-Matt

What follows was reproduced exactly from the original document available to me. No changes have been made in any way.

I’ve thought for a long time about what kind of philosophy would allow people of pretty much any point of view to find common ground on which to agree so that they can begin discussing their beliefs. While many people attempt to have dialog with those of dissenting opinions, it often ends in bitter hostility. The reasons for that are too numerous to list, but I don’t think many will disagree with me that a good number of people seem either unwilling or unable to really consider points of view that dissent from their own.

I think this happens, more often than not, because people of all kinds of beliefs don’t realize the provisional, non-rational propositions upon which their beliefs are founded. I have heard numerous theists and atheists, for example, arguing for the existence or non-existence of God by appealing to the same evidence that they see in the world, but evidence for which they interpret very differently. The theist sees in the world the ordered and purposeful providence of God; the atheist sees the systematic, but blind forces of Nature. How can two people make such diverse and antithetical deductions from the same experiences?

It’s almost as if the two people are talking about different worlds. How can two people who see things so differently begin to talk on a level of discourse on which they can hear one another out and have understanding, even sympathy, for the opposing point of view WITHOUT that understanding and sympathy being a concession to the dissenting point of view? Is there such a common ground?

“REAL THINGS”

I am proposing that yes, there is. Just as certain principles of language are universal, where particular rules of grammar, syntax and so forth are concrete and do not fundamentally differ from one language to another, so I think there is a basic way of experiencing life that is virtually universal to all humans, and upon which people of differing opinions can meet together on a level playing field: a point of view that both acknowledges the other person’s beliefs and respects the FACT of that person’s beliefs without necessarily ASSENTING to or ENDORSING those beliefs. But before getting to that, we have to do some analysis and deconstruction.

One of the timeless rhetorical ploys in Western debate is the appeal to Reason. Although what constitutes “rational” or “logical” will differ from one person to the next, almost everyone adheres to a system of propositions from which derivative beliefs arise as a result of those propositions. To Westerners (who are my assumed audience for this example), this basic reliance on Reason is the common grounds on which we reside. To say that any particular point of view is “illogical” is to say that such a view is not built on the grounds of Reason, and therefore invalid, as it stands, to be considered as an accurate description of reality. It’s so common and universally accepted that we don’t question it’s validity.

Accompanying this belief in Reason is the dominant view in our culture of Positivistic Empiricism. That’s a fancy academic term that philosophical people use to confuse you into thinking that they’re smarter than you and therefore they must be right (kidding!). It’s essentially the belief that “real things” are the things that we can experience with our physical senses. The application of this philosophy can be seen most clearly in Science. I commonly hear people talk about Science as somehow being more of a “real” academic discipline than others. Most people unconsciously buy into the idea that Science gives us knowledge of “real things” because it only analyzes those things which we can experience with the senses.

The belief that physical things are the only objective “real things” arose largely from the Enlightenment (mostly 1700s and slightly onwards), a time when great thinkers started to advocate ways of explaining and experiencing the world that were systematic, methodical, and definitive. What’s resulted from years of this philosophy’s evolution is the general belief that what we see, touch, hear and so on is “objective,” while our thoughts, emotions, spiritual beliefs and so forth are “subjective.” In other words, your experiences through your physical senses are experiences of things “out there” in the real world, while your imagination, thoughts, beliefs and so forth are experiences of things “in there,” inside your mind, the constructed world that you feel and, to some degree, create and project onto the “real world.”

Because this way of thinking is ingrained in us from culture, we often unconsciously filter our experiences through this philosophy without realizing that we’re doing it. It’s almost like a computer firewall that lets certain things in and keeps other things out. When I see the sun rise over the water, my firewall lets this information through and saves it a folder that I label “real things.” But when I feel moved by the sunset, or feel like I’m experiencing some sort of transcendence coming through the setting of the sun, my firewall pops up with a message saying, “A subjective experience has tried to access your hard drive. Would you like to continue?” Depending on my other beliefs and philosophies, I may go ahead and let it through, or I may relegate it to the “Undecided” folder and think about it later.

It’s a very common idea for people to think that this is really an objective way of thinking because it’s the default that they naturally gravitate toward when they’re confused. More often than not, I think, people have been trained, through the habitual, post-Enlightenment conditioning that pervades our culture, to think about life with this particular slant and that’s why they hold these views a priori. I’ll come back to this idea later.

Coming back to the belief in Reason as the measure by which reality is judged, I want to challenge this idea. Upon closer examination, I think it is definitively certain that this belief in Reason as the measuring stick of “real things” is unsustainable, being every bit as arbitrary a belief as anything else. Let me elaborate.

ILLOGICAL VS. NON-LOGICAL

I start, for example, with the world of dreams. The logic of the dreamworld is non-logic: one thing is not necessarily derived from another in the ways that we are accustomed to. There’s no logical reason that every door in my house leads to a tornado, or that my family turns into a pack of lions that run after me, or that I am abducted by space aliens that resemble co-workers: there need be not fit relation between these various experiences, except, perhaps, by an emotional thread along which those dreams may run. But for all intents and purposes, dreams do not function in what we call a “logical” manner.

Compare these experience to our waking hours. When we awake from a nightmare, we are immersed back into surroundings that are familiar, among phenomena over which we can exercise a degree of control, and where many things remain predictably constant. But I would like to point out that these experiences aren’t fundamentally different from dreams. The primary difference is one of CONTINUITY. What we have in our waking hours is essentially the same experience as a dream, but with the tremendous different that it doesn’t randomly alter in nature; where there is continuity between one moment and the next; where relationships between one experience and another show predictable patterns of behavior; where there is a degree of constant cause and effect; and where general patterns of relationship between ourselves and the world are discernible enough for us to manipulate this world.

The primary difference between the dream and our waking hours is not, I suggest, that one happens definitively “inside our minds” while the other happens “out in reality.” The difference is that, while a dream drifts from one experience to the next with little to no continuity, our waking experiences behave in predictable patterns that we can depend on and utilize to our advantage. The dreams are random, whereas the waking world is (at least far more so) continuous.

But does “continuous” and “predictable” necessarily equate to “real”? That is the question that is rarely asked, but whose answer is often assumed in our culture: we take it for granted that this waking life is “real” because it behaves “logically.” But when we analyze Logic itself, we find that Logic is merely our observations of the various connections that we discern between the phenomena we’re experiencing. But our experience of these phenomena are not in and of themselves logical.

It will be helpful here to make the distinction between the terms ILLOGICAL and NON-LOGICAL. The concepts are related, but very different, and it is necessary to keep them distinct. To say that something is ILLOGICAL is to say that a certain proposition is held to be true, while a counter proposition, which is contradictory to the first, is also held to be true. For example, the statements “My wife is in this room,” and “My wife is not in this room,” are illogical if you try to say they’re both true: they’re mutually exclusive. One can’t be true if the other is true.

