On Faith - Part I: Theism Vs. Deism

                One of the subjects on which I have thought the most lately is faith, or rather it's foundations. I, myself, grew up in a region in Norway that is a part of what we call the Bible belt, which is made up by the most “Christian” regions, stretching from the south and following the coast north-east. I thus grew up in a Christian dominated community, and, naturally, I integrated Christianity into my life's philosophy. I have always had an open mind, always being ready to listen to and even adopt alien philosophies (ways to look at life), but when it came to religion, I was never able to do the same – for lack of trying. Not that I was not curious or interested, but it was unthinkable, by the denotation of the word, to  consider the values of other religions - as is the habit of virtually every religious faith. With hindsight, the only way not to waver in faith is to have a rather condescending approach to other religions, or agnosticism and atheism, for that matter. I was no exception.
                 But as adamant as I was, I now find myself having become an agnostic, by the intermediary of a deist, so something must have changed. In this first part, I will speak of how I went for Lutheranism, which was my former Christian sect, to deism.

 After having finished my primary education, I went to France to pursue the secondary, and it was there, mainly thanks to my literature teacher during the second year, that I made myself familiar with the philosophers of the Enlightenment, and I must say I felt inclined to their way of looking at religion. Rapidly summed up, they adhered to what is called deism, which is the belief in a god, or a divine entity as I prefer, as the creator of the world. A grand architect, as I believe the Freemasons have called it. One might ask where the difference in that with for example Christianity is, but it is fundamentally different by the fact that it doesn't really go any further. Monotheism, as my teacher explained it, is the belief in a (one) God, has declared himself (or itself), and that can be represented. The old man with the long white beard in the roof of the Sistine Chapel is an example of how Catholicism corresponds with the latter. Theism is the belief in a god that has declared himself, but that has its own nature – one that man cannot fathom. Islam is a good example of this, as it is seen as blasphemous even to try to imagine what he might look like (I find it interesting that they still refer to him as him). Deism, on the other hand is the belief in a divine entity as a creator, but that has not, in any way, made himself known. It is no more than a logical assumption, as in the words of Voltaire:

“I cannot imagine how the clockwork of the universe can exist without a clockmaker.”

As to the fact that he hasn't bothered to say hi, I will again quote Voltaire, this time in the words of a dervish from “Candide”:

“What does it matter,” said the dervish, “whether there is evil or good? When His Highness sends a ship to Egypt does he trouble himself whether the rats in the vessel are at their ease or not?”

It seems to me that it is a completely pretentious and, not in the least, egocentric thought to believe that God, whether it exists or not, occupies itself with us mere humans when there is a vastness of infinite space, and possibly many other worlds, in the universe.
                The words of Voltaire appealed to me, as, though I had always been a Christian out of obviousness, I have never really identified myself with Christianity's religious philosophy. What finally made me agree and adhere to deism were the words of, yet another time, Voltaire, put in the mouth of the eponymous personage of “L'Ingénu” (this is my own translation, as I could not find one for free: thou be’st warned):

“If there was one mere truth hidden in the heap of arguments that we have dwelled upon for all these centuries, we would have found it without doubt; and the universe would have at least agreed upon that. If this truth was necessary as the Sun is to the Earth, it would have shone as brilliantly as it. It is an absurdity, it is an outrage to the human race; it is an onset upon the Infinite and Supreme Being to say: There is an essential truth to Man, and God has hidden it.”

This in itself was not enough to make me change my religious philosophy, but it had already been weakened by a couple of questions that had arisen to my attention. During the same year, I read “Holy Blood, Holy grail”. One may refute their conclusions, but it is not the hypothesis the authors propose that made me think, but a number of observations they made, particularly about the Bible. 

