your life have meaning.

Fate, Responsibility,and Making Choices.

We live in a world where things are always changing. Sometimes we have control over these things and sometimes we don't.But I think in the end, regardless of weather something that comes into our lives is or isn't under our control it is without a doubt our own responsibility to handle these things. While the help of others is usually a welcome addition we nonetheless shoulder our own burdens. It is nobody's responsibility to get a person through a crisis or a difficulty but that person himself. In this aspect we are each completely and utterly alone. This should not be looked upon as a dismal or depressing way of life in which we flounder miserably alone being kicked along by fate and chewed up in the jaws of responsibility and spat to the ground bleeding. It should be an invigorating thought that gives us control over our lives and our ability to make our lives what we want.
The idea is this. We are not fated creatures. We are not on any path that can not be altered. We choose at anytime to do anything we wish. When we let life's happenings depict who we are, we are choosing weather consciously or unconsciously to resign ourselves to fate. But it is imperative that we realize that we made a choice to do this and must therefore accept the consequences of our actions. Every breath we take is a choice. We choose not to breath when we hold our breath. We choose to sit or stand or to hate or love. We choose to fall in love through a series of decisions that lead to the moment when you choose to tell a person "I love you." We have choices always.
There are however things that happen in the world that are out of our control. Nobody chooses cancer. Nobody chooses to be born unto an abusive parent. But it is I think important to notice that when we are dealt these cards or any other cards of so called fate, we have to understand that we have choices within those confines and responsibilities to handle these burdens. It may not be your fault but it is most assuredly your responsibility to bear scars and trials. We wear the results of our decisions like tattoos on our souls.
A great deal of our strife and grief and even guilt has to do largely with our reluctance to accept that our actions lead directly or indirectly to our "fates" no matter what the external circumstances were, was, or will be. When we shoot our mouths off without thinking, we look like fools ( which I am great at). When we don't watch where we are going we run into things (which many people I know are great at). It is simply causality. Its choices. Why even when you make no decision what so ever you have chosen to do just that. But that just leads to stagnation, boredom, and depression.
Do yourself a favor, The next time something annoys you or makes you angry or even something that comes along and really knocks your breath out, really dig down deep inside yourself and ask what choices you had in the matter. If you are honest with yourself,which is very hard to do, you will see that you could have either avoided the situation all together or maybe you could have lessened the blow. And then you find later that instead of looking back to see what you could have done you look forward to see what you can do in the future and prepare for things that might come. Presuppose your enemy,thus is the art of war, debate, and life itself.

