Weird and proud of it
I considered as an alternate title for this entry "South Park Conservatism Strikes Again," but I didn't think it would have quite the punch that "Weird and proud of it" does. This'ns on evolution, God, and evolution and God (note the logical connector there, folks; that's why the "weird and proud").
I've had it up to here with pompous jerks on both sides of the "evolution vs. God" debate who claim they "just can't see how you can combine evolution and God." Maybe that's because they can't wrap their minds around more than one idea at a time -- and a simple idea, at that. Hey, if I can do it, anyone can -- or else I'm a genius and anyone who can't dig it isn't, and we can't have that, now, can we?
We've been given what we could grasp as we could grasp it, slowly learning about our world, finding out its limits, learning about our universe and its limits, learning by observation and study and experiment, learning by received wisdom from our elders and ancestors. There are now three schools of thought on those last two things: 1) Objective science (learning by observation, study, and experiment) is the only possible road to truth; 2) revelation (received wisdom) is the only possible road to truth; and 3) it's the same universe/multiverse no matter how you cut it, and objective science and revelation/Magick/mysticism are two ways of looking at the same thing, so that by triangulation you can learn far more about it than you ever could with either method alone. For the record, my position is that last.
That's not a "compromise," folks. That is my position -- and I state that knowing I could get shot dead by both the first two camps for stating it. For some reason both camps find such a position extremely threatening. Why? God is real. God built the universe -- or multiverse -- such that life is possible and worlds within it can heal of terrible wounds, which is why a) existence is chaotic/entropic/uncertain and b) evolution is an essential part of Creation, just as development, the immune response, and self-repair of the body's wounds are essential parts of the lives of individual creatures, whether ourselves or any other.
Evolution isn't just a theory. (Fine, let's go to war over it, but two minutes from now, after I've said my say, okay?) The multiverse, our universe, and our world within that universe are billions of years old, the universe far more so than our world, the multiverse infinitely so. Fossils are real, not "snares of Satan," and radiodating is no more illusion than is telling time by an ordinary clock.
On the other hand, I've had my own confrontation with the origin of Creation -- I've described that in earlier entries on this blog -- and those black seas of infinity that are the endless deeps of God's being . . . and found that the Eternal and Infinite was regarding me right back, with love rather than disgust. That inconceivable, infinite, eternal Presence is aware of and loves his conceivable, finite, time-bound creatures. That is a pesonal experience, not the result of repeatable scientific experiment or field observations, but it was my experience, now part of me forever, and I have no desire to disown it. Au contraire.
How do you reconcile the two?
How do you reconcile the fact that on a given day, the sky is blue and the wind is coming up? Why bother "reconciling" them? They're both there, and real, and part of life. I have blue eyes and brown hair. Why choose "brown hair" over "blue eyes" if they're both true of me and, in any event, any choice between the two is pointless, inapplicable, and stupid? "Today is Thursday and the temperature is 70 degrees Fahrenheit." Choosing between the day of the week and the temperature on that day is idiotic.
I realize that this puts me entirely outside the pale not only of all organized religions, but also all scientistic -- note: scientistic, not "scientific"; the second is a process and a viewpoint, the first makes a religion out of that process, confusing "is" with "ought" and, like the typical ampflubbian trying to eke out a life half-in, half-out of the water, ending up rotten at both -- stands. If so, so be it. God is not only bigger than a light-year across and older than 7,000 years, but in fact truly infinite and eternal, and his (okay, pick your own damned gender here) Creation the same.
And those black seas of infinity are in fact endless depths of turqoise-blue liquid light, filled with radiant life in every color of the rainbow, infinitely fertile, infinitely creative, infinitely and gloriously beautiful. I'll take them over organized anything any time, any day, anywhere. I got locked out of all human institutions when I was a small child, so why bother embracing tiny, frightened belief-systems that won't do me any good at all and don't reflect reality anyway?
My beliefs aren't the products of compromise. My experiences aren't the products of compromise. And here I am, on the edge of Eternity and Infinity, of endless freedom, and I will dive into that freedom and never come up again. Because without that freedom, both life and love are impossible, including a life based on and a love of God.
