philosophy

July 8, 2010
**********************
PHILOSOPHY
*********************************************
Faith can move mountains?
What nonsense!
God created mountains to be stationary.
Why would anyone want to challenge His will
by moving them?
*
You tell idiots
faith can move mountains
and next thing you know
they raise armies,
go on the warpath
liberating distant lands,
converting infidels,
and engaging in plunder and massacre.
*
If we don't know the meaning of life and death
it may be because God wanted it that way.
Not knowing is not ignorance.
Pretending to know the unknowable:
that's what I call the quintessence of ignorance
compounded by blasphemy.
*
Tasting the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge
can be a risky business.
But when it comes to learning from history
or repeating it,
men have exhibited a marked preference
for repeating it.
*
Three of my favorite philosophical statements:
“Of the gods we know nothing” (Socrates).
“We don't know why things exist” (Heidegger).
“We believe that we believe but we don't believe” (Sartre).
*
“I think therefore I am”?
Countless men have ceased to be
exactly because some moron said:
“I think my belief system to be the only true one
and anyone who does not think as I do
doesn't deserve to live.”
#
July 9, 2010
**********************
POWEER AND TRUTH
*********************************************
Power will listen to truth only if it (truth) can be exploited.
Which amounts to saying,
only in so far as truth may serve a lie.
When I speak of truth, I include God.
And I am not talking in terms of theoretical abstractions here.
I am talking about history; and more particularly
the bloody history of organized religions,
about which Voltaire said:
“Since it was a religious war, there were no survivors.”
*
A true atheist is not one who denies His existence,
but one who exploits the idea of God to serve the Devil.
*
You think I have a suspicious mind?
Read James Joyce who saw deception and charlatanism everywhere,
including Freud and Jung, who, said he,
enjoy some degree of popularity
with the “yung [who are] easily freudened.”
But when his (Joyce's) daughter developed a mental illness,
he sought Jung's help who was of no help.
Which may suggest that even those who warn us against deceivers
are themselves vulnerable to deception.
*
To be taken in by smart operators is bad enough.
What is infinitely worse is to be taken in by idiots.
I speak from experience.
If I ever write an autobiography,
I suspect the longest chapter in it will be
about idiots who deceived me – or rather,
were smart enough to see my vulnerabilities and weaknesses
and I was idiotic enough to make them visible.
#
July 10, 2010
**********************
IN THE NAME OF THE ALMIGHTY
*********************************************
Experience, it has been said, is not what happens to us,
but what we do with what happens.
So far we have emphasized the Genocide to the point of obsession,
but we have made no effort to deal with it.
As a result, we have only replaced the “red” massacre
with the “white” (alienation and assimilation).
*
At all times and everywhere, Hegel tells us,
man is given two choices:
to say “Yes, sir!” to his Master,
or to risk his own life (or means of survival) by saying “No!”
To behave either like a sheep or a wolf.
*
After six centuries of playing the sheep,
some of us – a tiny and non-representative group
of self-appointed revolutionaries -- turned into wolves
by risking the survival of the community,
and what was bound to happen happened.
The sheep were slaughtered and the wolves survived.
*
The wolves survived and became our new Masters.
Dissent is out!
Saying no is anathema.
In the same way that once upon a time
we were not allowed to say no to the Sultan
(who spoke in the name of Allah),
today we are not allowed to say no to our bosses
(or neo- or crypto-sultans),
or bishops (who speak in the name of God),
or benefactors (who speak in the name of Capital).
*
Christianity, Hegel tells us, only replaced the human Master
with the Divine Master.
Likewise, Capital (according to Marx
who was greatly influence by Hegel)
replaced the Divine Master with, in modern parlance,
the Almighty Dollar.
*
The ambition of every charlatan
is to speak in the name of the Almighty
(be it Allah, God, or Capital) and the punish or silence those
who dare to disagree with him.
The more things change,
the more they stay the same.
*
The choice is yours.
But be warned:
If you choose to play the sheep,
there is no guarantee that you will survive.
But even if you survive,
you will survive not as a man but as a slave.
Not as an Armenian with your own identity
but as a rootless, traditionless, alienated empty suit.
#