“Metamorphoses” – Ovid, 103
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Tag: Christianity
April 6, 2017
Aristotle, an objection
“The School Of Athens“ (1510 – 1511)
_______
upon reviewing my Socrates, Plato, and
Aristotle from a series of university
lectures I’ve been following, I came upon
a discovery so egregious, I couldn’t
believe I hadn’t seen it before, the old
story of the forest and the trees, I guess
upon hearing that the Oracle at Delphi
had replied that it was Socrates to those
who’d wondered who the wisest man
was, Socrates, abashed, began to seek
out wise men to disprove the Oracle,
but whenever Socrates asked of them
what is virtue, what is justice, what is
knowledge, for instance, the answers
were always inconclusive, they always
seemed to depend on perspective –
virtue, justice, knowledge were in the
eye of the beholder – though Plato
later putting in his own definitions
called them Ideals, a chair partook,
for instance, of an overarching
chairness somewhere, as did indeed
virtue, knowledge and justice, which
inferred another ideal universe
contiguously, of which our own
universe supplied only imperfect
renditions
you can hear the seeds of Heaven and
God already in all of that, way before
Christianity, not to mention Original
Sin
it also suggests an implacable order
Socrates wouldn’t’ve liked that
but Aristotle, with a much more critical
mind than Plato’s, less speculative, more
akin to Socrates’, less autocratic, more
inquisitive, begins to try to define,
nevertheless, abstractions, virtue,
knowledge, justice, as though they
indeed existed as ideals
this is putting the cart before the horse,
I thought, in the form of a revelation
an instance exists in the act of creation,
a physical transformation produces a
flower, the flower doesn’t happen
because of the word
a human example
for surviving an aneurysm once, someone,
to my astonishment, had called me
courageous, I’d been, I thought, only
surviving, not an inch of courage, not
even a millimetre
courage, I surmised, is in the eye of the
beholder, it is not at all a template, an
absolute, in my experience
Aristotle goes on to define a host of
Virtues, indeed 11, which come out as
essentially his Eleven Commandments,
on, in fact, courage, among others, all
essentially, and appropriately, moral,
thereby creating the moral realm of
our Western world
Jesus followed
and of course God and Heaven
which, of course, still prevail despite
sound, sober objections
as though we could know
why is this important
because, I think, we must remember
that our assumptions are only that,
and often they’re based on only what
we’ve been told, which is already a
step away from incorrect
interpretation
in the world of false news, check
your references, check your very
words, our lives, it isn’t too much
to say, I believe, depend on it
not to mention our own personal
moral code, our soul, our purpose
for being, which every wo/man
must oversee for hirself
if one has the courage
Richard
August 11, 2016
to Socrates – on monotheism
“The Sacrifice of Isaac“ (1598)
________
by very definition, the inevitable
result of monotheism, Socrates,
is war, if there is one authority it
will eventually be opposed by a
contrary, however picayune,
however trivial, opinion, see the
Protestant Reformation, see Islam,
for instance, now
after which there is disintegration
before Christianity, there were gods,
a pantheon of them symbolically
alive among the rivers, the trees,
the mountains, read Ovid for an
exhilarating description, wars were
waged for territory, not conscience
Judaism, the religion of the Jews,
evolved for their own existence a
deity, Yahweh, who was their one
god, disdainful of foreign others,
an uncharacteristic attitude among
other religions then, becoming one
of the very first monotheistic, and
consequently existentially
compromised faiths, if not the
first
the intent was to rally ideological
support among its adherents so
that they could protect the lands
homes, as they would have it, a
sanctification of the territorial
principle
their Bible, the Torah, a vengeful
work, and the basis for the
Christian Old Testament,
demanded of its followers
unblinking and cruel allegiance,
the sacrifice of Isaac, for instance,
a father required to sacrifice his
own son, however might it ‘ve
been at the last minute averted by
the intercession of an angel sent
by that very Lord
Christ came along to turn the other
cheek
which didn’t last long
indeed Montesquieu, an early
philosopher of the French
Enlightenment, tells of the