To say something is NON-LOGICAL is to say that something does not follow in accordance with the normal patterns of sequential continuity. For example, in a dream, you open a door, which had previously led to another room, but now opens upon a waterfall. There’s nothing inherently contradictory about this event. You simply expected one thing, but got another. It may contradict the pattern you thought you thought you had discerned from opening the door earlier when it led to the bedroom; it may contradict your prediction that you would find the bedroom behind this door when you opened it again; but this experience doesn’t set itself against a contradictory proposition. There is no discernible cause-effect pattern, and thus no logic. But it doesn’t contradict a counter-proposition that is held to be true at the same time, hence why it’s NON-LOGICAL rather than ILLOGICAL.

To summarize, “illogical” means “contradictory,” while “non-logical” means “not conforming to the rules of logic.” Something could be both illogical and non-logical, but the concepts are distinct.

Having dealt with that distinction, I want to make the assertion that it is demonstrably clear that when we accept things as “real” because they’re “logical,” and when we dismiss things as “non-real” because they’re “non-logical” (remember the distinctions above), this whole philosophy is completely arbitrary. The world is, when we have broken down all of our concepts and definitions into the smallest constituent parts until we can go no further, ultimately an experience that is no more objective or logical than anything else.

To understand what I mean, take a simple example: a tree. If I were to ask you what a tree is, you would probably talk about wood and sap and leaves and so forth. But suppose we kept pressing the question and tried to break down each one of those constituent parts into even smaller parts—such as the wood of the tree. You could break that down into its constituent parts, which you could break down even further, until we had cells, then the elements, then molecules, then atoms, and all the way down until we had what physicists call the “quark” and philosophers call the “monad”: the basic building block of all material substances, or the smallest thing into which everything can be broken down.

IT’S JUST THERE

Now comes the final question: what is a quark/monad? The definition you get is circular: it’s the one thing that makes up everything else. But let’s forget about “everything else” for a second and focus on this thing by itself. What is this “quark” without everything else? There is no definition. There is no logical explanation. Here it is: that’s that.

Follow the implication of this idea. Quarks, which are essentially indescribable and unexplainable, are the things that make up everything. Therefore, everything, at it’s core, is an ultimately indescribable and unexplainable phenomenon. There is no ultimate rational explanation to why yellow is yellow, or why broccoli tastes like broccoli, or why water feels watery: here it is. The “realness” of things is not ultimately relying on Reason, but on experiences which, at their most basic level, we simply accept we are having and label them “real.” The numerous phenomena we experience can be broken down into more phenomena, which multiply into more and more distinct concepts in our minds until eventually we hit a dead end of our definitions and simply name this “thing”—this thing that is simply there, and that’s all the explanation we have. We accept that it exists for the same reason we accept that anything exists: it’s just there.

Yet, while it might be a perfectly true statement to say that “real things” are “just there,” I want to stress that this is NOT A LOGICAL EXPLANATION: it is an EXPERIENCE. The logical aspect of these particular experiences arise from our observation of the relationships between things. Logic, then, is not really like the ground we stand on. It is more like a series of bridges that connect one experience to another. But there has to be something that is “just there” in the first place for logic to even begin to function. Until two distinct things are “just there,” Reason and Logic do not even exist. There’s nothing rational or logical about a dot in a vacuum, for example. The logical aspect only arises from our analysis of the comparative relationship between the dot and something else. The dot, by itself, is neither logical, illogical: it just is.

If you want to put it one way, what I am saying is that when you think of each individual thing in your experiences in and of itself, then you get something like a dot in a vacuum. The world is made up of these “dots,” of things that we accept are there simply because we experience them. There is no explanation for how or why these things exist. Here they are. So our most basic experience of life is not really rational or logical at all, but experiential—and ultimately, non-logical.

On what basis, then, can someone objectively say that the only “real things” are those things that act and behave rationally or logically? What reason do we have for accepting the validity of “logical” experiences over the “non-logical” ones? Is there any definitive evidence to show that Logic itself is an adequate criteria by which to judge the validity of our experiences?

Let’s imagine the unthinkable for a moment and suppose that the logical world is actually the illusion, and the world of dreams the concrete reality. I’m not suggesting that this is actually the case. But I am saying that there’s no absolute, objective argument against it; I am saying that I think it is demonstrably certain that no evidence can be brought forth that gives definitive credibility to our physical sensations over our dreams, or emotions, or imagination, or any experience whatsoever. I take for granted that my mind acts upon my passive will while I’m asleep so that I “dream.” Could it not be doing the same thing while I’m awake?

REASON IS NOT KING

Our resistance to this line of thought will likely arise from a desire to ascertain control over our lives. Logic gives you a kind of power over yourself and the real world. You may not be able to hold the Universe in your hand, but you can hold it in your mind’s eye, even if only as an abstraction. Logic can give you definitions, methods, syllogisms, derivatives, correlatives, tautologies, and allow you to understand and interact with (what you believe to be) “real” things, even if only in your little corner of the vast Universe. And this desire to maintain and exercise control over that one small corner is, I believe, at the heart of people’s reluctance to acknowledge the arbitrariness with which Logic is assumed to be absolute.

More often than not, our sensations in dreams are as passively experienced as our sensations when we’re awake. That is, in dreams, we experience things happening to us—we are not (at least not at a conscious level) MAKING things happen. Sometimes, we have less control over ourselves in our dreams than in real life. What if the “logical” world, which we assume to be real, is actually the mind’s retreat from the diverse and irrational TRUE reality, and an immersion into the false construction of rationality and logic that we are subconsciously creating? What if the waking world is the fake world? Is there any truly objective, absolute evidence that could be presented that shows that anything exists outside your own mind?

I say very firmly: no. There isn’t. There is, in fact, no way to be certain of anything besides the fact that you are having a certain experience right now. Even your memories of things in the past could be reduced to a mere experience you are having right now. You may just be subconsciously creating memories to remember. How do you know? You don’t. And that’s that. All you know right now, for absolutely certain, is what you’re experiencing AT THIS MOMENT.

This position is called “solipsism”: the belief that the only thing that you can know for certain is that you’re experiencing something right now. Many people appeal to this idea, in roundabout ways, when trying to deconstruct someone else’s beliefs. “How do you know? How do you know?” If you follow the train of thought down to it’s root, you find that you really don’t know anything is factually certain outside of your perceptions. And given that this is the case, you can’t know anything for sure exists: not Jesus, Allah, Zen, carrots, furniture, your spouse, your parents, not even the bowl of cereal you ate this morning. Nothing at all can be held to be “real” with any absolute certainty because absolute certainty cannot be ascertained: there is no way to know for absolutely certain that we have experiences of real things outside our minds.

At this point, it would be easy to let go and meander aimlessly through life wondering about everything; you live your life, I’ll live mine, let’s just get on with this confusing world until we die (or will we?). But I don’t think that this is all there is to it. I’m not content to stop here. I believe that there is a criteria that can be universally agreed upon IN PRINCIPLE and IN PRACTICE by which we can consciously live and gauge our decisions, even in the absence of absolute certainty.

APPARENCY

While it is true that we can never have absolute certainty, and that we must always keep our minds open to the possibility of absolutely anything and everything, and while an infinite number of paths for our life are open before us, we must choose one path. Life forces us to do it. Even within the Solipsist position (i.e. I don’t know anything is real besides my own experiences), there is clearly more going on than simply “here is one experience, now here is another.” What we do know is that, even though the experiences we perceive are transient, we experience a degree of continuity from one moment to the next. We perceive that our actions have lasting effects, illusory or actually, upon the world that we experience, and that our decisions have consequences for other things, for other people that we perceive, and for ourselves.