I wish you well, you who turn away from that freedom. I won't join you, though. I can't anyway -- and do not want to. I've gotten too used to the soul's perfect freedom, and as old as I am now, I have nothing to gain by giving it up.
I've had it up to here with pompous jerks on both sides of the "evolution vs. God" debate who claim they "just can't see how you can combine evolution and God." Maybe that's because they can't wrap their minds around more than one idea at a time -- and a simple idea, at that. Hey, if I can do it, anyone can -- or else I'm a genius and anyone who can't dig it isn't, and we can't have that, now, can we?
We've been given what we could grasp as we could grasp it, slowly learning about our world, finding out its limits, learning about our universe and its limits, learning by observation and study and experiment, learning by received wisdom from our elders and ancestors. There are now three schools of thought on those last two things: 1) Objective science (learning by observation, study, and experiment) is the only possible road to truth; 2) revelation (received wisdom) is the only possible road to truth; and 3) it's the same universe/multiverse no matter how you cut it, and objective science and revelation/Magick/mysticism are two ways of looking at the same thing, so that by triangulation you can learn far more about it than you ever could with either method alone. For the record, my position is that last.
That's not a "compromise," folks. That is my position -- and I state that knowing I could get shot dead by both the first two camps for stating it. For some reason both camps find such a position extremely threatening. Why? God is real. God built the universe -- or multiverse -- such that life is possible and worlds within it can heal of terrible wounds, which is why a) existence is chaotic/entropic/uncertain and b) evolution is an essential part of Creation, just as development, the immune response, and self-repair of the body's wounds are essential parts of the lives of individual creatures, whether ourselves or any other.
Evolution isn't just a theory. (Fine, let's go to war over it, but two minutes from now, after I've said my say, okay?) The multiverse, our universe, and our world within that universe are billions of years old, the universe far more so than our world, the multiverse infinitely so. Fossils are real, not "snares of Satan," and radiodating is no more illusion than is telling time by an ordinary clock.
On the other hand, I've had my own confrontation with the origin of Creation -- I've described that in earlier entries on this blog -- and those black seas of infinity that are the endless deeps of God's being . . . and found that the Eternal and Infinite was regarding me right back, with love rather than disgust. That inconceivable, infinite, eternal Presence is aware of and loves his conceivable, finite, time-bound creatures. That is a pesonal experience, not the result of repeatable scientific experiment or field observations, but it was my experience, now part of me forever, and I have no desire to disown it. Au contraire.
How do you reconcile the two?
How do you reconcile the fact that on a given day, the sky is blue and the wind is coming up? Why bother "reconciling" them? They're both there, and real, and part of life. I have blue eyes and brown hair. Why choose "brown hair" over "blue eyes" if they're both true of me and, in any event, any choice between the two is pointless, inapplicable, and stupid? "Today is Thursday and the temperature is 70 degrees Fahrenheit." Choosing between the day of the week and the temperature on that day is idiotic.
I realize that this puts me entirely outside the pale not only of all organized religions, but also all scientistic -- note: scientistic, not "scientific"; the second is a process and a viewpoint, the first makes a religion out of that process, confusing "is" with "ought" and, like the typical ampflubbian trying to eke out a life half-in, half-out of the water, ending up rotten at both -- stands. If so, so be it. God is not only bigger than a light-year across and older than 7,000 years, but in fact truly infinite and eternal, and his (okay, pick your own damned gender here) Creation the same.
And those black seas of infinity are in fact endless depths of turqoise-blue liquid light, filled with radiant life in every color of the rainbow, infinitely fertile, infinitely creative, infinitely and gloriously beautiful. I'll take them over organized anything any time, any day, anywhere. I got locked out of all human institutions when I was a small child, so why bother embracing tiny, frightened belief-systems that won't do me any good at all and don't reflect reality anyway?
My beliefs aren't the products of compromise. My experiences aren't the products of compromise. And here I am, on the edge of Eternity and Infinity, of endless freedom, and I will dive into that freedom and never come up again. Because without that freedom, both life and love are impossible, including a life based on and a love of God.
I wish you well, you who turn away from that freedom. I won't join you, though. I can't anyway -- and do not want to. I've gotten too used to the soul's perfect freedom, and as old as I am now, I have nothing to gain by giving it up.