On Faith (ii): God is Mine

Last time I reflected on Faith, I expressed that I believed it to be "Seeing God", and that it is something that can be acquired gradually,

that God works on us all the time so that we may see Him,

and that there are many aspects of God... we get to know & understand Him bit by bit, lesson by lesson.

It hit me today that many Christians reduce Faith to be an announcemet of "Jesus Christ, Son of God, is my Savior".

No offence to anybody, but I think that is hardly enough.

Aside from the important point that any Faith must be detailed in emotions, thoughts & experiences (& not just a verbal testimony),

and aside from the fact that this reduces Christian Faith to a superficial binary Faith like the one present in many other so-called religions that are  about nothing more than loyalty to a name... aside from all that, I see this Statement to be the crowning statement of a whole body of Faith that should also be acquired.

In my opinion, one of the main components of that body is the lesson of "God's taking my side", followed by the lesson "God will make everything alright" .

The first lesson is a lesson that sounds to the modern ear like a naive egoistic statement, which is debatable, but I don't think that makes the lesson any less valuable,

it surely won't make it any less pronounced in the Scriptures!

We see this sentiment of "God is taking my side" for example written all over the psalms, as well as in most of God's promises throughout the Old Testament, not to mention that it is evident in the OT's historical accounts.

I personally believe God is actually on our side, and by 'our' I mean all people,

but for the people of the Old Testament, with their understanding of their ruthless world, they can't possibly be expected to imagine themselves reconciled with all nations (neither could all nations imagine themselves reconciled, I think!)

In those settings, God wanted them to be perfectly sure that He's not on the enemy's side,

neither is He neutral, he wanted them to trust Him & rely on Him, and know that He is THEIRS.

I believe God has done so much to root this belief in the people of the OT, and with just reason.

This belief makes God personal, and therefore intimate and close,

which is the only way He'll have it, I believe,

and the only healthy base to build our more advanced knowledge of God upon.

I cannot stress this point too much, that I believe this Faith to be by far the most important lesson to learn from the OT.

To believe that God, in even our most primitive understanding of Him, when His strength was expressed in storms and His wisdom expressed in riddles... we saw him expresses His love in bias!

If He'll ever have to take a side, it'll be mine.

I think this idea has offended many people across the ages, and lead to a lot of explaining away of Scripture.

But the beauty of this belief is that once it's dwelled upon, absorbed & experienced, it must lead to the second -and more important- belief: "everything's going to turn out perfect!"

That one is harder to hold on to these days, and I suspect it's because we don't really believe in the first concept to begin with.

If God is always & constantly on our side (rather than on the other side, or on no side at all) then things will always turn out in our favor.

They're always going to turn out perfect

He will make sure they do.

And that is what I believe the Old Testament Faith was all about.

An act of God

I really need to say something, something very specific, but to put it into a specific written form that is anything close to comprehensible will probably need an act of God.

God...

An act of God.

For some reason (usually specific) and on some level (mostly unconscious) people refuse to recognize God's actions.

Those who have holes in them and feel they've never taken anything, and refuse, like Israel in the Sinai desert.

Then those who see too many holes around and feel they've taken too much, and refuse, like Gebran's prohecy.

and so nobody's really expecting anything from him,

and everybody's really needing everything from him.

Like an act of God.

I believe I at least, am an act of God.

In the sense that he was responsible for setting in motion the events that ultimately led us to be... and be here, 

in the sense that he specifically caused me to be... and be here,

and in the sense that he acts in, with, for and through me.

and I believe I am right.

Megalomaniac?

Well... a curious case, at least.

Count The Expenses (On Luke 14: 25 - 35)

Yesterday, the Sunday mass bible reading included this part

Now large crowds began to follow Jesus, because apparently they wanted some of the power he had demonstrated. I think they thought that if they stuck with him (like the twelve or the seventy desciples) he'll impart some of that power to them. So Jesus said the following to them:

 25Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them he said: 26"If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple. 27And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.

I doubt the original word would be translated hate, but even if it did, I'll choose to read it as "stop relying on them for power".

(Too elaborate, maybe, but I'm not introducing a radically new reading here, merely a more meaningful one -you'll see why- since almost every reading avoided the direct meaning of the word Hate to maintain moral consistency)

This might have some significence if we bear in mind that the paragraph right before that one was the Parable of the Great Banquet, whose most convincing reading in my opinion was that it's about the casting out of the Jews when they hung on to their traditions and "comfort zone" rather than go after real fulfillment.