Regardless of whether we can know for sure if particular things are real or not, there are varying degrees of APPARENCY in our experiences. That is, there are some things that appear to us as being more “real” or “external” to ourselves than other experiences. Even if I can’t know for sure that the car I see driving toward me is more real than the daydream I’m having of walking on a sandy beach, the car APPEARS to me as being more real than the daydream and I move out of the way. And we make decisions based on which things seem apparent to us, as is only reasonable. Why would you believe something you don’t see? The apparency with which I experience a thing, then, must be regarded as a criteria for how I decide to react to it.

The problem with this proposition is obvious: what qualifies as “apparent”? I could say that it’s “apparent” that Santa Clause is sitting on my knee eating an ice cream cone. You might even say (Heaven forbid it) that there is some sort of divine being who created the world. You could say absolutely anything was apparent and then hold that up as what you’re going to believe.

Here is where a reliance upon reality has to kick in. Not only do I have to judge what is apparent to me, but I also have to judge what I think is apparent to other people. This is essentially what you’re doing when you find someone is lying. What they’re saying contradicts what you believe is apparent both to you and to them, and thus you make a judgment that they are not speaking what is really apparent to them. Likewise, we have to make similar judgment calls when discussing various things with other people.

To take the famous mathematician/atheist Bertrand Russell’s example of a supposed teapot orbiting the galaxy in space, I would acknowledge that he’s perfectly right in saying that there’s no way to disprove that such a thing is happening. And granted the Solipsist position, we are admitting that anything is possible after all, even a teapot orbiting in space. But it is apparent to me that this is not the case, and it is apparent to me that Russell did not think it to be the case. So the point is moot, and a redundant restatement in light of the everything so far because WE ARE ALREADY GRANTING THAT ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE, and that nothing can be verified for absolutely certain. Given this, what we are left with is apparency as a gauge for what is real and what is not. Thus, if neither of us believe that a certain proposition is apparent, then there is no point discussing it.

In principle, only those things that are apparent to a person really matter in discussions. One caveat in civil discussion between two people of differing beliefs thus emerges: the discussion must be limited to those things that people actually believe. To bring things into the discussion that a person doesn’t find apparent helps nothing, except insofar as a legitimate analogous relationship exists. But if neither you, nor I believe in Santa Clause or orbiting teapots, what help do these examples serve? We must stick to those things that are apparent to at least one of us.

Someone at this point might deride me for saying that I’m only explicating what people are already doing on a daily basis without thinking about it. “Duh, Derek. Of course people only consider things they experience.” And such a criticism is right. What I’m talking about is really nothing new. Notice that the Apostle Paul makes an appeal to “revelation” in the first chapter of Romans when he says that God’s divine nature and power is “clearly seen” through what has been created and “perceived since the foundation of the world.” There is no argument here: Paul assumes that his readers will look to Creation to discover the validity of what he is saying. And in some ways, that’s all one can do. How else could I definitively prove that the color green exists without pointing at it and saying, “See? Here it is.”

Really, what I’m suggesting is nothing innovative at all: we must live by what seems apparent to us. And at some unconscious level, I think most people are doing exactly this. It’s common sense, isn’t it? Won’t I naturally gravitate to that which seems the most real to me?

That last question is one that I want to elaborate on. Our intentions are not always so pure. We’re not all as objective as we like to think. There are falsities which we may subconsciously substitute for apparency for a myriad of reasons. There are two crucial areas I would like to draw attention to: (a.) experiences “in the mind,” and (b.) our biases from desires.

UP HERE, OUT THERE

You remember when I wrote above about the “firewall” that filters our experiences by letting physical sensations in as “real things,” but questioning other experiences as suspect. Given that all things are equally unknowable from a purely logical standpoint, I want to open up the possibility that there are in fact many things in our experiences of the world that we screen out through habit, but which could possibly give us insight into reality.

I mentioned earlier that we often relegate our experiences to “real” and “not real” based on whether they come through our physical senses: the physical experiences are happening “out there,” and all others are happening “in here” within my mind. That’s not quite true. Assuming that human anatomy and our nervous systems are legitimate, what we experience (so we deduce from scientific observation) is that the [supposed] external world makes an impression upon our body, which causes a particular electrical charge to run through our nervous system to our brains, which is then translated into sensation that we experience.

But notice that, strictly speaking, this sensation is not of something OUTSIDE my body, but INSIDE. I am not feeling the actual computer that I’m typing on. I am feeling my brain’s translation of electrical signals running through my nervous system that I assume is caused from the computer’s impressions upon my body. And not only is it happening in my mind, but it’s not even the actual physical objects that I experience. It’s impressions of impressions that the object has made on my body, translated multiple times over, and finally deduced in my brain. Literally every physical sensation I have is experienced “up here,” and it’s not even the actual physical object that I experience.

Nevertheless, the physical sensations I experience are those things that are apparent to me as being real. But if we are to legitimate that these are possible “real experiences” that are happening “up here” in my mind, why could not those other things I experience “up here” also be glimpses of real things? Going back to the example of a sunset, is it not possible that, when I the sense some Other Thing, some transcendence as the Sun sinks into the ocean, could this not be a legitimate “real thing” that’s being impressed upon me from “out there”? Our physical bodies may give us sensations of objects, but it’s in the mind that those sensations acquire MEANING, and the meaning may itself sometimes be detached from the object and experienced as a longing for something else. We’re trained by our Western scientific mindset not to allow those sorts of things in as “real knowledge.” Yet, what if they are?

I raise this question in part because of an implicit argument that is regularly leveled against God when spiritual people (not all Christians, mind you) say that they “see God,” which of course they mean in metaphorical sense. But many dissenters will respond to this as if the person making such a claim were giving a literal description. “Where is God?” the dissenter will say. They ask in the same way as they would ask, “Where is the North Star?” But God, if a God exists, isn’t a physical object that you can point to. That doesn’t mean, however, that he isn’t apparent in some other way—perhaps on a different level of experience that we’ve been trained to screen out of our thinking.

Another argument that may be leveled against the idea of imagination and the mind’s eye as legitimate accesses to real things is that they are less apparent than physical sensations, which I will readily admit. We may experience the heat of the sun on a blistering day without feeling any sort of transcendence over it. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that these less apparent things aren’t legitimate. If I have extremely good hearing, but extremely bad vision, what I perceive with sight might not be as accurate as what I perceive with hearing. But that doesn’t mean that the things I experience when I hear are real and the things I see are false. It means I have to be careful about how I interpret the things that I see more carefully.

Likewise, the imagination could be impaired in a way that makes the impressions we perceive through it less potent than our physical sensations. But does that make them unreal? Not necessarily. Just as we take for granted that some physical senses are better than others, and yet still legitimate, so the imagination may be a dulled, but legitimate insight into reality. And just as one physical sense gives one kind of sensation, and another gives a wholly different sensation, so perhaps our imagination can give us a wholly different insight (however imperfectly) that our physical senses cannot.

