Love and Principles

What is the distinction between acting according to what is best for others, and acting according to principle?  Is it not so the case that acting in strict accordance to a principle, even a virtuous one, is acting in such a manner that is not loving or not to the betterment of another?  Even honesty, say.  Is honesty always the best choice?  Is it not so that living to be ‘honest’ in all things, be it for one’s own sake or for the sake of “principle”, could be doing so to the definitive detriment of another?  How does one balance such things, then?

First ever creation of something like a poem

The ultimatum in source

“The world is rotten,” goes the quote, “and those who are making it rot deserve to die.”  But my question, that I pose to thee, is why is it that the person chosen for death is the bully?  Is it not the case that the bullied themselves are equally responsible for the rottenness of the world?  What makes the world rotten?  It is a lack of character.  And both exemplify a lack of character: a lack of empathy and a lack of courage.  The picked on shows a lack of self-respect by letting himself be picked on; the bully, by picking, shows a lack of self-respect by the need to subjugate others.  Both fail to exemplify particular character virtues, yet both their failures stem from the same common cause.  What makes one rottenness more becoming to rot than another?  Shall not both be put down?  Why judge one and spare the other?

An exemplary example of a horribly written article

Sometimes––nay, manytimes––journalists piss me off.  These supposed exemplars of the English language occasionally write such terrible articles of horrific proportions that I am left baffled as to how it was that they possibly were selected, let alone hired, to be front page writers of one of the most internationally well-known and respected English newspapers.  Are there no guidelines? No standards of excellence?  No measures for grammar, syntax, or linear sequence of thought?  Content unregarded and aside, someone tell me how this article is of such a caliber that is deserving of top BBC headlines?  I mean, seriously?

Walnuts are the healthiest of all the nuts and should be eaten more as part of a healthy diet.

American scientists from Pennsylvania told the American Chemical Society that walnuts contain the highest level of antioxidants compared to other nuts.

Antioxidants are known to help protect the body against disease.

The scientists said that all nuts have good nutritional qualities but walnuts are healthier than peanuts, almonds, pecans and pistachios.

Dr Joe Vinson, from the University of Scranton, analysed the antioxidant levels of nine different types of nuts and discovered that a handful of walnuts contained twice as many antioxidants as a handful of any other commonly eaten nut.

He found that these antioxidants were higher in quality and potency than in any other nut.

Antioxidants are good because they stop the chain reactions that damage cells in the body when oxidation occurs.

Roasted nuts

The antioxidants found in walnuts were also two to 15 times as powerful as vitamin E, which is known to protect the body against damaging natural chemicals involved in causing disease, the study says.

Nuts are known to be healthy and nutritious, containing high-quality protein, lots of vitamins and minerals as well as dietary fibre. They are also dairy and gluten-free.

Previous research has shown that regular consumption of small amounts of nuts can reduce the risk of heart disease, some types of cancer, type two diabetes and other health problems.

Dr Vinson said there was another advantage in choosing walnuts as a source of antioxidants: “The heat from roasting nuts generally reduces the quality of the antioxidants.

“People usually eat walnuts raw or unroasted, and get the full effectiveness of those antioxidants.”

–– Just how terribly can something be written?  Grr. Argh.

Proofs for the Existence of God: Irrelevancies, absurdities––mockeries?

It curious and a bit amusing to me now to look back on years ago when I first became entralled with systematic theologies.  I remember the night, the room I was in, the volume I found on the study shelf, and the section that held me captivated.  It was the night before a river rafting trip, I was lying on the floor of a study at the house of the trip host, having just come across volume one of Charles Hodge’s systematic theology sitting on a certain Larry’s bookshelf.  Volume one: section one: bam! Rational and logical proofs for the existence of God, listed one, two, three, four, and five.  The cosmologial argument––oh that was particualrly captivating! (was also so easiest to understand) It was so undeniable! It makes perfect sense!  Cause and effect––God exists! Q-E-D.

It was certainty.  Absolulte certainty.  Or something.  I donno.  I’m not sure what it was that I really cared about such that such proofs and theorms about God’s existence had such an appeal.  You can read through the lists of sucecssive cosmological and ontological arguments, the proofs, the disproofs, the new proofs and then the new disproofs that prove the proof disproven.  But really now, with each consecutive round, whichever one won, was anything ever actually lost or gained?  They are words, and arguments, and terms, and syllogisms and deductions and analysis of sentence constructions according to principles that bestow validity only if ever damn duck of a thought is lined up pitch perfect in a row.  Word games word games all of it!