So effectively, Jesus is telling the Jews here that they shouldn't expect to be able to follow him (which is what they were after) & also rely on their old food to satisfy them.

Neither their families nor their tradition will do them much good as far as their "Salvation" or happiness is concerned. They'll have to be refused (the cross bit makes that even clearer) by their old world to follow him into a new one.

So what's the alternative? I mean even for those who stuck with their old, seemingly safe lives, did it work?

Actually the question is can it work? For the Jews or for any of us??

 28"Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Will he not first sit down and estimate the cost to see if he has enough money to complete it? 29For if he lays the foundation and is not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule him, 30saying, 'This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.'

So we want to be happy, we want to get the best deal out of living.

In fact, we don't just want the best deal, we want that deal to be enough to make us perfectly happy.

So we sit and estimate the costs...

What will it take? a big family? a beautiful wife? beautiful children?? loyal friends? perfect soulmates? a prestigous job? a multi-storey house? money? how much money??

Thing is, if we really sit down & estimate the costs of being perfectly happy, I doubt we'll manage to find a way to muster sufficient resources. It just won't work! So what are we really hoping to accomplish if we stick to our resources?!

 31"Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Will he not first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand? 32If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for terms of peace. 33In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple.

I have heard a few different readings of this parable, none of them was in the least bit satisfying to me, then yesterday it just hit me that the "other king" whom we seem to be intent on fighting is actually God!

And this parable seems to me to be about the inescapable love of God!

God came to win humanity over, the Jews fought back his love offer and clung to their egos and traditions.

But can we really defeat God? Can we win the war against God's love?!

Note that his armies (his means and abilities) far surpass our own, and if we sit down and carefully consider it, we'll find out that we really won't stand a chance. So wouldn't it be better to save ourselves the pain and earlier on "ask for terms of peace"?

So God seems to be telling us that we shouldn't fight that war.

But he's also letting us play it our way, so if we insist on holding on to our old, fake sources of safety, then well, we won't follow him.

And to sum up he says that

 34"Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? 35It is fit neither for the soil nor for the manure pile; it is thrown out. 
      "He who has ears to hear, let him hear."

Which is a continuation of the Parable of the Great Banquet as well. If they said No, they will simply be "uninvited" and thrown out of the "God's People" (which also means his desciples) circle.

In my opinion, bearing in mind the last parable, the story shouldn't end there.

Thankfully, it doesn't...

Tempting Fate

I don't believe in fate, I have God as a more sane replacement concept!

Today I was going to reflect on a certain idea, then I was put to the test while writing... which changed the words before they reached the page.

But I'm getting ahead of myself, let's start at the beginning.

Yesterday I was watching this on TV, and one secondary character said the strangest thing.

She was planning to get married, and said that according to her mother, she shouldn't have kept the reciepts. But she kept them all, the caterer's reciept, the chapel payment slip, the honeymoon reservations... everything. Her mother said that's "tempting fate".

It's like if you believe that things will go wrong (and therefore take all necessary precautions), fate will be tempted to go ahead and make your worries come true.

So, if I was afraid I'll fail, I will.

Yeah, I've heard that a lot, and even seen it on t-shirts.

But isn't that because I was being a defeatist?

Maybe it's because I thought I'll lose, so I didn't give it a real fight, so I lost... a perfect self-fulfilling prophecy  (I made the term up then found out it exists, check it out)

Well the character in the TV show did call off the wedding after all, is that why?

She ruined something by believing it'll be ruined, and that thing directly depended on her attitude. So the logic holds, she could've been directly responsible for its ruin.

Today I was having a discussion with a friend, and I had to ask myself, can one do the opposite?

Can I make something work, because my attitude towards it is that it'll work?

Logically, no I can't!

Because for something to work, it needs all its dependencies fullfilled.

It's an AND function.

She needed many things (AND her atittude) to have the wedding go well, not to mention the whole marriage.

So it's not that simple.

You can wreck something by your attitude, but your attitude alone can't be sufficient to fix something.

You won't run if you don't think you can, but you won't fly only because you think you can.

On Leaving

Disclaimer: This will not be subtle, I'll leave subtlety for another post!