            There seems to be a certain partiality to the Romans, which is far from justified. One of the first clues to this is the case of Pontius Pilate. He is portrayed as a rather kind leader, with whom one could sympathise. He did after all give the people of Jerusalem a chance to save Jesus, which they chose to ignore, by appealing to an Easter tradition of liberating a prisoner. First of all, historians have never found any evidence of such a tradition – the Bible is the only source, and historically, Pilate has never been known for being anything else than a tyrant; a corrupt politician taking bribes and misusing his power, even worsening the tyrannical pressure from Rome. It thus seems logical to assume that his portrayal in the Bible is unrealistic; even false. I would also like to add that the political situation in Judea, the lower administrative part of Palestine in the time of Christ, was an incredible tense and unstable one. The Roman government was a brutal and absolute one. When the Romans occupied Judea to take direct control, they executed 3'000 rebels without any form of judgement. A period of revolt and extreme political tension marked the coming of Christ, and it continued for another hundred years afterwards, culminating in the expulsion of all Jews in Judea by decree of Emperor Hadrian in 135 A.D.. The strange thing is that none of the Gospels give any impression or hint of this – it is even suggested that it was a time of peace, and that most citizens were content with the situation. The interpretation of the authors, which I support, is that all this has been done, wittingly or not, to shift the blame for the death of Christ away from the Romans – the Gospels were mostly written by Romans and for Romans after all (with the possible exception of the Gospels According to Matthew). I also wish to add that all “the other” early Christian texts, for Christianity had already divided itself into different “branches”, some believing Christ to be the son of God, others just a prophet, others again a mixture of both, have been severely repressed, so that there are no (present) rival interpretation of the religion. Christianity, which was to be the national religion of Rome by the decree of Emperor Constantine, would have seemed slightly less appealing to its people if they were blamed for the death of their saviour. It was thus much more ... strategic... to blame the Jews, who have been persecuted as “murderers of Christ” even in our time. Now, all this might seem a bit far-fetched, but there are other indications (I do not dare, nor think it is completely justified, to speak of proof, but then again, can one consider the Gospels, at all, to be accurate?). I already mentioned that the Bible has a rather kind portrayal of Pontius Pilate, who only reluctantly adheres to the crucifixion of Jesus. Jesus was, according to the Gospels preliminarily judged by the ‘Sanhedrin’, a council of 71 priests and scholars that functioned as the highest institution of Jewish law. In the synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke), Jesus was arrested the night before Good Friday. But this makes little sense, because the laws of the Jewish council forbade them to gather during Passover, even during the night. Also, if he had been judged by the Jews for blasphemy, why would they not have chosen stoning as the execution method? Apparently, they had the legal authority to give a death sentence, by stoning, so why they needed to bother Pilate at all seems strange. Crucifixion was besides a roman method of execution, reserved mainly (though not exclusively) for political prisoners – enemies of Rome. To sum up in the words of the authors of “Holy Blood, holy Grail”: “(...) Jesus was a victim of a Roman administration, Roman law, Roman judgement, Roman military power and a Roman Execution. Jesus was not crucified for crimes against Judaism, but for crimes against the Empire”. 
                There is other evidence that supports the idea of a more political figure than religious. At the time, there was a Jewish political, and, I am tempted to say, terrorist movement, the Zealots, that held significant support amongst the Jewish people, as they were bent on throwing the Romans out of Judea. At least one of his twelve disciples, Simon, was a Zealot, and several others; such as James, John, and Judas; at least sympathised with Zealot agenda, if they were not directly involved. Also, the term ‘Messiah’, of which ‘Christos’ is the Greek translation, simply means “the anointed one” and usually pertains a King. At the time of Jesus, the Messiah was meant to be a legitimate king, an unknown descendant from the kin of David, who was supposed to free his people from Roman oppression. The expectation of such a (war)leader attained around this time a proportion of unrest that developed into hysteria, and this continued even after the Death of Jesus. The rebellion in 66 A.D. that ended with the Romans sacking Jerusalem was caused by the Zealots stirring up the unrest with the pretext of the coming of the Messiah. Today, the expression signifies a divine saviour, but at the time, the addition of divine would have been seen upon as preposterous, even ridiculous. It was a politically charged title that was given to Jesus, and he became known as ‘Jesus Messiah” or ‘Jesus Christos’ in Greek, a, again, title that later was corrupted into a proper name, ‘Jesus Christ’. Historians are fairly certain that Jesus has existed, but the historical Jesus might not live completely up to the divine image he has been given posthumously.

