Sunday, January 27, 2013

Agnosticism

-Do you believe in God?

-Depends on what you mean by God. Do you mean a person, a father,
someone who can help us when we’re in trouble?
No, I don’t believe that there is such a father somewhere.

-Well, do you believe in a higher power?

-What do you mean by higher power, some kind of electricity?

-I mean a higher force, a spiritual force.

-Ok, what do you mean by spiritual force?

-I mean some kind of immaterial force.

-Like magnetism?

-No, a spiritual force.

-What is a spiritual force?

-It’s very difficult for you to think outside the box, isn’t it?

-It’s impossible to think outside the box, I believe, because thinking is the box.

-So, this is all there is, what we can see and hear, touch and smell,
taste and think?

-No, of course not, we can only see and hear certain wavelengths. We’re limited, trapped. We’re like frogs in a well. We don’t know much of what’s beyond our well.

-So you accept, after all, the idea that there is a bigger world, outside of our well?
Maybe there’s a homely little pond out there somewhere, or a lake.

-Yes, maybe.

-Is it not strange that both these separate voices are created in the same brain?

-In our brain.

-Yes, in our brain.

Sunday, January 13, 2013

Change

In 1633, Galileo Galilei faced the inquisition court. He was sentenced to house arrest and forced to recant his assertion that the earth revolves around the sun. It would take until 1835 before his book “Dialogue” was removed from the Catholic Church’s list of prohibited books. In 1992, John Paul II issued a declaration acknowledging the errors committed by the Catholic Church regarding Galileo Galilei.

It’s hard to abandon erroneous beliefs. Not only Catholics have this problem. Most people cling to all kinds of outdated erroneous beliefs and misunderstandings.

It was hard for the Germans to accept that Nazism was an evil ideology. They had loved Hitler so much. It was hard for the communists to realize that communism didn‘t work. Today it is hard for neo-liberals (conservatives as Americans say) to realize that also their ideology is a disaster. (An unregulated market fueled by the idea that greed is good can of course not solve the problems of global warming and environmental degradation. On the contrary, unregulated markets are the cause of the global warming and the environmental degradation.) The whole world is about to go under because of these idiotic ideas.

Some men cannot understand that their love is unrequited. Many smokers with serious lung problems refuse to give up smoking because then they wouldn’t have anything to live for. Many people do not leave their religious sect although they no longer believe in its crazy tenets and dogmas, simply because they have nowhere else to go.

What is wrong with us? Why is it so difficult to let go of stupidities and madness? Why are we so incredible stubborn?

Anyway, which convictions do you refuse to let go of? What do you refuse to realize? What do you refuse to see?

Relax. Sorry that I disturbed you. Go back to sleep. Hold on tight to your stuffed little teddy bear. Outside is nothing but howling winds and darkness.

Thursday, January 10, 2013

Questionnaire

Which side are you on?
Can you imagine yourself on the same side as the Sheriff of Nottingham?

Where do you feel at home
among neo-Nazis
among evangelicals
hip hoppers, hippies
construction workers, artists?

Do you live as if life were a theater play?
Do you wear a mask?
Do you play games in order to fit in?

Did you sell your soul to a publicly listed company?
Did you sell your soul to the army, to a TV channel or to a university?
Were you decently paid?

Are you proud of your title?
Do you wear a tie?