I couldn't help noticing how leaving the country is rapidly becoming a goal for almost every young egyptian.

Almost 70% of the people I know who are still in Egypt, have sent their CVs to friends abroad for consideration.

Everybody has either thought of leaving, or tried to leave, or in fact did leave.

That obviously means, that this subject became the bread and butter of social gatherings.

Yesterday, one of the people I respect, said to me that in all cases, the things we miss in Egypt aren't there anymore.

The example he drove was one I had already heard before...

"If you pass by the Church, for example, you'll find nobody hanging out there"

(I apologize for the example, but due to a miscalculated administrative desicion, that resulted in the launch of a nation-wide marketing campaign, Churches in Egypt were turned into Social Clubs as well as Houses of Worship!)

Now I had heard that exact same statement three times before, but this time there was a very important difference.

This time, the man who said it (as well as I) was sitting in a mall in Abu Dhabi, instead of on a car parked in front of that Church!

And then something hit me... a scene from an animated motion picture, WALL-E!

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD

That scene in "WALL-E" where the Captain of the Axiom looks at the plant in the shoe, and tells it that it's okay, all it needed was a little care... then glances back at the computer screen showing what planet Earth had become... And makes up his mind to head back home immediately.

SPOILERS END

Of course there's nobody hanging out around our Church these days, they all left!

What do you expect? We've all abandoned ship!

Of course it's a mess! And of course it won't get any better over the years!

This is not a call to Egyptians to come back and clean up the dump that used to be their home, or die trying.

This is just a demonstration of the cause-and-effect relations that helped get us where we are.

What you take out of it is really very much up to you, don't blame it on me.

To a City

Dear Cairo,

I pray this finds you well,

although I doubt it will.

I am writing to tell you that things here aren't going too good... especially on the financial side.

They might not hit the floor, but still. It makes staying here less attractive.

And I keep thinking...

Why the hell am I here?

I don't particularly need this!

Not to mention that I'm giving up quite a lot to be here.

I'm freezing my soul for months at a time just to survive,

pulling a face of stone

lest it betrays feelings

and forces me to feel stuff with it

I don't blame anyone who refuses to come visit you after a while, and I don't think you should either.

Have you any idea how much visiting you hurts?

There's a sort of unbearable longing

not to some past-tense pseudo-utopia

(you made sure of that!)

but to a... I don't know...

to actually caring abt something!

because a person stops doing that after a while here

Yes, we care about our own well-being in a vague manner

and about our rights in an aggressive one

but rarely about anything on the outside

We just couldn't give a damn

Whether the UAE prospered

or Pakistan sank

or the EU failed to become the new world super-power

Just off-handedly, we can discuss world politics

or read the english newspaper to pass the time we spend in transportations

But we won't lift a finger to change a thing

But with you, dear Cairo...

My fingers are itching all the time!

whether I do something or not, is another matter...

but I feel.

And that's why coming to visit after years of cold indifference

feels like hot water on frostbitten skin

it tears at it

burning like hellfire

and forces our hearts out of us

So what do we do?

Do we just cope with limbo?

Do we leave and never look back?

Do we stay trapped in your smothering embrace?

What do we do, Cairo?

Tell me, seriously, what can a man do?!

Waiting to hear from you...

Sincerely,

Peter

In Anxiety

Interviewer: Tell me, do you think you can do this job?

Interviewed: Yes I do, I believe I am more than up to it.

Interviewer: So you can handle the pressure?

Interviewed: Yes I can handle any pressure I never snapped I know it when it pushes you into the dirt and throws you mercilessly into an open grave and crushes your head and squeezes your heart with a steely fist of ice and fills your lungs with thick black acidic smoke I know it very well I never snapped the idea is to fight back when it pushes you push it back you can always struggle and franticaly punch nothing and hold back the closing walls and hold up the falling roof and bite at the plastic bag and hold your breath forever and kick and kick and never scream you stiffle the scream or maybe the pressure does but you never screamed because screams are frightenning you just shut up stay silent in control don't panic don't panic DON'T PANIC

Interviewer: Good to know. That's all, welcome to the team.

In Place

Have you ever noticed how a sad person asks more deep questions than a happy one?
And yet I fail to come up with an especially deep question, or a particularly amusing pun.

I fail to write, and instead I stall.

So I shall leave this post wanting, it'll die in a few days.
That way, I'd have put it justly in its rightful place.