Like all things, it’s an open-ended question. But the important thing is to engage the question and wrestle with it rather than simply relying on the default of our culture’s “firewall.” Are these things apparent to us or not?

I’M BIASED, YOU’RE BIASED

The second area I want to deal with is in the problem of biases. It’s often touted that real academics and scholars are the objective ones, while many other groups (particularly political and religious people) are biased, agenda-motivated, and so forth to the point that what they say and believe cannot be trusted. I’m not denying that political and religious groups are often biased and agenda-motivated, and some are far more so than others. But the idea that anyone can be on some sort of truly neutral ground in regards to a particularly loaded issue is a pernicious lie that, more often than not, is bolstered to endorse the opinions of the person who makes this claim. I want to analyze this whole area a little deeper and hopefully expose the ways that I think we all have to be careful about how our desires and biases influence our beliefs.

From the spring of our basic life views flow a multitude of derivative views that impact the specific ways we live in and interact with the world. In other words, the general philosophies that we hold are translated into specific applications in regards to the unique particulars that we encounter in our daily experiences. There’s no room to do justice to the complex and diverse channels of these applications, but I believe we can break them down into two basic groups that I would like to call “enabling consequents” and “disabling consequents” of beliefs.

What I mean by “enabling consequents” are the implicit freedoms and privileges that are afforded a person due to a particular belief or set of beliefs. For example, if you believe that there is nothing inherently wrong with expressing your sexual desires so long as no one is hurt by it, you’re enabled by that philosophy with an arbitrary choice to have multiple sexual partners outside of marriage if you so desire.

A “disabling consequent” would be just the opposite: the prohibitions and restraints that result from the implications of a particular belief or set of beliefs. To use the same example of sexuality, if you believe that sexual desire should only be expressed within the confines of marriage, then you are disabled by that philosophy from having multiple sexual partners outside of marriage even if you so desire.

The vast majority of beliefs have both consequents that are enabling and disabling at the same time. The belief that “all men are created equal” results in both an implied freedom from tyranny and oppression, but it also puts moral and ethical responsibilities upon your shoulders.

Virtually every belief we hold entails multiple levels of enabling and disabling consequents, some of which are more desirable than others. To some extent, the desirability of some consequents and the unattractiveness of others undoubtedly have some bearing on what we believe. If I believe in a God or the Supernatural/Metaphysical, I may have all variety of disabling consequents upon my life like not getting drunk (or not drinking at all), not having sexual expression outside of marriage, not being selfish, giving some time and resources to help others, etc.

Yet, my belief in a God may also enable me to hold on to the hope that I will live forever in a paradisaical state, experience a range of ecstatic emotions while I worship that I believe are rooted in something bigger than myself, give a righteous justification to my anger against whomever or whatever I happen to feel “God hates,” and to encourage those things “God loves,” pray to a being who I can believe hears me, loves me and controls everything, to believe that I will see dead relatives again, and more.

On the flip side, not believing in God or the Supernatural/Metaphysical entails certain disabling consequents like I can’t pray to an all powerful being, I have to live with the fact of my mortality and one I won’t be here, I can’t root my emotions in anything but chemical reactions and so forth, and a burden of responsibility for myself rests completely on my shoulders with no guarantees. However (in contrast to the religious person above), I may be enabled to live as I choose, select what people I want in my life without feeling obligated toward anyone, enjoy myself in whatever acts I happen to find fulfilling to myself, arbitrarily choose a morality that happens to suit my tastes, abrogate my responsibilities if I so choose, and do pretty much whatever I want, so long as it’s within my power, because there’s no one to answer to but me.

There are whole ranges of enabling and disabling consequents for beliefs. And there’s no doubt in my mind that “the whole package,” if you will, has some bearing on what we believe, regardless of whether it’s true or not. I may be an ascetic that engages in prayer and meditation for hours on end, but I believe I’ll reach Heaven. I may be a hedonist who thinks there’s no greater purpose to life, but at least I’m in control. The Christian writer C.S. Lewis said that before he believed in any God (he didn’t start believing in a God until his 30s), he was perfectly happy because he didn’t want there to be a God. He wanted “to be left alone.” Many people want to be left alone. Other people don’t.

We all have biases and desires that play into our philosophies and I think it is crucial to ask this question in regards to assessing our beliefs or our reaction to someone else’s beliefs: how does my desire to maintain certain enabling consequents, and to demolish certain disabling consequents, play into what I believe? I suspect a lot more than we often realize.

This doesn’t mean, however, that the desire for a particular belief(s) necessarily entails those beliefs are false or less real simply because I want them to be true. Hawaiian Pizza is no less real because I’m hungry. My wife is no less real because I love her. My goal isn’t to expose a facade that masks all of our beliefs, but to point out that we have a vested interested in our worldviews insofar as they promote things that we want to be true, and result in certain desirable, but derivative propositions that are contingent upon the validity of that belief(s). My beliefs, no matter what they are, are never neutrally held. Most of the time, they are promoting an overall lifestyle that I want to have. These vested interests need to be put out on the table if we’re going to be honest with ourselves about what we believe.

In case anyone disagrees with me that we have a vested interest in our beliefs, let’s try a thought experiment. Suppose that your beliefs are wrong and the beliefs of, let’s say, Westboro Baptist Church are true. We cringe at the thought. Many people would say (I have heard people say) that even if such a God was real, they wouldn’t listen to a tyrannical, bigoted, misanthropic God such as that. Ahhhhh, but notice what such a dissenter is really saying. This reaction betrays the kind of unwillingness to accept the ACTUAL proposition that is being presented. A person responding this way to the Westboro Baptist Church God assumes, whether explicitly or implicitly, that their unwillingness to bend the knee to such a God would be justified.

What the dissident means is either that this God is not real, or that a system of good and evil doesn’t exist (and thus there is no truly just reason for this God to punish people for behavior It deems aberrant), or—and I think this is most often what people are saying—that they would be in the right and this God would be in the wrong. This position is often reinforced by rhetorical appeals to a general, common-sense philosophy of our culture.

But that wasn’t the proposition being proposed. Such a person is not acknowledging the supposal as it is being given. Suppose, for a moment, that the Westboro Baptist Church really, truly was in the right. Suppose that when you drank alcohol, any alcohol at all, there was some absolute principle against which you were judged and found guilty. Imagine that your antagonist attitude toward this God was, in reality, not a good thing (like most people like to think), but an erroneous opinion; that anyone who disagrees with Westboro really is bad, evil, selfish, a sinner, and at whatever point that anyone differs with this system, God and his believers are completely in the right and everyone else completely in the wrong—not in a relative sense, but an absolute one.

“I could never serve that kind of a God,” I’ve heard numerous people say. And this betrays exactly the point I’m trying to make: we are invested in what we believe. We WANT our opinions and beliefs to be correct because they uphold a view of the world that, ultimately, we find desirable. To suggest that Westboro Baptist’s beliefs are true, as well as all of the disabling consequents of their system, is almost too much to bear. Once we become aware of those consequents, and aware that the alternative belief or set of beliefs that we hold has a series of consequents we find agreeable, then we now have a vested interest in this alternative set of beliefs.

