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Etichetă: religion

Free fallin’

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“Falling is just like flying, except there’s a more permanent destination.”1

I love that quote. Ever since I heard it, it kind of stuck in my head, sloshing around like melted snow. It is true, in its own way – skydivers know that best of all. But it also hints at something more, some deeper meaning. I don’t know whether the author really thought about this being misconstrued as a metaphor for life. But I like to think that he did; he just refused to explore it further, just letting it dangle there, for the world to see.

Oh yes, we think we’re flying. Some higher, some lower, some faster, some slower. Look at us go. Look at us, flapping those arms, going through the motions! Look at those fluffy clouds, man! Ground? What ground? We can see no ground from up here, and anyway, for us, the ground is just some theoretical abstraction that those folks of a philosophical persuasion thought up. Why, they say we’re all going to hit it sooner or later, and it’s „goodbye, flying” from there on.

Other folks say you’ve got to keep light while you’re travelling, ‘cause when you hit that ground, you’re going under! But just keep light and then, well, there’s a chance you’d bounce right back up, all the way to heaven. There’s even folks saying you just hop like a frog, depending on your baggage, and that your purpose in life is to get just the right weight to stop altogether.

As for myself, I know we all are falling. I’m guessing I’m about half way down, give or take a few years. If all goes well, that is, and I don’t hit some Everest. Like an idiot. If I steer free of mountain ranges in general. Who knows, maybe I’ll find me some good old chasm and ride this thing down for all it’s worth. Hey, if I’m really lucky, there might be some zero gravity zone at the end of it.2 But I don’t get my hopes up. All I’m aiming for are some nice barrel rolls along the way.

So. Wasn’t that a waste of a good metaphor? *ahem*. Welcome aboard Air Destiny. Fasten your seatbelts and enjoy the ride.

This is what Steven Moffat, one of the great screenwriters of our age, tells us in the – quite grand, to be honest – finale of the second series of “Sherlock”, a modern take of Arthur Conan Doyle’s beloved character. [↩]
That would be what some of you good folks are calling „The Singularity”. Kind of like a Heaven for nerds. [↩]

Ganduri fate, flying, life, religion

God – a conversation

12:04 Scris de Laur

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God came to me last night in a dream. I said: “Hey, God, how’s it going?” He laughed. He has a simply divine laughter. And then He spake to me, and he spake thusly:

“It’s going good, Laur, My child. Not great, mind you, but it cannot be helped for the time being.”

“What can I do for you, Oh God?” I asked.

At this, He laughed even harder. His laugh is contagious, like watching April lambs cavorting in new grass. Maybe that’s why they go on and on about The Lamb of God.

“That’s a funny question to ask, My child”, He said. “Usually people just tell Me what I can do for them.”

“Oh, you’ve been good to me, Oh God, I have no complaints. Or maybe I do, but I’d like to try and fix them myself first, if You don’t mind. And with a little help, of course”.

God’s really full of mirth these days.

“First of all, stop with that «spaketh» nonsense,” He said. “And the capitalization. It’s distracting me, and it is a bit pretentious. I don’t need capitals to remind people of who I am.”

I must admit, he has a point there.

“Of course I do, I am God after all.” She smiled at me. “Now, don’t be flustered. How would you like to work for me? At least for a little while? There’s a prophet position coming up, and I think you might be a really good fit for the role.”

“Prophet, Oh God?”

“Oh yes. It’s no big deal, really. Just tell the world what I’m about to tell you. Get some tablets of stone and a chisel and take this down.”

“How about I post it on the Internet, Oh God?”

“That could work too, I guess. Now write this down.”

“I am.”

“Don’t interrupt now, prophet of mine. Where was I? Oh yes. Paragraph. Don’t write that down, will you?”

Message from God

Hello World! It’s been a while since you last heard from me, and you’ve grown quite a bit in the while. You’re no longer small children who need to be spoon-fed and led by the hand, so I’ll say it to you straight. Pay attention.

I am one God. You gave me so many nicknames over the years you tend to forget this small fact. I don’t care if you’re calling me Allah, Yahveh, Lord, Higher Power or Immutable Natural Law. If you all understand this, you’ll be better for it in the long run. Trust me. I am your God.

Regardless of the name you chose for me, don’t take my name in vain! And I don’t necessarily mean swearing. I’m talking about killing people in my name, hurting them in my name, hiding your petty ambitions and awful nature behind my name! I’m referring to just a few of you, praise be to me. You think that by killing in my name you get rewards in the afterlife? Rest assured, we’ll have a word about that when you get there.

Be decent towards one another. I would have said “be good”, but that may be pushing it a bit. Just be decent, it’s good enough for me. Go ahead and be good if you want to. Just don’t be jerks, that’s what I want to say.

I have no beef with religion. If you want to worship me, fine – I like being worshiped. One little request though: don’t assume you know me and my will just because you’re religious. See 1, 2 and 3.

I don’t require people to believe in me; I am not Tinkerbell. I will be here regardless. As a matter of fact, atheists that are good, decent people just because that’s how they are and not because of some church-induced fear of everlasting punishment are in for a nice surprise. Don’t tell them I said so though. They won’t believe it anyway.