And now my tale has grown too tall.

Because we all know that isn't really true...
to serve this post justice I'd have to write it through.

Or not. I may not write it at all.

But I can't help noticing how this post is still here,
It's written, in spite of my wisdom and my fear.

Yelling 'In gravity, we fail to fall.'

Questions

"Questions are powerful truth-finders. At all costs, avoid religious groups that fear questions. Anyone who believes they have the truth should not only encourage questions, but should have solid answers for what they believe, especially if they are a leader. When asking serious questions about serious topics like the subject of Hell, look them right in the eye when asking the questions. The eyes will give away whether they are firmly convinced on their answer or if they are just passing on the "traditions" of their sect."

I came across this paragraph while reading an article online. And I smiled...
I knew exactly what he was talking about,
I could picture it, half memory and half projection, me sitting there and asking some authority figure and not really getting an answer.
I never tested them, that honestly never crossed my mind. I only wanted the truth, and if what someone said felt wrong... well I had to know if it is, a lot was at stake.
My reason and my faith were both at stake.

Then I became such a leader myself, and me and some friends tried to operate in a certain way that promoted questions. And there seemed to be a sort of fear of what we were doing, and it sometimes felt like a fear of us.
Maybe we wouldn't know how to answer, maybe nobody else would know how to answer, maybe there is no answer!
"So let's just make it controlled, please... no need to confuse people."(!)

This happened & will happen thousands of times in our church. And no, it is NOT acceptable.
Do not trust any religious group who does not welcome questions with open arms, and do not trust any religious group which doesn't really answer them.

Christ was the Truth, by the way... and it's funny how those who call themselves Christians are now trying to dodge truth-finders.

On Relativism: 3- Doublethink

“My son, the Giant who had one head was stronger than the Giant who had two. When you grow up there will come to you other magicians who will say, ‘Γνωθε δεαυτον. Examine your soul, wretched kid. Cultivate a sense of the differentiations possible in a single psychology. Have nineteen religions suitable to different moods.’ My son, these will be wicked magicians; they will want to turn you into a two-headed Giant.” The Magician in "The Disadvantage of Having Two Heads" – G. K. Chesterton

Doublethink was introduced in George Orwell's political novel "1984", it is defined as the act of simultaneously accepting two mutually contradictory beliefs.

This form of doublethink was a very conscious act, it was used by common people & ruling party members alike, & its mechanism was driven by fear more than anything else. It was a means of survival in a totalitarian world, but also a means of maintaining that totalitarian world.

When I consider what it is that I am having trouble accepting in our ambiguous modern mentality, I find it is something remarkably like 1984's doublethink, except that maybe it was driven by different reasons.
Let me explain...

Those who strongly believe in something fight for it, that is essentially true.
And the result of which was fanatics of all sorts filling the world with wars.

What people began to suggest after ages of difference (& because of ages of difference) is that since apparently nothing seems Real to everyone, then maybe everyone's beliefs are Illusions.
So no reason to fight about it, really. It might all turn out to be wrong!
Notice that this isn't saying it is wrong, but that it may be, & this is suggested as a reason to not get too excited about it!

As a proposed solution to religious strife, that is very much like castration as a proposed solution to adultery!
To stop crimes of passion, let's kill passion!
To avoid burning others or getting burned, let's stop making fire!
The result has to be a long and terrible winter.
So people died out inside, at least towards what they believed.

Naturally, this was welcome by Atheists (especially agnostic atheists), but there were also many Theists who wanted to embrace the all-accepting nature of that pseudo-solution to religious strife, and they did.
This resulted in a generation of religious people that advocated belief in a "private" religion.
Obviously, once a religion becomes private you have no reason to publicly profess it, let alone enforce it.

But not only that, once a religion becomes private, it no longer really is a religion at all. For a religion is a belief regarding the universe, it is about the universe, not only about a person. This was elaborated on in the latest entry in this series.

But this "private" religion of a "private" universe -as far as I understand- is backed up & promoted for by Buddhism. Which was getting fashionable at the time when this relativism began to be popular.
In any case many thinkers had no real problem accepting it. It was even considered in style! It became the new "modern thinking".

But I'd like to draw your attention now to the fact that this thinking is actually doublethinking.

To believe in an admitted illusion is doublethink.