King’s librarian of Chinese
texts, who had been converted
to Catholicism in China, but
who was nonplussed upon his
arrival in Christian France to find
that the French did not do onto
others as they would have them
do unto themselves, nor did they,
more catastrophically, turn the
other cheek
for that matter see what Christian
Europe did to the Americans
Christ’s own followers, once they’d
achieved political prominence, after,
admittedly, 300 years of persecution
by the prevailing Roman authorities,
set their own deity, God, on high,
indeed beyond the rivers, the
mountains, the trees into the very
ineffable, the inscrutable abstract,
and squelched any opposition for
the next thousand and some years,
the philosophical underpinnings of
which was the work of your
contemporary, Plato, Socrates, his
ideal of the Ideal
Augustine signed those recalibrated
papers with his “City of God“, it took
the Renaissance to make a dent in its
armour, and another several centuries
to declare the Christian God dead,
Time magazine in the ’60s, on the
heels of Nietzsche‘s nihilistic
pronouncement some 70 years earlier,
that God had exited history
what we are left with, Socrates, is every
wo/man for hirself, therefore the Age of
Human Rights, for better or for worse,
otherwise many of us would’ve been
guillotined, burnt at the stake, stoned
to death, by now
what do you think
I’ll bet I can tell, you think that every
wo/man owes allegiance to what s/he
believes in, even to inexorable death,
however impractical, unfortunate, or
fateful, if your exemplary life has
anything to say about it
cheers
Richard
May 17, 2014
Saint Apollonia
“Saint Apollonia“ (1636)
___________
who ‘s Saint Apollonia, I asked my dentist
when he suggested I call on her to intercede
in this present mortification, I was sitting in
his chair undergoing treatment for a painful
abscess for which he’d aligned already
several instruments along my lower lip
the patron saint of toothaches, he replied,
as though she were a fairy
who knew, I marvelled, I’d only ever heard
of Saint Jude otherwise, patron saint of
lost causes, memorably
you must’ve been raised Catholic, I
interjected, Protestants don’t have
saints
yes, he stated, suggesting the shared
impact of an, however privately
relinquished, or distant, religion,
upbringing
he didn’t know about her time or place,
and counseled I should look into it
who wouldn’t
principally she lived in Alexandria, her
name alone could have given that away,
if Greeks had become Christian anywhere
it would’ve been in Alexandria then, 250,
a city close to the Christian source,
Palestine, and teeming with international
attention, though ruled long by Greeks,
you’ll remember Cleopatra had been of
Greek origin
in a wave of atrocities perpetrated by
Alexandrian mobs, unleashed during
commemorative festivities – see, for
instance, the Vancouver hockey game
riots to compare – roused by prophecies
of ill winds towards their city, set upon
Christians to appease their more raucous
gods, among them Apollonia
in Vancouver she was London Drugs
and the Bay
they pulled out her teeth, one by one,
which is why she’s represented with
pincers, that done they threatened to
burn her alive should she not repeat
their profanities
she jumped, instead, herself, onto the
pyre
Jesus, Mary, Joseph, I exclaimed, quite,
quite uncharacteristically, but only other
too objectionable imprecations could’ve
reflected the extent of my consternation,
after that, I thought, what’s an abscess
later I brought him gratefully a bottle of
fine wine, to the fortified gate, however,
of his impervious secretary, though
serenely be she ever smiling, for having
tended with speed and alacrity to my
distress, however unworthy it may
have been of beatification
a French wine or a Marilyn Merlot, Napa
Valley, I had to ponder, bought both,
couldn’t resist, kept for myself, however,
not to render the choice to the intermediate
secretary, the Marilyn, my more familiar, and
headier, saint
cheers
Richard
January 23, 2014
“Meditations”, Book 3 – Marcus Aurelius
“If thou workest at that which is before thee, following right reason seriously, vigorously, calmly, without allowing anything else to distract thee, but keeping thy divine part pure, as if thou shouldst be bound to give it back immediately; if thou holdest to this, expecting nothing, fearing nothing, but satisfied with thy present activity according to nature, and with heroic truth in every word and sound which thou utterest, thou wilt live happy. And there is no man who is able to prevent this.”