How much does the desirability for certain enabling consequents effect how strongly we hold to our essential belief(s) from which they are derived? I leave that an open question because it’s not something that anyone could definitively prove. I doubt that most people, regardless of their beliefs, can tell how much these desirable consequents effect their choice to adhere to one set of beliefs over another. I think it does help, however, to meditate on just what is motivating our convictions: reasonable arguments, or wishful thinking?

I stress, though, that to be vested in something is not necessarily a bad thing. It means you have something important enough to be vested in. But it can go overboard. As an extreme example, there was a group of heretics in Christian history called the Gnostics who believed that once you had “faith,” which they defined as a revelation of a certain system of gods and so forth, then what you did on Earth did not matter at all. As long as you were of a “spiritual” nature, then you would experience eternal bliss after you died in a spiritual, non-physical existence, regardless of your actions. Some groups were known to engage in orgies and drunkenness, do whatever they wanted, and none of that mattered because they were “spiritual”: they were derived from the spiritual bliss, and to that bliss they would return.

If that is not a belief system with enabling consequents, I don’t know what is. We look at them and think, “How ridiculous. Clearly, their desire for this aberrant lifestyle was the determining factor in what they believed.” And that raises an interesting question for the accuser: why do you believe the things you do? Do you want to see dead relatives again? Do you want to get drunk with friends on the weekends? Do you want a powerful being to hear you and take care of you? Do you want to be left alone? Do you want there to be an absolute morality? Do you want there not to be? Do you want control of your life? Do you not want to take responsibility for you decisions? What is it that’s driving you? To understand these motivations in our thinking is not to concede that our actions and behaviors are inevitably determined by them. On the contrary, to some degree, it liberates us from them.

OPEN MINDS ON NARROW ROADS

I’d like to end this with a picture. All of us are wandering about this world, moving down the ways of life with winds and bends at every turn, adjusting to things that come our way, and yet always maintaining a general course. At all times, we are walking with open minds on narrow roads. We may not be able to definitively prove that the road we’ve chosen is absolutely correct. We may not be able to say that we are completely objective in choosing our path. There is, in fact, nothing that we can say for absolutely certain except that this is the path we’ve chosen.

But we have to choose. There is no standing still. Life forces us to make decisions, to move on. Whether we choose to engage life, or let it slink by around us, that’s a decision. There is no neutral ground at which you can say, “I’m choosing to disengage for a while.” That’s an illusion—a privilege we wish we could have, but we don’t. If you’re alive, you’re engaged in the world. You’re holding to some standard, some principle, some belief about reality that the way you live your life is affirming. You can’t passively sit back and think about it. You’re moving somewhere. And it’s somewhere specific.

At every moment, I walk down a narrow road. That road may change, but here I am right now, moving with all of humanity toward the Future. I am living one life, and not another; believing one thing and not another; moving down one path, and not a million other paths. I can’t just meander down one road or another unintentionally: where am I going and why?

At the end of the day, although we have to admit that there is no way to objectively say anything for sure, we have to go with what’s apparent to us as real. And the entails considering everything around us. We must keep an open mind as we walk down each narrow road that we choose. We all have our aims, our goals, our agendas, our beliefs that are oftentimes incompatible, and that’s inevitable. We may be open to being wrong about the path we’ve chosen and critically assess whether it’s the right path or not. But here I am, and there you are. Can we not disagree—even adamantly disagree, affirming our beliefs over others—and still listen to one another as we’re walking these paths side by side? Can’t I listen to you with a critical and open mind, weighing what you say with the possibility that it will alter my course, and still continue for the moment down the path I’ve chosen? I think there is no other way.

Worst of all, while it opens up a radical prospect by acknowledging the authenticity of other voices, postmodernist thinking immediately shuts off those other voices by ghettoizing them within an opaque otherness, the specificity of this or that language game. It thereby disempowers those voices (of women, ethnic and racial minorities, colonized peoples, the unemployed, youth, etc.) in a world of lop-sided power relations. –David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity

Before I begin, let me first state this essay (?) is foremost a history of the transition in my own personal thought, and not, as I would normally write, a (pure) philosophical exploration. That said, feel free to both assess and comment on the philosophical aspects of this piece. Indeed, there are several voices that I’d be greatly interested in hearing from, so if you have thoughts, throw them out there. Ideas are social, founded in discourse, and weak when not challenged by others.
The path of postmodernism is a tempting one for any who have trudged the same roads the entirety of their lives. The walker sees off to the side a new path, takes it, and realizes that this new path is beautiful, perhaps not of it’s own innate accord, but because the walker has grown tired of the same scenery. The walker continues to discover new paths, seeing the beauty in each, until s/he finally claims “They are all of equal nature, intrinsically beautiful; indeed they are all of the same nature, who am I to say which is the better path?” In being so taken with the newness of things, the postmodernist begins to back away from any hard claims of ‘better’ paths, instead s/he is content to wander along, experiencing the beauty of each path, without having one for his/her own.
I think it’s a scant held secret that I found myself fully immersed in the world of postmodernity for several years. In the rejection of the conservatism of my youth (perhaps my ‘younger youth’ would be a better term), postmodernity offered the quickest route to the possibility of freedom from the same chains of thought that held me narrow sighted and immutable, and I jumped aboard that ship setting sails for shores unknown to me at the time. The years took me from a believer (in Deity) to an agnostic, from a neoconservative to libertarian to post-liberal, from convinced I knew (and was uniquely qualified to tell) absolutes to positive that of both the unimportance of and my personal inability to utter most absolutes. It is this last point, of absolutes, that I found myself hitting a breaking point.
I mentioned, via the briefest twitter/facebook status, several weeks ago that I was growing increasingly discontent with postmodernity; I felt I could no longer continue on a path in which any truths were treated as the same as any other truths. Indeed, I think many of my friends from that journey hold some personal level of disdain in the possibility that (their) ideas of justice are impugnable, but assert the postmodern relativism that they have found personal comfort in. The (unintended) consequence of the acceptance of the validity in cacophony of ideas results in the taming of ideas. It takes the revolutionary thought and castrates it, defanging it and making just another piece of the strand. Ultimately the postmodern ethic fails to allow the assessment of the validity of each idea on it’s own merit, it instead encourages acceptance for pure acceptance’ sake.
In the end, the system finds itself entirely unsustainable. This is a known problem within postmodern circles, though it’s not openly acknowledged. Instead the conversations always circle the idea of “what is to come” after postmodernism. It’s more than just the realization that systems change, that thoughts gain hegemony and lose it, but it is, I think, a verbal manifestation of the postmodernist realization that the system (or lack of system) cannot hold them, sustain them, or give them any sort of hope.
Sometime within the near future, I’ll talk about where I find myself now, as a pragmatist, but this is about all I have time to put out there at the moment. –Comment, disagree, whatever, let me know what you’re thinking.

But it did get me thinking.

Emergent… it’s the equivalent of the hipster movement within Christianity.

