RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,190
(pure liberty)
I once read that 'Atheism
belongs to religious belief
as the candlesnuffer belongs
to the candle.' Which is a way
of saying - I suppose - that
the two are so intertwined that
they both, in their ways, depend
on each other. It's a really hard
ball to field, if one is playing
that game. A peculiar sort of
atheism rules now, one by
which humans seem to profess
that they have 'better' wisdom
than to abide by all, or any,
of that silly, old stuff. In fact,
a belief now in the validity of
the world and the 'attainable'
realities it offers us, in the
guises of sex, entertainment,
possessions, riches, goals and
'places' to be attained, is such
as to be called, this new-atheism,
as in itself a sort of secular, now,
counter-fundamentalism, and one
which reserves its scorn for the
unrefined notion of God. The
primitive manufacturer. The
Big-Instigator.
-
When I walked the streets of
NYC, it often seemed that along
each block there were at least four
places of 'worship' - whether a
temple, a church, a mission, some
sort of 'cathedral' and/or a form
of church office. There were even
those specialized churches, favored
by one group or another. 'The Little
Church Around the Corner,' for the
theater and acting crowd. The mighty
majesty of something like St. Patrick's
or St. Bartholomew's. More downtown,
at the confluence of Broadway, Fifth,
Aves, and 10th Street, etc, - that
general area - there were any number
of old churches that bespoke a once
glamorous and tedious NYC of duty,
work, and heavy belief; or at least
a pretentious form of all that for the
advancement of early NY society's
social needs and status and placement.
Most all of that has disappeared like
a bum's sidewalk spit, but places
like the Church of the Transfiguration,
and Grace Church, two mention
but two, live on - inhabiting some
ghostly presence of themselves and
their older ways in the midst of today's
pestilence of erotic, demanding, and
parading demonstrations of hip, cool,
societal irony in the face of a vast,
one-sex operation of life and being.
As if to proclaim 'We Are All Atheists
Now!' and that's our new religion.
It all leaves me nowhere.
-
Social Marxism is vividly cogent,
while 'Christianity' or the versions
of it left, is militantly opaque. Thomas
Aquinas, recall, 'did not see God the
Creator as some sort of mega-manufacturer,'
or cosmic chief executive officer, but a
far more abstract and impersonal 'worker'
of things; or maybe 'worker of things
out,' which is a sort of nifty job to have,
with few repercussions for failures such
as Dodo Birds, the human appendix, or
cleft palates for babies. 'He's not even
what we imagine as the Genesis Creator,
because Aquinas thought it not not
particularly matter in what order God
created things.' But this bodiless entity
sustains our existence in the condition
of the possibility of any such entity
whatsoever, and by not being a part of
any entity (him)self, is not to be
reckoned up alongside other things.
Aquinas believed we can only talk
about God indirectly, through analogy.
The Jewish philosopher (who much
influenced Aquinas), took a more
severe line and asserted that it was
impossible to know God by assigning
(Him) human attributes. ['Silence is
praise to thee,' Maimonides wrote,
quoting from Psalm 65.
-
You see, a human never thrives. It needs,
and somehow seeks, misery. That factor
represents a large portion of most lives;
we no sooner get over one thing, than we
are fearfully onto the next dire proposition
- In the same manner that we may now
view, say, 'Covid' over, the usual voices
continue blatting about second and third
waves, newer, deadly variants still to be
lurking, schools vulnerable, and the
whole race-track round to be started
anew. Meanwhile, the fears of yesterday,
already faded, become as cast-off as a
Walmart mask, which, three months ago,
was one of Life's vital necessities. Where
was this 'God?' Always masked? Or finally
unmasked? dark Ages? Black Death? The
Plague? Smallpox? All those raging fevers
of yore? All we ever do is thrive on lies.
-
For Maimonides and Aquinas, God is
not, was never, needily parental, as today's
evangelical crowd would present it, but,
instead, was superbly self-sufficient. 'God
fashioned us just for the fun of it - He
is not neurotically possessive of us. He is
the power that allows us to be ourselves;
He is pure liberty.'
-
I'm not sure where we go with any of this;
never have been and can't see how I would
ever be. But I do figure it slightly annoying -
and paradoxical - to have grown up in an
era, or a century-set of ideas - that held
to me, and all of us ('peer group en masse,'
I guess), such a miserable pinata of demands
and rules, must-do's and not, through which
we were to somehow become purified, and
righted, and redeemed, and saved. Atheist,
or religious fanatic, I sure hope all of
that is over.
No comments:
Post a Comment