               The problem with the Bible is that it is not accurate enough, nor impartial. It even contradicts itself recurrently. It is said that whatever point of view that one might be defending, you will be able to find something in the Bible that supports your theory. The Bible is used to defend women's rights in the Church - the right to take part of its higher hierarchy, and it is used to subjugate them (“Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded under obedience, as also saith the law. And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church”. I Corinthians 14:34-35, the New Testament). My favourite example is from Leviticus 24: 19-21, in the Old Testament: “¹⁹Anyone who maims another shall suffer the same injury in return: ²⁰fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth; the injury inflicted is the injury to be suffered. ²¹One who kills an animal shall make restitution for it; but one who kills a human being shall be put to death”. But my focus is on the New Testament, and its partiality towards Romans and possible inaccuracy, even falsification. The Bible might be said not to be written by God, but inspired, though one would think that divine inspiration might not make such manipulative texts, and so many different versions of them (again, the Gospels we know were chosen between many others). But even by ignoring all that, in the end, I just do not feel that I can trust a document that has been handed down from generation to generation for 2’000 years. When we can't seem to find out who or what really killed John F. Kennedy, a mere fifty years ago, how the heck can we ever be sure of what really happened or did not happen over two millennia back in time? I just do not trust humanity enough to take our forefathers' (apparent) word for God's existence and interest. And when I cannot trust the Bible, the very founding stone of Christianity, how can I trust Christianity itself? I did believe that there is a god, or a divine entity - I could not see any other logical solution to the cosmological problem (the universe's very existence), but it did not have to be the Christian god. Deism was just more appealing.


"The more I study religions the more I am convinced that Man has never worshipped anything but himself", Richard Burton

American History X - An Analyse of Blame and Social Decline

                I just saw American History X again - I can hear the end-music in the background as I write this, and I realised that this might actually be one of my favourite films. It might be that I am touched by the cinematography I just witnessed, as it is very well made, but for me, at least in this case, it gives me all the more reason to embrace that feeling. As I said, it is very well made. It is a non-linear film; there is a main dynamic to the film, of course, but it uses retrospectives frequently and varies much in what past it shows. Other than what the film tells, it also varies in the way it tells it. There is a narrator, but he is non-dominant and is only used at certain, as I see it, strategic points, where it gives necessary distance and perspective to what is happening. I find this to be important, as an overuse of a narrator can quickly cause irritation to the viewer. I will use Titanic as an example of this, for the record not one of my favourite films, where I find its use of the story-teller to ruin the dynamic of the story, pulling the public violently away from the scenes they immerse themselves into, as the film is quite adept at invoking emotional attention (as are all Hollywood blockbusters). Other than that, the film fulfils the one criterion I have to recognise a film as important: it takes up (social) issues, in this case, racial hatred, anti-Semitism and social inequality. And I have only one word to describe the way it tells its story and brings forth its message: Powerful. The film is extremely powerful.

                I have two scenes in the film that I like particularly well, and that I believe are very well written. I will not explain the context of the scenes, nor introduce the characters, as I am writing this for people who have already seen the film. The first one is about one and a half hour into it, towards the end of a half-hour long retrospective, telling the story of Derrick’s time in prison. It is where he talks to Sweeney, the principal of Daniel’s school, and where he realises the reality of what his life’s work has been. Now, one would expect a Hollywood film to have the principal give Derrick some sort of speech - preaching the wrongness of what he has been doing, making him see and acknowledge the facts through a faultless argumentation; inspiring him and the audience with him. But it was that sort of thing that got him to where he was in the first place. Inspiring, convincing and persuasive speeches manipulated him to embrace the hatred he was originally happily oblivious to. What reaches Derrick in the end is but a simple question. And by reflecting over it, it forces him to see, and for the first time, regret what he has been doing: “Has anything you’ve done made your life better?” The anger had been consuming him, making him blame everyone and everything for what had happened to him and his family, and forcing him to take his anger out on African Americans and Jews, as were those he was holding his personal vendetta against. In the words of Sweeney, describing himself having gone through a similar situation: “There was a moment when I used to blame everything and everyone for all the pain and suffering and vile things that happened to me; that I saw happen to my people. I used to blame everybody, blame white people, blame society, blame God! I didn’t get no answers because I was asking the wrong questions. You have to ask the right question”.
                The tirade of Sweeney goes well with the main theme of the film, at least with how I see it. It seems to be about who is to be blame for what, following the protagonists through their war against whom and what they choose to blame for their problems. When society is in decline, it is much easier to single out ethnic groups and minorities and blame them, thus having a focus point for all the anger and frustration one might feel. A scapegoat can be useful, but in the end, it helps only  in making us ignore and forget the complexity by which a society really works, making everyone except those in power mere  pawns in the great game of society (though in the end, they too are only products of the same world). The trick is, as I believe it, to break free from the determinism of the game by gaining social and personal conscience, as Derrick does in the scene described in the preceding paragraph. But in the end, can we ever truly be the masters of our own fates? This leads us to my other favourite scene: the last one. In this scene, Daniel is killed by the very same type of blind hatred and violence that he has just gained conscience of and broken free from, but not by the hands of anyone of his former peers. His killer is a black gang-member he stood up to in the beginning of the film by, literally, standing up to him without swaying, without saying anything. All he did was to stare at him until he went away. In a way, he is killed by himself, or by the incarnation of his former self. The black kid is subjugated to the same hate and frustration the Daniel himself used to cultivate, though in his case culminating in him killing another human being for not having showed him the respect and fear he felt he was entitled to, and that he needed to gain the respect of his peers. The killing thus acquires two symbolic meanings: The first one being the “autocide” of Derrick - his symbolic former self having become his bane; the second one being that whatever we do, our fates will always be subjected to the randomness of society.

“Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared with our own private opinion. What a man thinks of himself, that is which determines, or rather indicates, his fate.” Henry David Thoreau (my italics)

The Meaning of Life (in General)

                I ask myself ‘what is the meaning of life’, but not with the intention of finding my place in the universe. I have already found mine, or at least think I have, but that is irrelevant. The question is not intended for me, but for us. What is our place here in the universe, and what should we do to make it count? I will be excluding any sort of religious view, as I believe that it is up to the individual, in this case on a macroscopic scale (the individual would be society as a whole), to find this for itself. Having a god tell us this seems simply too easy. And I believe that at least Christianity does not offer any long-term goal – just moral guidelines to help us on the way. No, it seems to me that we have to find it for ourselves.
                But what should we aim at then? Universal happiness or equality? Both? Maybe the universal knowledge and adaptation of the ideals of the Zeitgeist Movement? While these all seem like noble purposes, I have different thoughts about the matter. Communism, and here I mean the original meaning of the word, depicting a society where everything is shared, seems to be a beautiful and romanticised idea. But that is all it is. To my understanding, in such a society, everyone would do what they could, get what they need to live, and everybody would be equals. These are indeed noble ideals, but they do not suffice for me. The goals of Communism, and here I mean the various movements, has never been described to me as anything else than the attempt to adopt and “unversify” these ideals, but what I wonder is what happens next. Some variations, and here I refer to what is called primitive communism, suggest that the easiest, and best, way to obtain such a society would be to go back to a pre-agricultural model:

“In a primitive communist society, all able bodied persons would have engaged in obtaining food, and everyone would share in what was produced by hunting and gathering. There would be almost no private property, other than articles of clothing and similar personal items, because  primitive society produced no surplus; what was produced was quickly consumed. The few  things that existed for any length of time (tools, housing) were held communally. There would have been no state.” (Source: Wikipedia)

My point is that such a society, where the only goal seems to be the sustenance of human life and, I admit, happiness, would be pointless in itself. For any being that has achieved awareness, the simple act of only securing its continuation is unrewarding, meaningless. For what is there to live for if all we are doing is to continue to live?
                For myself, I believe in the advancement of the human race, both in the domains of medicine, science, philosophy and technology. I believe and support research and actions that better our situation on our earth, and that allow us to grow as a species.
                We have had an enormous advancement during the last century in all of the fields mentioned above; we have much, much more than quadrupled our quantity, and stand now in the middle of a global regionalisation, where countries grow more tightened together. I believe that the meaning of life as an aware species is to continue this development, and to take it to the next step, whether that proves to be abolishing national borders and establishing an international government; letting advancements in robotics and artificial intelligence make our day-to-day safer and easier; furthering social and ethnical equality and distributing better the goods of our society; or maybe even colonising and terraforming new worlds. Whatever we do, it is advancement that provides us with purpose, and I would like for us to do so, one step at a time.