Philosophy/Intellectualism
Hipsters largely cling to the existential movement as a guiding philosophy, then throw around the buzz words just enough to make it appear as if they have a grasp of the philosophical system, but were you to ask them if essence or existence precedes the other, most of them would be lost. Indeed, it is a sort of gilded intellectualism that makes the movement appear fully intellectual, when in actuality it’s not, it’s about counterculturalism, but more on that later.

With emergent the philosophy revolves around postmodernity. Having been in the emergent circles longer than I’ve been exposed to the (new) hipster generation (yes that was an ode to Kerouac), I can say that there are those that will openly admit that they are far from intellectuals, however, the vast majority of the movement offers a greater portion of respect for the intellectual based leadership. When the requirement comes down, however, a working grasp of the concepts in which one claims to be rooted are often found lacking, or if concepts are being discussed online, the obvious quickly wikipedia’d tone shows that the original speaker did small diligence toward understanding, but was not originally speaking from a place of understanding.

As a side note, a contingent of emergent hails from within the seminary, I have found these, as well as the actual leadership, to be versed enough in the concepts from which they speak. Also, I will fully admit to having wiki’d things before.

Originality and borrowed trends:
Both movements practice the art of borrowing from past times. While the hipster generation pulls from within the frame of decades, the emergent movement is forced to look further back (since the church is slow to change). Both movements draw from these old trends and add a modern flair to them, adapting them to fit the needs and the wants of the moment. While the hipster movement pulls these things in an attempt to show off the materialism still pervasive in the culture while appearing to reject it, the EC pulls from older movements in an attempt to fulfill that deeper connection with the(ir) divine being. Both hold their trends as a rejection of the mainstream culture, yet both show how beholden they still are.

Which brings us to
Trends/Aesthetics
Hipsters are named thusly for their trendsetting. Ironic 80s tees that stock the shelves of your local Wal-Mart and Target? You can thank the hipster trendsetters circa five years ago. The craze for chunky glasses? Hipsters (watch out, the current trend is toward 60s Buddy Holly glasses, you’ll see those pervade the marketplace in the next year or so). After each trend catches on to the mainstream the hipsters move on, briefly voicing the fact that “they had done it first” before giving up on the entire trend.

Within the EC (and forgive me here if I lump the British Fresh Expressions movement in with the EC proper) the same aptitude for trend setting is the very thing that has thrust the movement onto the larger scene. Candles? Yeah, thank that emergent church thing. Incense? Damn, EC again. The use of art (actual painting and such) poetry, and other spoke word? Emergents. Yet each time these trends catch on the EC seems to come up with a new twist, or flavor, on the “experience.” This will inevitably catch on and work its way into the church as a whole (yes, yes, there are holdouts, I know).

Get to the point.
The hipster movement is quick to vault themselves up as different, as change, as the future, yet in actuality they offer the same heart in a different package. They trade the apparent commercialism and materialism of their parents and trade it for a hidden one, a gilded protection that hides their true heart. They then align themselves in many ways with “hippie” movements, movements where rejection of materialism is an actuality, in an attempt to further cover up their real lack of change.

As for the EC, I see this same trend. Where their evangelical brethren were loud and proud of the emotional connection they felt, and quick to continue seeking that high, the EC worship experience makes the seeking of this high less apparent via the use of varying forms of expression (spoken word, changed up lyrics, and the felt lack of things). In the end, they offer a different feeling package of the same. As with the Hipsters, the EC aligns itself with the missional movement (here I should note that many consider themselves part of both movements, and I give credit to those that actually are. They do exist, unlike the hipster/hippie intermingling), giving an air of authenticity to change. Yet… it’s not quite there.

I got a message yesterday from someone I don’t really know that well. I know this persons family pretty well, and I like this person, but this isn’t someone “near” to me by any stretch. Anyway, the person brings up a couple of things, misconceptions, really, that surround me and my movement away from belief.

1. I haven’t been burned by religion.

While there are many forms of Christianity that I take exception to, and I vocally rail against, there are incredibly refreshing forms out there. In some ways I still consider myself part of the Christian community, in the end, the ideals of Jesus are something I can completely get behind, and love. This, of course, begs the question, who’s view on the ideals of Jesus am I working from? I think I’ve done a decent enough job at categorizing my views on that point (click “Social Justice” under categories), so I won’t go into that here.

Suffice it to say, I’m not against religion in general, but will openly point out those spots which I do stand against. I think it would be a tragic loss if religion were to be removed from the world, I see that people need religion, or at least think they need religion, and that’s fine. Personally? I don’t see a need for it, and I’m not going to try to get you to run away from religion.

as a side note here, I do enjoy asking provocative questions that make you think more about what you believe, that could easily be seen as me trying to “deconvert”, but it’s not, I try to get people to think

2. Having an open mind

While many people undoubtedly believe they have an open mind about things, they don’t, and I’m not sure if I fall into the category of close-minded or not. Honestly, I don’t think I am [close minded], but I’d be hard pressed to argue either way. In this respect, I think one needs to defer to the opinion and judgement of others, if I’m being consistently told I’m close minded, then it’s probably valid.

As it stands, I’m not being told that, and I think as much honest self assessment as I can muster on the topic leads me to believe that there are only a few areas that could be construed toward me being close minded, and religion is not one of them.

side note 2: I’ll probably sit for a bit over the next few days and question myself in this regard. I doubt a lot, even the things I say, and I find it hard to believe that a doubter could be consistently close minded. Maybe. We’ll see.

3. The final comment I got was “we don’t know what we don’t know”

I’m not certain if this was more of a “understand what you don’t know,” or a “there are things we don’t know what we don’t know.”

In the first sense, I completely agree. I Don’t Know about God. I’m not an atheist, I’m not willing to stand and say “There is no god” or “There is a God,” because I understand that I don’t know.

I understand that I know very little in the great schema of the universe. I’m ok with that. And I think the converse of this statement needs to be thrown out there, “Know what you know.” In that vein, I’m always learning, always seeking to gain new insights, and only willing to fully stand on that which I know I know.

As far as the second form, “there are things that we don’t know we don’t know,” and again, I agree with this. The goal should be to continue to strive toward the enlightenment of that which we know and that which we do not know (and thereby the increase in knowledge by learning what we do not know).

I affirmed the need for doubt yesterday, and in my own life doubt led to a fair be of deconstruction. I went from having established and set moral, theological, and social “laws” in my late teens and moved to a place where I doubted each of those systems. Sometimes I would question each in turn, sometimes I would sit and wonder if I actually trusted any belief I had ever established in my life. In essence, I spent a couple years deconstructing the entirety of my life, it was a time in which no established part of me was safe. I think the aspect of questioning everything terrifies a lot of people, but, again, for me, it was refreshing, invigorating, and a part of my life that I really value.

During that time I was reading a lot by a(n infamous) Post-Modern Irish Philosopher, Pete Rollins, who called deconstruction the lava that keeps the flow of ideas going. I remember a conversation I had with my now estranged wife while driving around on day, at the time about how I didn’t think there would ever be a time in which systems were ever going to be rebuilt in my life, nor that systems should exist in any life. I look back on that time as my life-anarchy stage, because a lot of systems I had inherited or picked up along the way were “off mark” (that’s being charitable) I wanted to throw out the entirety of them, a baby with the bathwater sort of issue. In essence, that’s exactly what I did, I overturned most of my life, holding on to only a few pieces from the construction I originally stood on (or under?)