Let it be known that I am not, nor have I ever been, against science and knowledge. By all means, learn about this beautiful universe. I take pride in my work.1

What I speak, everyone can hear. Few choose to listen. Do listen for my voice every once in a while.

Which reminds me. To those of you who write down what I say: please remember, you’re only writing down with your mind a memory of an interpretation of a voice that spoke to your soul. Please do not claim it is the absolute truth. You don’t even have words in your languages for some of the things that I say. Maybe someday you will. Readers, beware.2

I have many, many, many sons and daughters. You Earthlings are all my family, and I love you just as much as I love all my other creations. I sure hope one day you get to meet each other. Keep investing in NASA, you got a good thing going there.

There has to be ten of them, right? Thanks, Moses. Anyway. As long as you get what I’ve said in the previous nine, you’ll do fine. For the rest, do what you will. Take responsibility for your actions. Oh, and “Thou shalt not kill.” I’m still rather privy to that one.

I guess this is it, world. Enjoy your life, don’t spoil it. I will be seeing you all later.

Love,

God

“Plus, some of your physics theories really make me laugh”, he said. “Don’t write that down.” “Not even as a footnote?” “Ok, fine.” [↩]
“Besides, what do you think would happen if I would give you the absolute truth on a platter? That would kinda spoil everything, right? Searching for it is oh so much more fun!” [↩]

Ganduri commandments, conversation, dream, everything, god, knowledge, religion, science, truth, universe

Rules and regulations

02:44 Scris de Laur

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I do not know when the first rule was invented, but boy, do I wish I was there. The one who made it must have been one pissed off caveman. “MOKO EAT FIRST!!! RULE!!!” And the rest of the tribe acquiesced and waited patiently for Moko to die of indigestion.

It probably took a few (hundred) years until the power of the rule has really been discovered. One of the mothers, fed up with children running around after dark and getting eaten by cave bears, created the immortal rule “everyone in bed after sundown”. Parents all around the world continue to enforce it to this day, cheerfully disregarding the severe ecological impact this rule had over the years – especially on the cave bears, which are now sadly extinct. “Thou shalt not eat spotted red mushrooms” was another self-enforcing rule, which was respected religiously by all who seen (or heard about) one of Moko’s descendants eating them FIRST!!! MOKO RULE!!! and then getting kicked out of the gene pool for the privilege.

And slowly, through the ages, rules became lore. Precious, hard-earned knowledge was transmitted from generation to generation – which herbs are good for healing salves, which animals you should never ever taunt, why fruits left too long to ferment in a barrel are actually a good thing etc. etc. There must have been non-believers among the tribes even in those days, but their life expectancy was directly related to the speed of their conversion. Needless to say, they didn’t last very long.

After a while though a curious thing happened. The original makers of rules were able to explain the reasons behind pronunciations such as “don’t poke the sleeping bear”, but as rules became more complicated and obscure and, well, multiplied, the explanations fell behind. They were replaced by diatribes such as “we’ve always done it like this, you dimwit” or “because I said so”. While these explanations seemed to be quite sufficient to impress rules upon children – indeed, they are still in use today – the adults were not as easily impressed. Until one skinny, but rather smart guy, alluded that the gods might be displeased if the rules were not obeyed.

And thus the ritual was born.

We’re not going to follow the various rituals through the ages. Suffice to say that they were highly successful as a means of passing rules from one generation to the next. Of course, as the environment and living conditions changed, some of these rituals became obsolete, but change was righteously opposed, in the name of tradition. And the reformers, more often than not, were handed the short end of the stick. Or the business end of an axe, depending on the severity of their transgressions. The lucky rituals got re-explained and turned into science. Others put on robes and called themselves religion. Still others crawled in the basement of the human psyche and turned into superstitions. And finally, some of them were written on ceramic tiles or scrolls or tomes or books, were numbered, bound and called laws.

Laws are cool. They first got written down by rulers, who claimed God and birthright as witness for their right to establish how the society lived its life. Then, when neither God nor birthright intervened, they created bodies of enforcers to make sure the laws were respected. Said enforcers were, more often than not, exempted from obeying some of the rules. For instance: when you killed someone, you became a murderer under the law. But when a policeman killed you, he became a hero. Also, the law is compulsory. You don’t get to choose a law for yourself when you’re a kid, just like you don’t get to choose religion. And little changes when you’re actually grown up.

Later still, the power was taken by the people. This new concept, called democracy, meant that everyone got to vote. They got to vote the laws that their rulers put on the table, and if they didn’t vote the right way, they got to vote again until the rulers were satisfied with the result. That’s how the Constitutions were born. That’s how, in recent history, we passed the Lisbon treaty. Under this new “people” leadership, we still got rules we cannot understand. We still got ridiculous laws. We still execute reformers – we’re just using lobbies and backroom deals instead of execution squads. And from our lofty tower, we look down our forebears and their primitive ways.

If Moko the Caveman was alive today, I’m sure he’d understand. And with a bit of effort and education, he’d make a damn fine lawyer.

Mic ghid existential human, law, life, regulation, religion, ritual, rule