"For NASA, space is still a high priority", George Walker Bush

Sheet Music and Music Blog

        I have been playing a lot of piano lately, and while being fed up with deciphering Zelda songs on my own, I happened to stumble upon an amazing blog by a Californian musician, Aivi Tran. According to herself, she is a self-taught, school-refined and freelance composer, who has "soft spot for video game music". She is a great pianist, who is adept at transcribing music to sheet. I found in her blog a real treasure of sheet music from some of my favourite video games, such as Zelda, Super Mario Galaxy and Final Fantasy. She's also added demonstrative videos for most of it, and I must say that her level is far above mine (though that does not say much, as I have never pretended to have more than an acceptable level). It is just a shame that most of it is a bit above my level, so even after an eight-hour marathon of Piano playing, I still have a long way to go before mastering pieces such as "Castle" and "Zora's Domain", both from Zelda.
       I have taken the liberty of adding the first page of "Zora's Domain", just to show how amazingly complicated it turned out to be. For the rest, I highly recommend visiting her blog, Waltz for Luma (I intend to ask her what it means).



Ps. I found out what Luma means" Beside being a plant and a species of tree, it is the star-shaped thingies from Super Mario Galaxy. You can see one flying to the right of Mario by exploring the latter link.

A qui la Faute?

I removed the poem I had put in the left corner, so I'll just add it here as a post:

Victor Hugo (1802-1885)
(recueil : L’Année Terrible)

-  Tu viens d’incendier la Bibliothèque?

- Oui.
J’ai mis le feu là.

- Mais c’est un crime inouï !
Crime commis par toi-même, infâme !
Mais tu viens de tuer le rayon de ton âme !
C’est ton propre flambeau que tu viens de souffler !
Ce que ta rage impie et folle ose brûler,
C’est ton bien, ton trésor, ta dot, ton héritage
Le livre, hostile au maître, est à ton avantage.
Le livre a toujours pris fait et cause pour toi.
Une bibliothèque est un acte de foi
Des générations ténébreuses encore
Qui rendent dans la nuit témoignage à l’aurore.
Quoi ! dans ce vénérable amas  des vérités,
Dans ces chefs-d’œuvre plains de foudre et de clartés,
Dans ce tombeau des temps devenu répertoire,
Dans les siècles, dans l’homme antique, dans l’histoire,
Dans le passé, leçon qu’épelle l’avenir,
Dans ce qui commença pour ne jamais finir,
Dans les poètes ! quoi, dans ce gouffre des bibles,
Dans le divin monceau des Eschyles terribles,
Des Homères, des  jobs, debout sur l’horizon,
Dans Molière, Voltaire et Kant, dans la raison,
Tu jettes, misérable, une torche enflammée !
De tout l’esprit humain tu fais de la fumée !
As-tu donc oublié que ton libérateur,
C’est le livre ? Le livre est là sur la hauteur ;
Il luit ; Parce qu’il brille et qu’il les illumine,
Il détruit l’échafaud, la guerre, la famine
Il parle, plus d’esclave et plus de paria.
Ouvre un livre. Platon, Milton, Beccaria.
Lis ces prophètes, Dante, ou Shakespeare, ou Corneille
L’âme immense qu’ils ont en eux, en toi s’éveille ;
Ébloui, tu te sens le même homme qu’eux tous ;
Tu deviens en lisant grave, pensif et doux ;
Tu sens dans ton esprit tous ces grands hommes croître,
Ils t’enseignent ainsi que l’aube éclaire un cloître,
À mesure qu’il plonge en ton cœur plus avant ,
Leur chaud rayon t’apaise et te fait plus vivant ;
Ton âme interrogée est prête à leur répondre ;
Tu te reconnais bon, puis meilleur, tu sens fondre,
Comme la neige au feu, ton orgueil, tes fureurs,
Le mal, les préjuges, les rois, les empereurs !
Car la science en l’homme arrive la première.
Puis vient la liberté. Toute cette lumière,
C’est à toi comprends donc, et s’est toi qui l’éteins !
Les buts rêvés par toi sont par le livre atteints.
Le livre en ta pansée entre, il défait en elle
Les liens que l’erreur à la vérité mêle,
Car toute conscience est un nœud gordien.
Il est ton médecin, ton guide, ton gardien.
Ta haine, il la guérit ; ta démence, il te l’ôte.
Voilà ce que tu perds, hélas, et par ta faute !
Le livre est ta richesse à toi ! C’est le savoir,
Le droit, la vérité, la vertu, le devoir,
Le progrès, la raison dissipant tout délire.
Et tu détruis cela, toi !