Good Vs. Evil

Here is another idea that I have struggled with throughout my life. The Idea of good vs evil.
When one thinks about good and evil the first thing that comes to mind is good guys and evil villains, dark forces being held at bay by the forces of justice and virtue. Of course the evil forces are gaining in strength and will soon be dispersed to run free over all that which was decent, and innocent until that is, the forces of nature regain its hold and defeat evil and return it to its restraints, once again up holding the morals and values of all good people, good triumphing over evil.
I think we all know that this is a bit of hyperbole but it is nonetheless true. We get told this all of our lives. Good wins over evil. We will catch the bad guys. In the bible Jesus comes back to reek serious havoc on this planet thus restoring nature and peace.
What is good and evil, really?
What are the rules that govern weather or not something we do is good or evil? Or better yet, What is it that which gets judged and adds up to be the end all be all objective truth that one is or is not good or evil.
One could say that one that does evil things is an evil person. this is a valid perspective but I think it is important to bear in mind the fact that evil people do good things and I think it is even more apparent that good people do evil things.
Lets take for example a man who has come to climax in his life, he's lost his fortune to the hands of greedy business men, when he turns to the government they are of no assistance to him, his wife just left him for another man and he's simply had more than he can handle. He melts down he goes to his house and gets a couple of guns and walks slowly downtown thinking about what has happened to him. When he reaches a busy downtown city block he pulls out the guns and and in a fit of rage he kills several adults, some carrying briefcases, some people just shopping. But even in his fit of rage he has the consciousness of mind to not shoot any children. In fact lets say he even spares the life of one of the randomly targeted adults on account that a child ran past trying to get to safety. Now the question here is this. Is this man an evil man?
And is he eternally evil? Can you find your way back to innocence or good after that? I wonder if any amount of prayer or repentance could heal such a wound.
He may argue that he did the right thing. He may feel forever and to his grave that the rest of us owe him an apology for thinking that he had done us a misdeed. Or he may repent and find Christ in prison perhaps ,but what about his status inclined to good or evil?
If he feels guilty about what he has done is he good?I don't think any of the family members of the people killed would say he is good. But does that make him evil?
It seems to me that the only solution here is that evil and good are just words. There is no value to the words at all. It is the values and morals that we hang upon these words that are significant, however this certainly does not solve the problem of good versus evil it gives a little understanding to the problem and that understanding is that what one values as evil others may value good. Different cultures and different people place different values on the meaningless vehicles we call words and send them out into the world to be heard and seen by others and inescapably scrutinized and judged by others as a result. This makes a tough argument against world ethics, knowing that different people people and different places have different morals and values we have to be prepared at all times to reexamine our beliefs. This does not mean we have to change our beliefs, although in a lot of occasions if we are truly honest with ourselves we would find at least some small way of making our lives better by altering our beliefs to a certain degree. But change of belief is not what is important here, it is the virtue of self reflection which gives you the freedom to examine your life and your deeds and decide for yourself what is good and evil and weather or not you are one or the other.
It is also true that there is a degree of truth to what others see. What millions of news watchers would see thanks to television and internet is a mad man walking the streets and killing innocent people, and rightly so, that is exactly what he is, at least for that moment and I guess at any moment from then on when someone sees news footage and declares him evil as a result. For each person who believes him evil, he is. Kierkagaard's subjective truth is totally at work here.
So in the end it comes down to essentially this. We are good and evil as we do good and evil and when we do good or evil it is up to us to judge ourselves although others will judge as well and that, in a sense, is part of the truth about a person. Authenticity is great. but it comes at a price. It means a person has to be the things that a person doesn't like about being a person in order to truly be what it is that a person loves about being a person. but that is what makes one real.That is what authenticates an individual. The beauty of this is that when a person takes control by examining his ideas and beliefs he realizes the ultimate ability to sculpt in his mind and in the minds of others weather or not he is good or evil. Examine yourself and what you do and how you do it. You find then that you worry very little about weather or not someone else is good or evil but rather was there anything good or evil about your own actions.
Thanks for reading.
Not done yet....thee are a lot of books out there.

Phenomenology: An opinion piece.

I don't know about you. But I know that every time try to grasp the idea of Phenomenology I always get lost in the idea of consciousness. I think of it like this. We view objects in the world as concepts. When we look at a tree we see the concept of a tree. The tree is there and so is the world around it. There is grass there but we don't see it. You see a tree.
Then lets say that a bird comes and lands in the tree. Now you are thinking about the bird. Its as though you have transcended the tree. the tree suddenly isn't there or rather, the tree sort of just merges and blends into the idea of the bird. Much like the grass had done when the tree became significant.
Our entire lives are like this. Things come and go and slowly..or quickly for that matter, blend and meld together to make this thing we call a self. The very same concept continues over the span of the world to create history. History, and experience, the witnessing of people and events is what we do. We are the questioners of the universe. We are a function in the universe that allows it to somehow try to understand itself. I know that sounds crazy but I believe with everything I am that it is true.
We may or may not be created by god we may or may not be made in his image. there may or may not be miracles. But the fact that I can sit here and type this is testament to the fact that we are here to do something,either to fulfill a role or perhaps a duty. Life is not meant to be stagnated and without will. We have something to do here on earth. I think that weather or not a god or God himself exists is a completely irrelevant matter.Because if we are fully engaged in life's experiences and as we live life we do what we can to promote and preserve it. (Take care of ourselves and others and the planet,etc) then we have done what is right and if there is a "god" I think you are covered.
I think we have to transcend the idea of God all together. Now when we transcend an idea it is not that we destroy it. it blends and becomes a part something bigger, or more relevant or more real. it makes ourselves more real,more authentic. Is that not what we want? to understand how real we are and what is happening around us? To wonder weather or not there is a god for too long is to be stagnate. We must simply put it to rest. It is IMPERATIVE that we passionately explore ourselves and others and places and things. Because this might be all there is. It could all be over at any moment for any reason. So don't spend time making contingency plans for weather or not there is a god.
If you choose to believe in God don't let his wrath keep you from fulfilling your earthly role. And if you choose not to believe don't let the lack of his existence hollow you out and believe in nothing at all. Both of these things are nihilistic and it is unsatisfying, frustrating, and boring. And you are certain to be miserable. Live aesthetically, live ethically, and live religiously if you like,but be damn sure you live because the alternative is hell.