Do we really think we are saying something throughout all of it?  As I argue this proofs and show how these are unquestionably objective truths, how much meaning do I personally find in them for me myself?  Its a bit ironic, these objective proofs for the existence of God.  They are objective arguments aiming for objective certainty, and because of such they have almost zero personal subjective signifiance to me.  Line up the arguments.  Even if I may think the postulates are reasonable; that the definitions seem sound; that the principles used are probably sensible; even if I may agree that arguments are rationally tenable––even then they are of litle relevence to me, they are absurdities, even mockeries.  Convincing as they might maybe seem in the abstract, they carry little weight when my existence comes crashing in on me.  The Cosmological argument will be of little comfort in the middle of the night when all is voiceless and all are asleep, when the realization hits that in this moment no other souls but yours exists; when the only sound is the beating of your own heart and the chill awareness arises that one is indeed most certainly a subject and that objective knowledge can be damned, because no matter how many times you tell yourself that God’s existence is logically necessary it still doesn’t make God feel more real, and that no matter how many times you tell yourself that God is present and everywhere he will still always seem to be on the far side of infinity.

The reason I shouldn’t watch WWII films

Written in the midst of a certain film. Caught up in the moment?

I never thought I would find myself glorying for my people over victory against my people. This film has gone beyond all recompense, beyond all comparison with that which I have seen before. I am a jew. I find myself wanting to join a community of peoples beyond that which I have ever seen before. I find myself admiring this group. I find myself in awe and in horror upon seeing this community destroyed. I cry out for vengence. I cry out for blood. I relish seeing the enemy destroyed. The enemy murdered. The enemy’s cold dark blood. What part of my humanity is crying out against my humanity? I am German. I am Jew. I am the synthesis of the two blood enemies. What part do with I mourn? What part do with I weep? My person finds its kinship with the former, and its heart with the latter. I want a gun, I want to fight. But at whom but at Germans could I possibly shoot?

Tips Jars

At work we have two tip jars, posing an either or question, essentially just for customer amusement.  Today we had a new question:  Self-Reflection  :::  Denial.

…

I ponder this to myself, and its a rather difficult contemplative session.  I see myself stuck.  I find myself wanting to tip into the glass of self-reflection, but with my hand usually stuck in the cup of denial.

Eye Dropping Fact

Now tell me the truth: does it now weird anybody else out––does it now weird you out entirely––that the face that you see when you look in the mirror, is the face that everyone else sees?  Think about it, think deeply.  ––Think about the eyes you see.  Do not concern yourself with the fact that this is what you see, but with the fact that this is what everyone else sees.

Vulgarities of Human Speech

In ancient times, in Greek times, they used to put immense emphasis on the tonal facet of speech.  One of the greater grammatical aspects, now lost, was the particular tone, high or low etc, in which a word was spoken.  Such that what mattered was not just what you said, but how you said it.  Is this not a fantastical development in the view on speech? ––All the more fantastic in light of how we have receded from it, two thousand years later.  What you insinuated, in the words your spoke, was as important as what you said with the words you spoke.

Interesting, interesting, food for thought.

A Delineation of Kierkegaard’s Pairs

––For each pair, all the lefts are on the same side of the dialectical chain, and all the rights, respectively.

Human beings have a dialectical nature––human beings are a dialectical synthesis:

Physical     ::   Psychical
Temporal   ::   Eternal (unchanged)
Finite          ::   Infinite
External     ::   Internal

Synthesis has an essential singularity:

Outer or Inner

In accordance with singularity, person lives for either:

World         ::   Self

In accordance with what person lives for, they possess traits of:

Reflection ::   Passion

This duality, when put into categories, are categories of:

Esthetic     ::    Religious

The ethical task, which exists only for individuals is: the unifying of the esthetic and the religious.

This synthesis, when existent in the individual, has the traits of equal amounts of:

Comic        ::    Pathos
Negative   ::    Positive
Reflection ::    Passion

This combination of duality of traits can only exist within:

Subjectivity, which is inwardness.

This unification is the nature of the: subjective individual

The goal of the subjective individual is: the establishing of a lifeview (which is an “eternal happiness”)