To believe in a System of Belief & yet not care if it is false is not Believing at all, it is doublethink.

To believe in a Universal Philosophy & yet believe it to be Non-Universal is doublethink.

Just like doublethink of "1984", our doublethink is done for purely practical purposes, namely neutralizing fanaticism-caused violence.

Also just like doublethink of "1984" had a special sort of language (Newspeak) invented to facilitate its manipulation of reality, our doublethink has its special sort of language as well; as C. S. Lewis put it in the first of the Screwtape Letters as the speech of a wizened old demon to a young unexperienced one:

"Your man has been accustomed, ever since he was a boy, to have a dozen incompatible philosophies dancing about together inside his head. He doesn't think of doctrines as primarily "true" of "false", but as "academic" or "practical", "outworn" or "contemporary", "conventional" or "ruthless". Jargon, not argument, is your best ally in keeping him from the Church. Don't waste time trying to make him think that materialism is true! Make him think it is strong, or stark, or courageous—that it is the philosophy of the future. That's the sort of thing he cares about."

And just like doublethink of "1984", our doublethink was made possible by promoting that Reality (with a capital R) is either non-existent or unimportant.

Or in a more subtle way, by suggesting that Reality is whatever you make it to be, reducing it to your reality. A practical reality!

And right here, Truth becomes excess baggage.

& I think we need Truth... don't we?

On Relativism: 2- Isolation

"The modern habit of saying"This is my opinion, but I may be wrong" is entirely irrational. If I say that it may be wrong, I say that is not my opinion. The modern habit of saying "Every man has a different philosophy; this is my philosophy and it suits me" - the habit of saying this is mere weak-mindedness. A cosmic philosophy is not constructed to fit a man; a cosmic philosophy is constructed to fit a cosmos. A man can no more possess a private religion than he can possess a private sun and moon."

Introduction to the Book of Job - G. K. Chesterton



I have met many people whom after having expressed their opinion, expressed how they considered it merely their own opinion and nothing more. They said that "to them" it was right, however they didn't think that necessarily meant it applied to anyone else's life, or even that they thought it to be it Right in the absolute sense of the word.

This was uncomfortable to me at first because that meant I can't discuss with them any of those opinions. Whenever I'd say something they'd answer back "Yeah, maybe to you that's right!".
Now, what these people were actually suggesting was that they have their own private universe in which these opinions were true. In that universe I didn't exist, hence I couldn't claim that these opinions were either right or wrong.

After a few times of meeting more of those people, & a few more times where I noticed that to those people more subjects seemed to pack up their stuff & move to that private universe, it became downright annoying!

I understand how those people wanted to avoid disagreements. And that may be ok in some cases I suppose, unless they actually believe it! Then the price they pay for that mental peace becomes their sanity!

Many people became convinced that they are apart from all Mankind. In fact, they are quite convinced that all Mankind is quite apart from Mankind!
More people are moving their ideas to a place where they can hear no outside criticism, but the price of that is that they can also get no external help. They have no external point of reference to refer to when in need. A Man alone in a universe isn't a good thing, is it?
This model of thinking as you can see, may lead to an isolation of the individual, if taken seriously.

As I understand it, this translates directly into Hell. Life becomes a place of nightmares & doubts where no external help is noticed or accepted. It's an even more modern angst.

Now for many logical reasons, I'm pretty sure that this private universe people think about does not exist. We may all have different personalities. But there is one Reality and we all live in it.

I'd like to stress here that this doesn't mean that our reaction to that Reality must be the same.

However, when somebody claims that they are satisfied with some belief & that belief describes (& reflects on) that same common Reality. It has to hold true in that common Reality if it is to hold true in someone's personal life.
In other words, it is either Real to everyone or it is actually an Illusion.

In other words, it is either True, or it is not.

& I think we need Truth… Don't we?

On Relativism: 1- Individualism

First of all I would like to apologize beforehand to my friends FW & Python. I am not writing this series of entries now because of our conversations, but rather because this subject has been on my mind a lot lately... Our conversations were one result of that, this series is another.

I want to complain,

I want to complain, not only of myself, or merely of my people. But of nearly all people! For these days they are mostly forgetting to add the word "all" before the word "people".

These are my thoughts & feelings (strong feelings, actually!) on the subject of relativism.