Nietzsche: A Man Whom Most Mistunderstood.

On a very different level of the ideas of existentialism. Or what would later become known as existentialism. We have a most colorful and exciting philosopher by name of Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche. Nietzsche was a very controversial philosopher. He was known for his pointed and some times vicious attacks on Christianity as well as many other philosophers from the past, including Socrates because all in all he felt that Socrates was the one that urged humanity to think in terms of other-worldliness. Nietzsche felt that not only was it a ridiculous idea that there be the watchful eye of God on us at all times but he lamented the idea that working dutifully to earn one's pass to heaven completely undermined what it meant to be in this life at this time. He even felt that ideas in politics that promised new ways of life in the future undermined the importance of the present. He felt that once you are dead, it was what one had done with his life that was to be the legacy for the those you leave behind.
In the book "The Gay Science" Nietzsche tells us at one point about a lunatic that walks into a market and announces aloud. "God is dead, and we have killed him!!" This is of course is met with the condescending stares and jokes from the people in the market place. But the fact implied therein is that God IS dead and it was indeed humans who had killed him with their immorality, and that the people are incapable of comprehending what they had done.
While Nietzsche was infamous for the use of "God is dead" he was not the first the first to use the term. Several early philosophers used the term to illustrate the moral state of the world. or to simply say that "God is dead" is to say that we don't believe in God anymore and that is why he is dead.
But was Nietzsche's style. He used a lot of exclamation points to help convey his passion for what he was saying. When he wrote he would often exaggerate to the point that his ideas could easily be lost or misunderstood.
Misunderstood is perhaps the best way to in one word sum up Nietzsche. A man with such passion and enthusiasm. And so many people think he was a man of doom and gloom and depressing nothingness of being. This is not true.
You don't have to agree that Nietzsche was right. But it is worth an attempt to look past Nietzsche's scathing criticisms and see what his ultimate point was.
The Ultimate thing that Nietzsche was trying to tell us is this. You are here now. If you want your life to have meaning and you want your life to be worth living it is up to you to adopt the values and rules and moral codes that you will live by that bring you aesthetic joy,and are ethical so that you don't tread on others. He wanted us to know that what makes us good or bad people is what we do. What we do is essentially what we are and it is up to us to "become who we are" as he would've put it.
Nietzsche was born into a luthern family. His father died when he was young and he was raised by is mother, and aunts and sister who were all devoutly Christian. As Nietzsche grew up in this environment he began to see essentially what Kierkagaard had seen in the idea that people weren't as religous as they claimed to be. That being a Christian had become something hollow and empty and blaze'. It was simply to go along with the herd to be a Christian. But as opposed to reinventing Christianity as Kierkagaard had wanted to do. Nietzsche would just have soon have seen it wiped away.
Nietzsche also believed that when philosophers do what they do which is to philosophize, They tend to cover the areas in their lives that give them trouble. This is true in both Kierkagaard and Nietzsche himself. And from what I have seen most any other philosopher in history.
Nietzsche felt that to be beautiful is mans greatest achievement,but, by beautiful he meant not in the sense of physical beauty but in the honing and sculpting of a person over time that makes them beautiful. Education and experience and thought and character are the important things to Nietzsche'. He simply despised the fact that people herded themselves to church with no idea of what it was they believed in.
Nietzsche's beliefs were those of deep, life altering acceptance of one's gifts and talents, as well as their flaws and limitations. He was a realist through and through. Though Not a pessimist as some might think.
I'm a fan of Nietzsche in the sense that he has a way of shocking you into seeing what it is that he's talking about. His vicious attacks on the herd mentality of Christianity was not to show his hatred for Christians so much as it was a vehicle for forcing others to consider what he was saying.
I suggest Nietzsche for anyone who wants to read a book with an intense perspective on life . He will take you for a wild ride. And you will most likely be changed by what you read weather you agree or not.
But this is basically the other perspective of existentialism in that we exist, and we are here for a limited time and to take action to make our lives what we want it to be.
I think Nietzsche was a rational man on the side of the atheists.
More to come
thanks for reading.

