What, in light of the Bible, is ‘faith’? And let us again affirm clearly: it is not a system of semi- knowledge, but an existential decision— it is life in terms of the future that God grants us, even beyond the frontier of death. This is the attitude and orientation that gives life its weights and measures, its ordinances, and its very freedom.
Ratzinger, Faith and Future
Even with Crowe, this is ok. What would the world look like if David had never spoken?
Existentialism explained in one picture.
What in sooth is freedom? Freedom is the will to be responsible for ourselves. It is to preserve the distance which separates us from other men. To grow more indifferent to hardship, to severity, to privation, and even to life itself. To be ready to sacrifice men for one’s cause, one’s self included.
Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols, 38
I heard someone say today, “biology proves that men and women are different”.
Well, I say, “biology proves that I am different.” I am different from other males and other human beings. My life is one of a kind.
And tomorrow? I have no proof (biological or otherwise) of tomorrow. Biology (or any science) can only make statements about the past. The rest is a guess! Tomorrow I may cease to be either male or female. I may simply cease to be!
Anyway …
I am watching the documentary on Gloriavale Christian Community. The title is interesting, Devotion: Obedience or Betrayal. Cults interest me!
Let me start by saying that I have no idea of their theology. I did look at their website and (big tick from me) they are KJV only. And, yes, there are bad people among them. But there are bad people everywhere! I do not have the numbers (and taking the moral outrage out of it): are they, for example, statistically worse than your average sports club? Maybe the issue is expectation?!
So my first take: there is a lot of talk about freedom in the second episode, Sins of the Father, centering on mind control (taking an individuals freedom by cohesion) and brainwashing Of course, no person would willingly join! Or would they? The assumption is that people in any cult are irrational and shown the error of their ways would leave. (This, of course, simply ends in battling authorities.) Yet, what I see are people who are completely committed to their understanding of the Christian life.
So, I wonder, in complete freedom, can an individual surrender that freedom to someone else?
There is, for me, a deep difference between longing and expectation.
In expectation, there is a demand – a standing in line, impatiently wondering, When will the line move?
In longing, there is a request – and a willingness to wait.
The waiting itself becomes a connection. When I truly ask – when my longing is genuine – I am open. Open even to pain, open even to disappointment.
This is living in the full force of life.
But when I am in expectation, I am demanding: The experience must come to pass! Do not disturb me now!
Ragen, Akiva ; רגן, עקיבא. The Secret of the Encounter: An existential interpretation of the book ‘I and Thou’ by Martin Buber, 8-9.
Unless it is prohibited it remains.
or
Unless it is mandated it falls.
Person in Random TV show:
You are not the first person to go through this.
Me:
But this is the first time I am going through it.
The philosopher creates and critiques continuous lines of argument. The aphorist, on the other hand, composes scattered lines of intuition. One moves in a chain of discursive logic; the other by arrhythmic leaps and bounds. Much of the history of Western philosophy can be narrated as a series of attempts at the construction of systems. My theory proposes that much of the history of aphorisms can be narrated as an animadversion, a turning away from grand systems through the construction of literary fragments.
A Theory of the Aphorism, 2
