While writing a comment to Ben about this and that, I managed to summarize my approach to philosophy and religion.
I mentioned my first philosophy professor, Father Kennedy, under whom I read phil. in Canada. His approach was to introduce us to a philosopher, study the system, evaluate, and see where problems still remained. He pointed to to the future answers we would be shortly coming to in the next philosopher, and thus, made us anticipate those answers in our own thinking ahead of time. In short, before we left Plato, we were anticipating Aristotle's responses.
The best type of learning is that where the student makes his own discoveries. I always try to stop short of summing things up in dogmatic form, such as God is everywhere, or God is in all of us, or God is all-powerful! I do not actually know what those statements mean.
No one needs my insights, but people can always use a helping hand. My writing should always be a friend nearby: if you have your car in the repair shop, I am going to give you a lift to the corner mechanic so that you may pick up your car and drive it home.
I let you off. I do not follow you around and push you over into the passenger seat and drive your car myself!
Too many religions do exactly that: plunk their big butts into the driver's seat, and drive. Then when you get home, they want money for having done so.
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4 comments:
Ach Montag, I never got much beyond what I found in CS Lewis's Narnia books. I read them to my children - but one of them went on to study philosophy at the very place where CS taught, as it happens, but despite this the arguments against Gawd seem to have been very persuasive. For those of us who lack a little in the learning department it can be very tempting to fall back on the 'God is in all of us' line. Not that I do. But sometimes, you know, one is tempted.
Hi, Signs! Good old CS. I actually was where Marshall McLuhan was, and he is a fellow of interest well beyond what we usually know of him.(Joyce Carol Oates was hanging around, too!)
"God is in all of us" is something we are tempted to say because we have heard it, read it, and learned it.
All that stuff comes from someone else, and I think we have to experience it ourselves. Then we can say whatever we please.
I'm beginning to understand what John Lennon meant when he sang: "God is a concept by which we measure our pain."
That is good. I think I get it. However, I don't think it means that that is the only function of the concept.
Maybe it is. I don't think of God as a concept, but my "concept of God" is actually pretty anemic...
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