Here I am, now several years removed from those comments, and my views on Deconstruction have changed more than I thought would happen (isn’t that always how it goes?). I still value the art of deconstruction and doubt, but now I’ve begun the art of constructing. I know the objections I would have had several years ago, but I now see that you cannot ever actually “stay” within the world completely deconstructed, you will always have some foundation from which to work, whether acknowledged or not.

I now stand at a point where I have begun reconstructing my life, I look around and see the scattered bits and odds and ends from my life previously deconstructed and can now comfortably sit and say, “Does this piece fit? Is there reason for this to be included? Do I value this?” and so on. Nick Fiedler talks about a similar act in his book (which you should buy). Nick talks about looking over his beliefs and deciding which ones to bring along as he and his wife, Leslie, begin their world tour. It’s a brilliant metaphor for the act of deconstruction while retaining structure.

It is this attitude that I take with me as I begin the art of reconstruction while holding to deconstruction and doubt. Each piece should be constantly assessed to see if it fits (understanding that the criterion for “fitting” also change), taken out if it does and kept if it doesn’t. That part is easy, the harder part is keeping the pieces that challenge the “core” that I use to assess the other pieces by. This is the true heart of constant deconstruction.

Most people, I think, are unwilling to live with that sort of uncertainty. They either need God to exist or not exist, they need to have some solid ground to start from, some dichotomous point of entry into a deeper theological or philosophical place. For me, it’s the uncertainty that invigorates me, I no longer seek certainty, no longer feel comfortable stating anything, philosophically, in a place of certainty. Both the atheist claim that god doesn’t exist, and the mystics claim that god absolutely exists bothers me. Even now, I won’t sit here and say that I’m going to sit where I am for the rest of my life, I won’t deny that tomorrow I could embrace the certainty of the non-existence of god, nor the certainty of god. Of course, I don’t think I’ll ever sit anywhere with certainty, even if I once again sit in the mystic camp, the existence of (a) god will likely continue to be dubitable to me.

I think most of my friends that have had conversations with me about certainty become a bit perplexed at my comfort with uncertainty. I remember a rather large discussion I had with a couple friends several years ago about doubt and faith, even back then I felt like true faith required some level of doubt, stories of doubting Thomas be damned. I still hold to that point, we, as humans, need to explore our ability to live a healthy life of doubt. My friends that still reside in Church owe a fair bit of their philosophical undergirding to Descartes, the master of doubt, yet still insist that doubt isn’t healthy, that not everything should be doubted. No, I must use Descartes own phrase, de ornnibus dubitandum, everything must be doubted. Instead of insisting that there are those things that should not be doubted, our teachers (be they parents, clergy, professors, or friends) must encourage that all doubts should be explored. If you doubt god, then doubt god, don’t let another tell you that you must have the certainty that god exists. Indeed, it is that which we hold to most strongly that we should doubt most highly.

It is the sign of not only a good philosopher, but of a good intellectual, to actively engage with the framework of doubt around the ideals they hold most highly. When I meet anyone that cannot explore the possibility of either their religion or their politics as being wrong (not in the sense of absolute right and wrong, but in the sense as “what if my current standpoint were ”false“) I find myself railing against them. I realize that many people aren’t at the level in which they can explore doubts, but I begin hoping that they are helped to a level in which they can begin to doubt. (This is all in the assumption that doubt is indeed healthy, a supposition which itself must be doubted!) I think it shows the ultimate level of self acceptance when one opens up to the realm of systematic doubt.

I’ve rambled for a bit now, I think I’ll call it a day here, and pick up tomorrow (maybe) with the side effects this lifestyle has had on me (politically, mostly).

Sexy ****
Yeah, this oversized iPod touch is sexy, there won’t be an argument from me on that point. Apple is incapable of making a device which doesn’t carry itself with a high appeal in the looks department. The sleekness of it is the future of computing styles, but I don’t think anyone expected any different. The only issue I take is the LARGE amount of blackspace around the display itself. I’m wondering if this was necessary due to the component structure or a rare design flaw for Apple.

Newness **
Here’s where the problems start to play. We weren’t really given anything new. I think most of us were ezpecting this design, but with some enhanced multitouch capabilities, some brilliant software capabilities, or something else to point to other than “look, sexy.” As it stands, we don’t really have that, we have an iPod touch with a big screen and a bit more power.

Price ****
499 is a decent intro price, and hundred dollar increments for each increase in memory makes the higher level systems greater values. I understand the high cost of flash hard drives, but it seems that not many people would be able to get by with a mere 16 gig hard drive, 32 should have been the baseline, and I imagine that’s the direction that most users will head. 130 addon for the 3g card seems ok to me, but I’m not familiar with those prices so that’s a bit of guesswork for me.

Functionality***
Here’s where things get more interesting. The iPad packs some punch to it, that’s for sure, but the issue is utilization. From a students perspective I look forward to two things the most (from the iPad): the abolition of my textbooks having them all in digital format, and iWork. The ability to cut down on how much junk I lug around campus is key, if I can live off one device then it’s worth the $600 I’d plunk down to get it. The problem is that, at least to this point (Which mean early adopters are likely to NOT see this implemented) there was no mention of running multiple apps at the same time. Meaning I can’t switch between the text I’m reading and Pages (the apple word processor) with, oh say, the swipe of a finger, meaning I’d still need to carry either my laptop or my books, so how much is this actually saving me.
Where is the camera? That shouldn’t have even been a question of implementation, it should have been a given. Yes, I want to video conference from my iPad, and I think that’s a common sentiment.
I didn’t mark of for this next part, but thought I should address it. Many peope, including my somewhat technologically slow to adopt family, felt that the tablet should be the ultimate all-in-one and would have removed the need to carry any other devices, from phones to laptops. This notion is a bit ridiculous, and anyone dissapointed that they’d still need a phone was thinking a few too many years in advance.

Potential *****
Yes, I gave this section the highest possible rating. Most techno nerds knew going into this announcement that the true potential in the tablet didn’t lie in the device itself but more in the doors that have opened. The most encouraging sign was the New York Times inclusion of in line video, these sorts or new media implementations need to be picked up by the dead tree industry in their transition to digital media. They need to begin thinking in new ways to harness the power and opportunity provided to them by the tablet. The dead tree industry stands to gain as much benefit from the tablet as the recording industry gained from the iPod.

Final thoughts
I won’t be an early adopter. I remember to clearly the transition from the iPhone 1.0 to the 3g. I don’t mind waiting a year to see the implementations that the second generation of the tablet will gain. On top of that, I don’t mind waiting until the third party aspect of the tablet had grown a bit and it’s potential is brought to bear. In the end, I simply see no benefit to getting a first gen tablet. Hopefully I’m proven wrong.