Now, relativism is the faceless daughter of the sweeping popularity of Individualism,

Individualism as a mental school fought very hard to cut the ties people had to their ancestors & their peers. In short it tried very hard to sever all ties between all people.

In stressing that each man should choose for himself, it refused the idea of Common Sense.

In stressing that each person was free to choose whatever he wants to think (which is a noble cause, I am sure), that Men should think for themselves (Ah! if only that could come true), it also refused the use of the word "should"... which is effectively cutting its own throat!

As G. K. Chesterton put it (please don't hate me for quoting him again!) "Individualism kills individuality, precisely because individualism has to be an 'ism' quite as much as Communism or Calvinism.".

Meaning that for Individualism to become a mental institution, people had to belong to it. & when people did belong to it, they no longer thought for themselves anymore. Instead they were once again united under a thought-out idea, and this time it happened to revolve around the self.

"So far from really remaining a separate self, the man became part of a communal mass of selfishness." (conclusion of Chesterton's statement from which above quote was taken)

Which has been proven historically to be an inevitable outcome.

Men will always gather around a flag. To try to tell them to never gather around a flag is useless. The question then arises as to what flag Men should gather around.

Now concerning "should"s, if course there has to be a "should"!

Individualism (with the help of relativism) has led us to believe that we humans are all so different, and that it is quite natural (& healthy) for us to adopt completely different & mostly opposite views on every major & minor subject. It has stressed that this is perfectly OK.

Of course nobody would object to the observations upon which this idea is based, but I will strongly object to closing our eyes to the other plain observations, which show that we are all still humans!

Individualism values Logic above all else, & so implies a common set of rules for evaluating situations & standards. So at least Logic should be common.

But in addition to Logic, we all have the same needs, desires & weaknesses, don't we?

We all are pursuing pretty much the same things & we all are pretty much failing to get them! Now doesn't that mean anything at all?

How have we been led to believe that we are so terribly different?

The ancient thinkers noticed first how Nature was full of goups of things that are very similar. All horses belong to Horse, all men belong to Man. They argued to which extent that made them similar (and maybe even connected). Hiraclites, Plato & others devoted great attention to the problem of universals. They understood that to decide what we mean by Man is to decide whether we can know anything about Man.

It's drawing the line between the objective & the subjective.

It's drawing the border around Truth.

And I think we need Truth... Don't we?

On the Art of Debate in Egypt

I write this entry here after reading this, a very amusing old debate on Socialism (In a sense, the not-so-proud father of Communism) by the two intellectual giants G. K. Chesterton & George Bernard Shaw.
At the same time, I am following another rather different debate, that between some elements of the Coptic Orthodox Church regarding "The Deification of Man".

I had to notice the sharp difference between the two methods of debate.

One main difference is how the first debate is to a great extent a dialogue, although each side takes his time with the microphone. While the second isn't a dialogue at all!
This manifests itself mainly in how the second debate doesn't follow any particular train of thought through to its conclusion; instead each party simply throws a wide variety of statements in the face of the other party, very few of which can be considered a reply to the wide variety of statements thrown at it before...

At the same time the two parties seem to try really hard to avoid saying certain things or certain words, as if they think it quite possible that at any given moment they may find themselves on the other side of the fence!
This results in a refutation that proves little & disproves nothing, & you find that in the end the arguments presented from both sides can get along pretty well.
You can just write most of them down in conclusion & none would cancel another out.

To actually debate the issue, we have to reply to questions asked,
we have to clearly define the problem,
highlight what we agree on & debate what we disagree on,
we have to illustrate using examples that are related to & follow up with examples given by the other party.
And most importantly we have to follow the same rules of Logic! There's no sense in running a math contest if the two contestants neither agree on the multiplication table, nor do they use the same numbering system!
I say this because it seems that the two debating parties don't agree on what it means for two statements to be contradicting.
Nor do they draw from the same history. One very clear example of this is how both parties are labelling each other with the same labels.
I can understand it (though won't like it, it's a cheap shot) if in some debate one debater labels the other a communist, and the other debater labels him an imperial capitalist, but it makes no sense at all for both parties to label the other "Protestant" (unfortunately yes, it is used as an accusation),
it makes no sense that to both parties, the other's theology is always labelled as "Western" (another mis-accusation), this is happening so often that maybe western theoligians should join us at the table to explain themselves!
And of course there also is the endless -and same- names of heretics being flung across that table as accusations.
This can only mean that at least one of the two parties doesn't know what Protestants confess to believe, what Western Theology is, and what the old Heresies were.
In this thicket of ignorance, how can you have a real debate?!