- Je ne sais pas lire.

Does Karma Apply?

I like the idea behind Karma. I like the thought that there is a balance between good and evil in the world, that we have to balance the good we have with good deeds if not to suffer the repercussions of balance - that we reap what we sow.
                But even though I like the principle, I do not believe in it.  There are far too many who suffer in the world, without having done anything to do so justly. Earthquake in Haiti, 140’000 deaths; despotism in Uganda, 500’000; conflicts in Darfur, over 300’000 deaths. The only faults that could have been done are those of Mother Nature or our leaders, because nothing could justify this. And there are far too many profiteers. People who use the power they have, whether financial or political, solely for themselves and their own. The Russian oligarchs enriched themselves by using a situations of massive reforms, corruption and legal anarchy to do so – on the expense of the general public. For a newer example, millions of people all over the world lost their job during the financial crisis. But when the American government paid up to save different industries in the US, to give the very same people that cause the mess money to save it, Wall Street banks and firms still used an major part of the money to give their CEOs and leaders huge bonuses.
                All of these examples seems to indicate that Karma, or any similar “law of nature”, does not exist. At least not on an individual level. For though many individuals suffer pointlessly, I would like to believe that there are some sort of general balance. There is war in this world of ours, but there is also peace. And even though society seems to be going downwards, with tension building up in the Middle-East, with global financial crisis et cetera; we are making huge advances within medicine and technology, and more and more people get to appreciate the fruits of civilisation and development. I might only see this because I am looking for it – one finds what one searches for, but I still chose to believe it. Because the world will sometimes look like it is going straight to Hell, but still: life goes on.

“If you are going through Hell, keep walking!” Sir Winston Churchill

A Qui la Faute

        "A Qui la Faute?" is a poem written by Victor Hugo, one of the greatest authors and intellectuals of France. It is also one of my favorite poems, and that is why I have decided to put it here in my blog.
        The poem is a part of the Collection L'Année Terrible which basically translates as "the terrible year". The collection itself retraces the events of 1870 in France, a year where the country was ravaged by a war against Prussia, as well as a civil war in Paris. Hugo himself also lost a son this year.
        The poem in itself, apart from its XIX century French, is not a very complex poem. The title of the poem could be translated as "who is to blame?" and is a sort of a response to a revolt that resulted in the burning of the public library of Paris, in which thousands of books where lost. It is written as a sort of a dialog between the narrator and an imaginary rebel, and it opens with the former asking the latter if he was the one that started the fire. When the rebel confirms, the narrator launches a long tirade, in which he claims the book, to which the library is the guardian, to be his "treasure, dowry and heritage" that makes of the night the "testimony of the dawn" and that "destroys the scaffold, war and famine". The book is the light that illuminates the past and the future. Alas, when he finishes his tirade by "... and you want to destroy all that!", the rebel simply responds by "I can't read".
        There are several reasons as to why I like this poem. Firstly, it was the poem that made me discover Victor Hugo, who has later become one of my favorite authors. I like his way of writing - his descriptions are among the best - and I like his way of forming his phrases. When I study French, I tend to fancy a rich and very precise language, and such a language is unfortunately rare in today's France. In addition, the subject treated is one that I find interesting. If asked to sum up the "plot" in one phrase, I would say that it dealt with the problems of ignorance, and who is to blame for it (as the title indicates). Is it the rebel's fault, whose actions were behind the fire, or is it the ignorance which in a way was behind the actions that is to blame? And in the case of the latter, who is to blame for the ignorance? I believe that one is to be made responsible for one's own actions, as one is the person that decides whether to carry them out or not. But I also know and believe that the society, incarnated by the government, is responsible of the forming, teaching its citizens, something it has clearly failed to do in this poem. The criticism of the French society of the time is thus strong in V. Hugo's poem, and he reminds us that there are other forces then ourselves that can be said to be behind our actions.