I’ve been away for a while; I find myself distracted often by books, music.  These two distractions I don’t mind so much… they’re productive and I “live” when I partake in them. Some other distractions, however, are more amusing since they show my utter ineptitude in certain fields. (Let’s just say, laughably pathetic)

Since it’s been a while since I’ve written anything (at least publicly, I’ve become semi-prolific within the realm of my moleskines) allow me the brief repose of my meandering thoughts put on screen for your further clarification of how my mind works (or doesn’t work).

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about two things, “forever” and dreaming.

To the former, I sit and wonder how our concept of forever became so terribly impotent. Actually, I wonder this about every infinite concept, but forever seems to be both out most commonly used and easiest to exemplify our ineptitude with. Forever is the one term that we seem utterly incapable of removing from our vocabulary. We use the term forever, and it’s antonym, never, in an almost laughably frequent way (in fact it would be laughable if it’s over usage wasn’t so tragically causing increasingly precarious levels of insensitivity to the gravity of such a concept).

I am part of an online community known as tumblr, which is comprised mostly of people who fancy themselves artists of some capacity (guilty as charged). A popular bit of typography I see on tumblr has the following phrase:

“You say you’ll love me forever, just warn me when forever starts to end.”

I think this brilliantly captures the crime we commit on an almost daily basis. A crime which I am certainly guilty of myself, having gone further than most in such assertions of eternity, only to realize we both knew forever ended long before we openly acknowledged it. This same notion carries not just in love, but friendship and devotion as well. While I’ve never used the phrase “best friends forever” I have carried those sentiments around for a few years, only to have that particular friendship begin to dissolve (due in no small part to the previous example of forever ending).

On the other hand is the notion of never. I can think of specific things I thought I’d never like or do that I currently love or am doing. Things like wine, poetry, writing, and art, I thought I’d always ignore these, yet I find myself strangely awed, intrigued, and impassioned by these things now. Then, I never thought I’d reach a point where the base belief in god was even a question in my life (ironic side note: I have the name YWHW tattooed on my back) yet here I stand embracing agnosticism and finding comfort in it.

Alas, it seems I have yet to find any notion of forever on which I can solidly grasp. In reality, I’m ok with that; there are only two notions of forever that I wish to grasp: love and friendship. Give me those and take away the world and I’ll be perfectly fine.

Now that I’ve depressed you, allow me to express my hopeful side. I think “forever” (and by forever I mean for the rest of life, and not the purely literal eternity) is innately possible, but requires determination to allow things to continue. Whereas “never” would require determination not to change things IE: “I’ll never forgive him” is a personal determination to never overcome an adversity. So, I fully believe I’ll reach a point with someone where I’m comfortable in stating “forever” again, because I understand now that forever requires far more determination than had been put into things that have ended.

Which moves to the second problem plaguing me lately, my unstoppable desire to dream. I am capable of dreaming crazy things based on but the slightest provocation. I can dream up entire lifetimes in a moment, enjoy the vast grandness of a relationship that doesn’t exist, see bright futures full of hope and beauty even while my present sits dark and despairing. I have what can only be deemed as a limitless capacity for hope. My unending imagination coupled with my innate propensity to hope has caused both a rather amusing comedy of errors and a series of terrifying responses that drive me to ever doubt hope. I find myself reaching the point, nearly every other week, in which I say to (probably my best friend) “I’m done with hope. Hope only screws me over.” These hopeful dreams, they haven’t lead anywhere good so far, in fact, they normally just end up with me getting hurt.

Hopes a fucking scary thing.

Fucking scary.

So that’s where I’m at right now, I’ll restart my talk about god tomorrow.

First, since my posts now go to facebook as notes, I’ve gotten some more personal responses from people that didn’t read my blog previously but have been following me since I started moving into the facebook area as well. To these people, and to a lot of my other facebook friends that come across this post, the subject matter may be a bit outside of your normal conversational topics. I’m talking here about a movement that isn’t well known amongst the laity at your everyday American church, but it’s influence, or I should say effect, is likely felt within your own individual church experiences. If you’ve ever seen artists on stage painting during a sermon, or been to a coffee house church, or perhaps your church sits in a circle with the presenter in the middle, these are a few examples of things that the emergent movement has brought to the forefront. (an aside, I’m not saying emergent created these things, did them first, or does them best, simply that the influence of the movement brought them out) If you want to know more about the whole deal, feel free to email me matt at themattscott dot com.

Second, I want to preface my comments to my emergent friends. I was hesitant about posting on the latest “death of emergent” for several reasons; one the topic is becoming redundant. Two, there are other more important things to be talking about (speaking of which, please help helping Haiti in any way you can).

Third, I hesitated mostly because I don’t know if I consider myself part of the movement any longer. I stepped away from things for a few months while I was dealing with some life issues (and by dealing with I mean going through various and increasing levels of hell until things got better), and during this time went through some large belief changes. I’m not sure if I still consider emergent my movement (not as in I controlled things, but as in I had a part to play in the [continuing] formation, at least on a local level) I now split my self between feeling that I am still a part of emergent and simply being a friend that wants to see things go well for them. With these things in mind, let chat.

In response to the recent “death of” conversation, I point to the following quote from the movie “Lucky Number Slevin”

My father use to say: “The first time someone calls you a horse you punch him on the nose, the second time someone calls you a horse you call him a jerk, but the third time someone calls you a horse, well then perhaps it’s time to go shopping for a saddle.”

I’m no emerging church historian, but I can think of three times this “death of” conversation has sparked up, while I wouldn’t say it’s time to go looking for a burial plot yet, I would say it’s time to start dealing with the fact that you’re being called a horse.

I think the reason these past couple critiques have stirred up so much more emotion is because they have come from within, instead of the normal attacks and critiques from the existing structures that “feel threatened.” While Emergent, as a movement, has been under constant critique from the outside for what seems like the entirety of its existence, and I think has benefited from such constant critiques, and they’ll likely continue for some time. Some have been valid, some have changed things that needed to be changed, some have been rightfully refuted, and some have been ignored, all without causing too much emotional repercussions and long term levels of hurt feelings. These latest critiques, however, the ones that have come from within, are starting to show strains and cracks.

These latest critiques (really the last two “death of” critiques) have elicited what can only be seen as a “circling the wagons” response, an immediate defensive position. The former coordinator of EV immediately bangs out a response to them, the satirical articles come, and then the critique is seen as “refuted” and life moves on, nothing really changes and no real benefit is seen from the event. I have a friend who has no problems calling me an ass when I act like one and I have another friend who tells me straight to my face when I’m about to do something stupid. I value these two guys, because I know they want the best for me, and if I ignore their advice it’s usually to my detriment. I hope emergent starts to see these inside critiques in the same light.

But hey, I’m just the little guy on the outside looking in, what do I know?

I bring this up for a couple reasons, one because I like Nick, I drank his booze and swam in his pool once, but mostly because I’ve been talking recently about my own agnosticism quite a bit lately, and Nick also approaches the topic in his book (albeit from a more… hopeful [that pun was too easy] standpoint). Nick and I share some of the same views on the topic, so if you’re interested in hearing where this neo-Agnosticism is headed, come check things out tomorrow (Jan 12th) at 7 at Johnnie MacCrackens.

Here’s the facebook event link, if you prefer that.

Also, buy the book.

Also also, I’ll review the book sometime.