If we were trying to have a debate, the art of debate actually has rules.
Even if that debate is mostly political, & even if it is being conducted on the pages of newspapers & tabloids for amusement, as a replacement to gladiator arenas!

ISB

They turned the lights off on the plane.
Finally...
It's been a very long flight.
And I can't quite remember what it is I'm fleeing from.
Bad joke, I know...

Some guy was arguing angrily with the stewardess a while ago,
said something about wanting to go home.
They wouldn't let him disembark, of course.
So childish of him.

Some warm fluid is dripping right next to my eyes.
Oh that's a tear.
feels good.

It didn't go on very long, though.
Too bad, wish it did.

Well I don't think anybody should blame me,
what better to do, than to cry?
What better way to prove to yourself you can still feel.
That you aren't really as monstrous as you'd have yourself believe.

It didn't go on very long, though.
No, Sir.

In Hell

Time to Pretend, originally uploaded by fady_python.

I don't know about what people call Hell, but the hell I know is a place of nightmares & hate-driven illusions.

Some of that hate is directed towards somebody, or maybe everybody, but most of it is directed towards oneself.

Self-dispite is very much a place; it certainly feels like one, complete with sooty walls. There are no windows, and somebody has removed the door, too! All they left is an uncomfortable, dirty wooden chair, the kind that makes you prefer to stand up until you're too tired to.

Over here, people are barely aware (if at all) of the presence of other beings. So you see, it's a terribly lonely place.

Over here, you have free reign & very little is there to stop you from drowning in your own hurtful fantasies. Our physical surroundings sometimes give us a frame of reference, without them it is far easier to sink into despair, I imagine.

And what gives us a better frame of reference is others, and like I said above, we're not paying much attention to the presence of any others.

Speaking of others... Over here no being has any authority over another being, they're all imps. Minions with no Master. They're all poor, weak souls. No powerful beings can be found there.

Over here, they have no hopes. They will never change. They will never get out of themselves.

Or so they think...

In Estrangement

As a child you are born into a world to which you are a stranger.
Then little by little, you get used to some of the things in it... Your parents, your house, your friends, your country, your religion and others belonging to it... etc.
You relate to those things & begin identifying yourself as being a part of them.

then at some point, this might start slipping away.
You may begin to feel that things are changing, or it may be that you are changing and with you your perception of these things.
Which of them is true is not relevant, indeed anything may be true for all you care. In all cases you & those things start drifting apart.

For instance, you might begin to realise you don't really belong to this country. And although you may still inhabit it, it may seem to have been taken over by people quite different from yourself, and they've changed it so much it's no longer safe to you & your kind.
At this point consider yourself blessed, you still have your kind (whatever that is) to relate to.

Then after a while you may come to another realisation, you don't belong to this system of belief.
It is no longer safe to trust it nor to trust their teachings on it. No longer safe to trust them.
And you may or may not notice how "them" starts with a few people, then the list keeps growing until "them" becomes a generic word that includes almost everyone. Almost... except a precious few.
At this point do not consider yourself cursed yet, you still have those precious few (whoever they are) to relate to.

But who knows how far will this illness drag you away...
Who knows what else or who else will you become estranged to.
Maybe even your own thoughts would start to sound strange & unfimiliar, no longer resounding in your mind.

Maybe it will keep happening until there is nothing left for it to happen to.

And then you might just look around and find that no matter where you are, you are a complete stranger.

In Loneliness

Where you have no company but yourself, & you're not such fabulous company anyway.

Where tomorrow's needlessly long & yesterday's sharply bitter, although vague & barely there at all.

Where your breathing attempts awkward conversations with your heartbeat every once in a while, fails miserably & falls silent.

And when the monsters come out to play... I think you should pick on somebody your own size, you hear me?!

Do you hear me?

Father??
Save me...

Silently

"He was one of those to whom nature has given the desire without the power of artistic expression. He had been a dumb poet from his cradle. He might have been so to his grave, and carried unuttered into the darkness a treasure of new and sensational song............"
From "The Napoleon of Notting Hill" by G. K. Chesterton

Always felt that statement described me.
Aah... So lucky are the artists. The rest of us struggle silently.