Day 20: "God is the explanation for the unexplainable." Feuerbach

Excerpts from The Essence of Christianity By Ludwig Feuerbach

Man first unconsciously and involuntarily creates God in his own image, and after this God (Religion) consciously and voluntarily creates man in his own image

If therefore my work is negative, irreligious, atheistic, let it be remembered that atheism — at least in the sense of this work — is the secret of religion itself; that religion itself, not indeed on the surface, but fundamentally, not in intention or according to its own supposition, but in its heart, in its essence, believes in nothing else than the truth and divinity of human nature.

My only wish is to transform friends of God into friends of man, believers into thinkers, devotees of prayer into devotees of work, candidates for the hereafter into students of the world,

Christians who, by their own procession and admission, are "half animal, half angel" into persons, into whole persons... I negate the fantastic hypocrisy of theology and religion only in order to affirm the true nature of man.

To the truly religious man, God is not being without qualities... the denial of determinate, positive predicates... is nothing else than a denial of religion, with, however, an appearance of religion in its favour, so that it is not recognized as a denial; it is simply a subtle, disguised atheism.

I have always taken as the standard of the mode of teaching and writing, not the abstract, particular, professional philosopher, but universal man, that I have regarded man as the criterion of truth, and not this or that founder of a system, and have from the first placed the highest excellence of the philosopher in this, that he abstains, both as a man and as an author, from the ostentation of philosophy, i.e., that he is a philosopher only in reality, not formally, that he is a quiet philosopher, not a loud and still less a brawling one.

Religion is the dream of the human mind. But even in dreams we do not find ourselves in emptiness or in heaven, but on earth, in the realm of reality; we only see real things in the entrancing splendor of imagination and caprice, instead of in the simple daylight of reality and necessity. 

I would rather be a devil in alliance with truth, than an angel in alliance with falsehood.

The first philosophers were astronomers. The heavens remind man ... that he is destined not merely to act, but also to contemplate.

God is the explanation for the unexplainable which explains nothing because it explains everything without distinction -

- he is the night of theory, nonetheless making everything clear to the mind by removing any measure of darkness and extinguishing the light of discriminating comprehension -- the not-knowing which solves all doubts by repudiating them, which knows everything because it knows nothing in particular and because all things which impress reason are nothing to religion, lose their identity and are nil in God's eye. The night is the mother of religion. 

I added "The Essence of Christianity" by Ludwig Feuerbach to my up and coming reads.  There is something about this man's wisdom and genius that I want to dive further into.  This collection of quotes if from our AFL daily reading.  I bolded the ones that really stand out for me.  

I do want to embellish on one of Feuerbach's quotes.  

My only wish is to transform friends of God into friends of man, believers into thinkers, devotees of prayer into devotees of work, candidates for the hereafter into students of the world,

What if we don't have to transform anyone to change from one to another... but maybe we can have "friends of God" who are also "friends of man"  We could have believers who are also thinkers and people devoted to prayer and work... still making them students of the world.  

I don't want to take away a person's faith and belief if that is their lens to see the world and be a better person... but to add to that... now that would be something worth wishing for.  Then maybe I wouldn't be so scared of thinking anymore.  

Day 19: Too many amazing minds, not enough years left to read them all

 

I am overwhelmed at all the books and literature I wish I could pile into the processor that rests on top of my neck.  Since I started reading great minds, the supply of great books is endless.  I want to read more authors, so that means I have to limit myself to one two and sometimes even three books per author.  It gets hard when I find a good mind and a great author, to leave behind some of their great books, just because I don't have enough energy and years to read them all.  

It is not always about time.  Some books take longer to digest than others.  Some get started and never get finished.  Some look great on the outside, and don't draw me in to the depth of the story or message.  All that takes away from those books that are out there with great stuff in the covers.  

Atheism for Lent is introducing me to a lot of great minds and other than Peter Rollins, I have only cracked one book.  I am still reading Jean Meslier.  How many others will I pass by in my journey?

I have been harvesting quotes from some of these great minds, because I don't think I will get to read their books.  Authors like Feuerbach, Ingersoll, Kierkegaard all are inspiring me, but to invest more time and energy in reading them all... well, I don't know if I can... so I will collect the best thoughts and peruse them from time to time.  

