monobeam's Xanga

Sunday, November 15, 2009

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 01:48:40 GMT

How free is science?

Ideally, it enlightens us and frees us from superstition; it helps us know what to expect (so it can get rid of anxiety); it puts the world in perspective, and offers explanations for things we see and experience; it helped us get to the moon; it helps us get better when sick or injured. The list goes on and on....

It is not the only way to look at things; philosophy and religion give us insights that it can not -- they with their deeper perspective, though dimmer and more difficult to explain.

There is an invasive quality to science. There is this unspoken goal of some scientists (Professors come to mind) to eradicate religions along with all superstitions. But if Christianity were such a bad idea, wouldn't it just fade away as people became more enlightened through education, through science? We have been in the age of enlightenment for about 400 years... are we makin' progress? Personally, I feel like we are making progress -- I can use an mp3 player to listen to my favorite music (and to listen to the Rosary while walking to dog), and I can use the internet to blog to people like you about science... and its limits. What I will not do is become a slave to the material world -- maybe we can call this sciencism. One last idea: who is it who is filled with more anxiety, religious people, or scientists who think science is all that is?

science and limits

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 22:03:54 GMT

And then there's science:

Science has done great things for us, or, rather, scientists have done great things. I in no way doubt the importance of science in our daily lives. But, now it is time to look at where it has overstepped its proper boundaries and trampled on the territory of religion and philosophy.

Aside from its good qualities, science has a tendency elevating things over the person, so that instead of being for our good, it becomes anti-person.

seeing things in threes

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 00:32:03 GMT

Today I'm going to start something I don't really want to do, because it's just plain, and a little large to fit in my head all at once.

Let's think about how we see the world, and about how we make sense of things. There are many cultures; I'm American, and we're basically continuing with European traditions. Let's call this Western Civilization. Of what does this cultural world-view consist? I like to see things in threes, so:

Three forces shaping us:

1. Philosophy of the ancient Greeks.

2. Christianity.

3. Science.

Philosophy definitely helped man make sense out of the world -- very intellectual and aesthetic, clear. Greek philosophy had a few drawbacks. One was the assumption that to know the good was to do the good; it sounds good on paper, but fallen man does not work this way -- the will does not always follow the intellect.

Christianity was able to help in ways that philosophy could not. Time to quote someone: "The Christian contribution, directly moral, and religious, deep and dim and tender, slow and far-reaching, immensely costly, infinitely strong; with its discovery and exemplification of the mysterious depth and range and complexity of human personality and freedom, of conscience and of sin; a view profoundly concrete and at bottom libertarian. The goodwill here first precedes, and then outstrips, and determines the information supplied by the intellect: 'Blessed are the clean of heart, for they shall see God.' And the strength of this position consists in its being primarily not a view, but a life, a spiritual, religious life, requiring, implying, indeed proclaiming, definite doctrines concerning God and man, and their relations to each other, but never exhausted by these doctrines even in their collectivity, inexhaustible though these in their turn are by their union with the life of the spirit, their origin and end."

Friedrich von Hugel, The Mystical Elements of Religion

I'll say something about science next time.

one infinitely small dot

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 18:44:11 GMT

"Contemporary man is aware that he is internally free,
deems himself to be higher than any external principle
independent of him,
asserts himself as the center of everything;
but with all that,
appears in reality to be
only one infinitely small and disappearing
[transitory] dot
upon the circumference of the world."

Soloviev, Lectures on Godmanhood

How is it that making one's self the center of everything leads one to feel insignificant? How is it that giving generously makes us feel that we are getting something back?

Do those who hoard have less than those who give?

Does this world make any sense? Of course, it equally seems that it has to be this way and no other way. There is a beauty in this sort of contradiction.

photos

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:50:19 GMT

pictures

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 23:46:24 GMT

and...

Here are some spooky photos I'd meant to post last Saturday...

a word which will never break

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 01:36:23 GMT

On Hope:

"... we ephemeral creatures, that is, who don't spend but a day,
who don't last but a day..."

"... we feeble, we fragile, we precarious, we shameful, we weak creatures,
we flimsy, we transient creatures, we vagrants, we shepherds..."

"In these carnal hearts, in these precarious hearts, in these vagrant hearts,
In these hearts that break
A word is preserved, is nourished
Which will never, for all eternity, break.

A word that will remain forever in these fragile hearts."

Charles Peguy, The Portal of the Mystery of Hope

Even in our imperfection, there is something...

Please, pray for those who have passed away.

God Bless

All Souls Day -- and the person sitting next to me

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 19:47:45 GMT

Happy All Souls Day,

I'm lucky to be Catholic. Yesterday we had All Saints Day, where basically we celebrate our heroes, who fought for Christianity, who loved people over things, our role models.

Today we remember all who have passed away. I think about the song, "Swing low, sweet charriot..." What could any group/organization do to be more all-inclusive than Catholics are? It wasn't our choice as Catholics to remember the dead in this way, it was the work of the Holy Spirit who guilds us. And, this sort of all-inclusiveness does not mean we are a group of similar minded folks who choose to associate with one another due to some common interest. No, this phenomenon is not a man-made thing at all. If anything the person sitting next to me at Mass is less like me than, I imaging, the average two people sitting next to each other at Protestant Services are like each other; (sorry for that awkward sentence). We Catholics are each different from each other, but it is the Mass which unites us, or rather, where Jesus unites us; "Love your neighbor." He has to remind us of this; All Souls Day reminds us of this...

Prayer: this is what unites us. Please take time to pray for your loved-ones who've passed away. This is the essence of All Souls Day -- to remember, and to pray for those who have passed away.

Jesus and the Church

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 01:45:22 GMT

"We cannot have Jesus without the reality he created
and in which he communicates himself.

Between the Son of God-made-flesh
and his Church
there is a profound,
unbreakable,
and mysterious continuity
by which Christ is present today
in his people.
He is always contemporary with us,
he is always contemporary with the Church,
built on the foundation of the Apostles
and alive in the succession of the Apostles."

Pope Benedict XVI, from Jesus, The Apostles, and the Early Chuch

Monday, October 26, 2009

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 23:17:31 GMT