Kierkagaard's Subjective Truth

When talking about philosophy and religion and ways in which to live our lives it is perhaps the most important to realize the significance of subjectivity.
And when we speak of subjectivity one of the great philosophers that should come to mind is Soren Kierkagaard. Kierkagaard was a christian. He wasn't the type of christian that you might think of today. In fact he felt that Christianity had nothing to do with any group of people in particular and more precisely it had only to do with ones self. He felt that people who were born into Christianity felt that they were Christians by association..He felt that they never had to make the decision to "become" christian. In other words just because one is born into Christianity doesn't make them a christian..in fact even being baptized does not make one a christian simply because one is baptized. Keirkagaard felt that one can only become a christian through the idea that one makes a passionate commitment to believe in Christianity. This need not take the shape of any congregation. No singing of hymns. But rather it is all completely and wholly internal. your relationship with god is yours and yours alone. He also believed that the fact that other Christians even exist in the world should have to be only as a contingent by-product of people on their own accord making "the leap of faith" as he called it. He certainly felt that some if not all christian churches were merely benign social clubs. You can talk about your faith and you can hang around one another but in the end what has gone on between you and other Christians is completely benign in the christian sense. nothing of a christian nature has happened.
When it came to paradoxes of Christianity such as God being both eternal and on earth at the same time and the problem of evil which I will get into. He made it clear that religion is religion and that philosophy is philosophy and that never the tween shall meet.
I mentioned the problem of evil. this is an old problem that has been asked about for years and years and has no solution that we know of. It states basically that if God does exist and is all knowing and all powerful. Then why is there evil in the world.
We know there are evil things happening in the world. there a rapists, murderers, there is incest, kids being tortured and left in closets by their parents for years at a time. but God exists. so if he's all knowing he knows these things are going on. If he's all powerful he can do something about it. And because he is god and he cares. He WILL do something about it. Where does this leave our beliefs? We can say its simply god's will. But I think any one who has been raped, or molested, or has lost someone to senseless violence or cancer or AIDS might tell you that answer simply isn't good enough. I think anyone who thinks of this weather you are a christian or not has to struggle with the answer to this one.
But I think over all this leads us back to what Kierkagaard felt. and that is we study we learn and we decide what to believe. And just as with Christianity when we make a passionate decision to throw ourselves over the cliff and and rely on our beliefs to save us. We have made a leap of faith.
What does this mean for us then?
I think it means that everything is subjective. It is through our own subjective experience that we believe or don't believe in an idea. Kierkagaard never argued against objective truth. And he understood that objective truth did in fact exist. such as in science. but when it came to objective truth in philosophy and religion he said "All power to the sciences, but that is not what I am trying to do." He simply wanted objective and subjective truth to be kept seperate.
Kierkagaard felt that proving gods existence objectively was to undermine Christianity. When we try to show that God actually exists we take away from Christianity the most fundamental point of it. And that is to choose to believe in something that we have no chance of understanding.To choose to believe in something that is completely incomprehensible. Taking the leap of faith is what Christianity is for.
Kierkagaard was in fact so enthralled with what it actually took to be a true Christian that he turned down a job as a minister and broke off an engagement with his fiance citing that he could not properly serve a church or a marriage because he was not yet sure just what he was supposed to do within those institutions. I love Kierkagaard's ideas because he was very honest with himself about his beliefs. by all accounts he was a man filled with inner turmoil. perhaps even neurotic. His father had once when he was thirteen used the lord's name in vein and spent the rest of his life in utter guilt over the matter. So we can see where Kierkagaards philosophy takes us. It leads us to rationaly try to solve the problems of commitment of oneself, guilt, and responsibility.To me he simply was rational person on the side of a creator. And subjectively that makes sense to me.