Here are a few:

 "God did not, as the Bible says, make man in His image; on the contrary man, as I have shown in The Essence of Christianity, made God in his image."  Ludwig Feuerbach

"It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages." Frederick Nietzsche

"Few rich men own their own property. The property owns them." Robert G. Ingersoll

"What is a poet? An unhappy person who conceals profound anguish in his heart but whose lips are so formed that as sighs and cries pass over them they sound like beautiful music. Soren Kierkegaard

We used to wonder where war lived, what it was that made it so vile. And now we realize that we know where it lives... inside ourselves." Albert Camus

Day 18: God is not a god

 "The Jewish discovery that God is not a god but Creator is the discovery of absolute Mystery behind and underpinning reality.  Those who share it (either in it's Judaic or its Christian form) are not monotheists who have reduced the number of gods to one.  They, we, have abolished the gods; there is only the Mystery sustaining all that is.  The Mystery is unfathomable, but it is not remote as the gods are remote.  The gods live somewhere else, on Olympus or above the starry sky.  The Mystery is everywhere and always, in every grain of sand and every flash of colour, every hint of flavour in a wine, keeping all these things in existence every microsecond.  We could not literally approach God or get nearer to God for God is already nearer to us than we are to ourselves.  God is at the ultimate depth of our beings making us to be ourselves. "  Friar Herbert McCabe.  

Someone in the AFL group posted this quote and it moved deeper in me as a closer picture of how I see that which gave me breath.  Mystery... a name of sorts, at least that is how it sounds in Friar Herb's depiction.  I like how he separated the idea of god and mystery.  That god is something envisioned and named, where as mystery is unknown, undefined and unimagined.  

As I travel through this Lenten period, I have no goal but enlightenment.  I long to shed light (awareness) into those areas of my world that have been dominated by the shadows.  I don't want to be that person that is fearful of the unknown because of where it will take me.  I want to be encouraged and challenged by that which I have avoided my whole life.  

Today I admitted to the AFL Processing Group that I wanted a funeral on Good Friday, but one that wasn't followed up two days later by a white wash of my pain and loss.  I want to soak in the grief and loss of "The Death of God" and more specifically... the death of Jesus for as long as it takes to be okay with it.  I don't need to have an annual funeral that gets annulled in two days.  I need to mourn the loss of someone who I loved and have lost. I need a really long Saturday.   I need to let the sand pour from my hands as if never to hold it again.  

Day 17: Katie and Eilish: Beautiful Because of Chance

The Story of Katie and Eilish

After watching this story of these twin girls this evening, I am finding myself contemplative.  I am not feeling much of anything except peace.  Maybe this story is allowing me to see that had I still embraced a controlling God narrative, then I couldn't embrace the beauty amid the chance of this story.  There is no normal.  There is only beauty.  

It is a precious waste of  brain cells to explain the whys and hows of these two girls and their story.  I have nothing in my core being now that needs to explain or justify the circumstances of their life.  I can see only beauty and the chance that nature has given them to be in this world.  There is no normal.  There is no expectation for these girls to look like the other seven billion people in this world.  They have only to embrace their own beauty and their own uniqueness as a gift from the Creative Flow of the Cosmos.  There was no grand design flaw; there was no malfunction in creation; there was only Love in action.  Love manifested itself in this story and that is what came across.  Love made these two as they were... and Love gave their family the freedom to make choices to move forward in life.  Love is the only explanation needed.  

The continued story of Eilish... without Katie

Day 16: "God Hates us ALL"... A message worth risky graffiti?

 

Manfred and I were out for a drive and something inspired him to pull off the road and drive us down to the river's edge.  The ice still covered the water and there wasn't a trail to go hiking too far.  We noticed the graffiti on the bridge and admired the dexterity it must have taken for the "monkeys" to walk out on the bridge beams and share their messages.  Some were less brave than others, as they just kept their artwork to the underside of the bridge.  But there was 

someone who traversed the narrow edge out to the first pile, a very risky venture, and wrote the words "God Hates us ALL.