“Meditations“, Book 3, 12
_________
the idea of the virtuous man, or the
interpretation of Marcus Aurelius of
such a person, goes back of course to
Socrates by way of Plato, 427 – 347
B.C., who’s ideal was primarily
political, what to achieve within a
political order, rather than a private
meditation, an advice rather than
a contemplation as in Marcus
Aurelius, 121 – 180 A.D., 550,
not inconsequential, years later
other moral perspectives meanwhile
applied, Epicureanism, for instance,
notably, after which the stranglehold
of Christianity produced not philosophy
but dogma, for a subservient and,
biblically labeled, fallen people,
nearly fifteen hundred years spent
trying to figure out how many angels
fit through the eye of a needle,
essentially, how many irrationalities
could prove the existence, and
authority, of a mandated God
René Descartes inadvertently in this
very quest, but not before 1637, put
an end to that, introduced a new, and
revolutionary, perspective, “I think,
therefore I am“, which put the individual
instead of the Church in the driver’s seat,
this, if it didn’t bring on the Renaissance,
at least gave it a significant push
but because of his famous scientific
method, studies afterwards in what
we now know as the humanities
became more empirical than
specifically moral, how do we
perceive rather than how do we live
according to what is right or wrong,
Nietzsche‘s “Beyond Good and Evil“,
1886, reoriented that investigation,
as it happened, ominously, in an age
where any kind of god had become
irrelevant, Beethoven would be
transformed into a Hitler, an
uncomfortably fateful Übermensch,
Superman
now philosophy is concerned with
language, what do we mean when
we say what do we mean, and can
anybody understand that
our closest moralist, our modern day
Marcus Aurelius, is at present Miss
Manners, whom I wholeheartedly
recommend
as well as, of course, Marcus Aurelius
Richard
psst: Miss Manners‘ question and answer
format, incidentally, is not at all unlike
what Plato does in his Socratic dialogues,
she just has a larger, more flip audience
December 13, 2013
my C***mas card
“Madonna and Child with Canon Joris van der Paele”
(1436)
_______
though I’ve long professed to not being
a Christian, having opted for the more
colourful pageant of Ancient Greece’s
Olympian divinities, and its attendant
metaphysical perspective, wherein
nature is honoured for its bounty
rather than saddled with the guilt of
Original – I ask you – Sin, I nevertheless
revere the spirit that spurred great
painters to such spectacular, even
exalted, heights
the blue of the prelate’s cape on the left
still reverberates in my subconscious
as though I’d discovered a new colour
the blue on the right on St George, the
patron saint of van der Paele, who
commissioned the painting, rendered
appropriately humble, even kneeling,
in white, is only slightly less impressive
for being not less pungent but more pale,
noble yet understated, gold armour doing
the definitive rest
the ecclesiastic is St Donatian, patron
saint of Bruges, who knew how to
dress, apparently, for so vaunted an
occasion
may your capes ever be as eloquent
may your blues be ever as sublime
Richard
March 13, 2013
Nemo – “Ennead I” by Plotinus (10)
Date: Fri, 8 Mar 2013 21:28:13 +0000
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To: Richibi’s Weblog
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Subject: [New comment] “Ennead I” by Plotinus
Subject: [New comment] “Ennead I” by Plotinus
Hi Richard,
Have you thought of writing or already written memoirs? I think I’d enjoy reading them.
Your second story reminded me of the Confessions by St. Augustine,
in which he grieved over the death of his beloved friend.
Descartes might say this about your “This is the census” moment: “I lisp, therefore I exist”.
But how would you interpret the “parable”?
What caused you to stop ministering at the palliative care unit after ten years?
a parable is in the eye of the beholder, Nemo,
nearly by definition, and therefore wide in the
possible breadth of its interpretation, that wide
net, should it catch the imagination of many,
can describe a potent, though indefinable,
moral precept that even whole communities
can then propagate and follow, mysticized
fairy tales, for these last serve a similar
purpose, maybe the age of the listener,
reader, here, is the distinguishing factor,
adults have a hard time with fairy tales
dimension to my lisp, if you’re asking what
moral precept I derived from that tale, it is
that something was profoundly watching,
unobtrusive, but gently ready to nudge just
enough to inspire hope, like a second wind
I felt, however solipsistically, that something,
someone, was listening, and that was enough,
that indeed would be, wouldn’t you think,
though the information was entirely
metaphorical and abstract
but I’ve experienced too many moments of
transcendence not to subsribe to a more
than merely rational agenda, Shakespeare
again, “There are more things in heaven and
earth, Horatio, / Than are dreamt of in your
philosophy.” – “Hamlet“, act 1, scene 5,
lines 186–187 – which I heartily second
no philosopher has ever admitted that but
Proust and Beethoven, which is why I’ve
somewhat put aside classic philosophy,
though I love the Moralists, after Rome
and before Christianity, Saint Augustine,
I’m afraid, however, distorted the facts,
as well as his great acuity, in order to
entrench a mythology, the dominion of
a numinous, entirely male, incidentally,
Trinity, forcing Truth into a submissive,
not to say penitent, and furthermore
impotent, corner until the very Renaissance,
specifically until Descartes, and, by the way,
until his near contemporary, Shakespeare,
1564 -1616, nearly the equal of Beethoven
and Proust in his philosophical perspicacity,
“To be, or not to be” is of course the first
existential soliloquy of our era
Descartes, 1596 – 1650
after ten years at palliative care I had changed,
and the unit had changed, it had become more
regimented and constrictive than it had been in
its early, more companionable, and not yet so
regimented, years, I now had to go through
security to get to my station, which was not at
all the spirit in which I’d entered the service
I am now, I’m imagining, a poet, and live and
write accordingly, these very missives, Nemo,
are my memoirs, at present you are my muse
thanks
I hope you’re “enjoy[ing] reading them“
Richard
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