What kind of "God" inspired that risky graffiti venture?  What kind of pain was so horrid and oozed through that person that made them risk their life to paint those words on the bridge?  What kind of doctrine was painted in their mind that convinced them of that response?   

That painter could have written "God hates me" as a response to internal pain or self absorbed pain,  but that wasn't what was written.  "God Hates us ALL" and ALL was in all caps and underlined.  

I am left to wonder.  All I have to understand that tortured artist is four words on the back side of the bridge.  Well, maybe not only four words.  A closer look and I see three more words on the other side of the beam plate.  "I'm watching You"  Who is watching, and who is being watched?  More questions.  

I ordered Pete Rollins book "How (Not) to Speak of God" today.  I asked my husband to order it as he has the family Amazon account.  There was one left in stock... so hopefully I get it in time for my birthday... as I told Manfred that it was my birthday present from him.  It will be my fourth Peter Rollins book, but my first paperback. I am primarily an E-reader... but iBooks didn't have this one in it's collection.  I think I will keep soaking up the wisdom as long as it is there to absorb!!!  

One more question.  Why is St. Patrick's day observed in Canada?  We are far away from Ireland.  It seems odd that Canada would need a Catholic missionary from the fifth century to promote green here.  We have JD tractors to do that.  

Day 15: Marguerite Porete and Love worth burning for

What kind of love would be worth burning for?

Marquerite Porete inspires me... I am so grateful for living in this century. If I would exist in her time, someone would be tying me to a stake and burning me for what I write. I would rather be ignored as an author than condemned and burned at the stake. Today... I honour this woman for sharing her soul and words at great cost to her.

It helps me to understand Jean Meslier more... There was no freedom to struggle with "God" back then. Church was Power and decided your spiritual path for you. It was better to write in private and let your words go out after you are done breathing.

I thought her dialogue of Love and Reason was beautiful and poetic. "I am God, says Love, for Love is God and God is Love" ... and for that they killed her... not very loving.

I have it so good, yet I still feel like the shame hides within me lying to me...

"You will burn, like them, only by my fire. I will consume you."

I write and publish, if only on this obscure blog, to remind "Shame" that I know those lies, and I don't want to believe them anymore. Love is real and Love wants to drive out Fear and Shame. I am whole. I am free. I am intertwined with Love.

Reason. And who are you, Love? says Reason. Are you not also one of the Virtues, and one of us, even though you be above us?

Love. I am God, says Love, for Love is God, and God is Love, and this Soul is God through its condition of Love, and I am God through my divine nature, and this Soul is God by Love’s just law. So that this my precious beloved is taught and guided by me, without herself for she has been changed into me. And this is the outcome, says Love, of being nourished by me.

MARGUERITE PORETE (1250-1310)

Day 14: Revisiting Robert Ingersoll and the Agnostic Message

(The Thinker: original creator Auguste Rodin)

"The agnostic does not simply say "I do not know".  He goes another step and he says with great emphasis that YOU do not know. 

He insists that you are trading on the ignorance of others and on the fear of others.  He is not satisfied with saying that you do not know - he demonstrates that you do not know and he drives you from the field of fact.  He drives you from the realm of reason.  He drives you from the light, into the darkness of conjecture  - into the world of dreams and shadows and he compels you to say, at last, that your faith has no foundation in fact." Robert Ingersoll. 

Robert Ingersoll Quotes and Audio from Edison

 (This is the Youtube video where I found the quote) 

The poet in me is excited at the idea that casting doubt on religion's factual foundations is indeed a beautiful thing.  The agnostic in me is thinking it is necessary for my sanity. The lover in me wonders at the timing and where Love fits into the dance.  But the child in me is frightened that doing so will be another invitation to abandonment.  

It is the whole certainty message that needs to be challenged, but not necessarily the faith aspect.  Let anyone believe what they need to believe to navigate this world.   Yet let us challenge their fact claims that damage other not-so-certain humans on the journey of life.  

I am thankful that I am not the first one to rise up in THE world, for I feel less alone.  I just feel like in MY world, I would be the first to rise up, and then I do feel alone.  Aye... What a conundrum!