One of the little noticed drawbacks of the Judeo-Christian-Muslim tradition is that it did away with those lesser gods who look after such matters as crops and tides. I have been feeling the loss of these lesser gods lately because of a series of problems I have been having which in a better time would have fallen under the eye of the god of glass. First, when I took the bad fall about which I have written, my IPhone 5S suffered a cracked glass screen. The phone still works – these are remarkable objects, after all – but tiny pieces of glass are falling off and since it is now very old I have decided to upgrade to a new phone. Ordinarily, this would be no problem but I am so leery of entering any commercial establishment because of the virus that I am unwilling to go to the local Verizon store. Apparently I can buy a new phone, have it shipped to me, and then sign in on it and get all my old data which is (who knew?) stored in the cloud. This would be as nothing if I were 60 years younger, but alas I am not.
Meanwhile, the slight ding in the windshield of my ancient
car has now mushroomed into a crack so large that I dare not drive the car.
Naturally, this happened on the weekend (I will get to the question of weekend
gods later) so until tomorrow I cannot even find out whether the local Toyota
dealership can replace the windshield and will do so.
Now in the good old days before the Old Testament, I would
simply have offered up a newly slaughtered pig or some such to the god of glass
who would, I assume, have answered my prayers. But nowadays either I must go it
alone or I must direct my plea to the Infinite Immortal Eternal Lord of the Universe, and it just does not seem right to bother Him (or Her or It) with so
trivial a matter. Oh, the Catholic Church has Saints for this and Saints for
that, but Saints are just ordinary people who got lucky and bypassed purgatory.
They are not really Gods and what I need right now is a god of glass.
Ah, give me that real old time religion!
Safelite repair; Safelite replace – order online here:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.safelite.com/ps-brand?gclid=CjwKCAiAlrSPBhBaEiwAuLSDUIVmXXmV_E6tRyY7e398YW5P0w7F6DCmTXJRRe5gas0e-m1qYpuryhoCe9EQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds
Or you can call upon Clarence, the angel who acquired his wings in 1946, to help you.
Watch CBS News Sunday morning: “The Billions Dollar Question”
Abigail Disney, the grand-daughter of Roy Disney, criticizes the excessive accumulation of wealth, and a philosopher of ethics from the University of Utrecht promotes limitarianism.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-billion-dollar-question-can-you-be-too-rich/
The freezing water probably did in your windshield. Which is why insurance companies like you to fix the small dings; they will usually pay for a fixer's house call. You should mail order a new phone from Apple (since you have a university email you can probably use their higher store and save a few bucks). You don't even have to get the latest model. The previous model will be a gigantic improvement and much less expensive.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.apple.com/iphone-12/key-features/
ReplyDeleteYou can order a new iPhone direct from Apple.com shipped to your house and added to your cell plan automatically.
ReplyDeleteAs for the windshield, there are people who can also come to your house and do the replacement right there, if it isn’t a really new vehicle with all kinds of extraneous technology in the windshield.
Both of these I guys one might also call “first world problems “ !
https://www.christiancentury.org/article/first-person/i-want-talk-thomas-merton-about-race
Professor Wolff, I assume you are vaccinated and boosted so that is a plus. Now If you can get your hands on an N95 mask or already have one, use that and put a regular surgical mask over it. That should keep you safe. But,the safer option is to have a new phone sent, as you already indicated.
ReplyDeleteAs for your car windshield, I would call insurance company and ask for windshield replacement companies. You might make a case to them to come and pick up your car and fix it for you given your circumstances. I would like to think some individual realizing that he or she is talking to an eminent Professor of Philosophy would jump at the chance. I know I would!
Tsk, tsk. Have we forgotten what Sundays are for? https://youtu.be/7rtji4wRQBk
ReplyDeleteIt's been a fine, fine weekend for football-related schadenfreude. :)
If all else fails, try praying to Saint Jude--the patron saint of lost causes and the impossible. He'll fix you right up.
ReplyDeleteWhen life is going great, the idea of death, which is always lurking in the background, is disconcerting to say the least.
ReplyDeleteWhen, however, life is beset by tribulations and disease that come with old age, the idea of death becomes more tolerable because it can be seen as a welcome relief. In that way, God aids the transition from this world to the next, i.e., these tribulations are a blessing in disguise.
As an aside, I was reading an article yesterday in the Times of Israel by American Rabbi Yakov Saacks which claims that atheists don't actually exist. (People are always worshiping God at zero or more removes.). Here's a link to the article:
Does atheism exist?
Ahmed Fares,
ReplyDeleteI don't want to insult people's religious beliefs, but I also want to put in my two pence.
I believe that concerning an all powerful God that monotheism is the wisest choice, agnosticism is unsatisfactory, & atheism can never be proven correct.
Here is my reasoning:
(1) Atheism can never be proven correct. For if an all powerful God hides himself from mankind for all eternity, men will never truly know if God doesn't really exist because of this simple possibility.
(2) Agnosticism is half as satisfying as Atheism because one day in the future you could be proven wrong (about it being impossible to prove that God exists) like at a possible event like a Judgement Day where everyone is gathered for God's judgement. (And since in this universe all things are possible, so is a Judgement Day in the future.)
& (3) Believing in a supreme God is the wisest choice because one day you might be proven correct, like at a judgement event.
Of course, if God is a God that hides himself (for all eternity) you may ask yourself what is the difference in advantage from being an atheist or a believer? Of course, if God always hides himself from men that doesn't mean he doesn't rewards or punishes men based on their ethical works for their fellow men throughout life and after death & the offerings or even testimony they give to God or to their fellow men. Because of these possibilities it would seem better to be an agnostic than an atheist, and a monotheist than an agnostic. (Blaise Pascal's Wager still applies.)
And although I probably will get a lot of attacks because of what I just posted that is the price I must pay for giving my two pence.
Warmed-over Pascal.
ReplyDeleteActually, Isaiah 45:15.
ReplyDelete"Agnosticism is half as satisfying as Atheism..."
ReplyDeleteI meant half more.
That piece by Saacks in Ahmed's comment was not what I was expecting. I wanted to appreciate it, but it was excessively strange and sloppy - e.g., "Hitler was a pantheist who believed in the god of nature. He therefore believed in the superiority of one race over another." The insertion of "therefore" makes for a jarring non-sequitur; I would've left it out.
ReplyDeleteAlso - a minor point not really related to the article - belief in a god need not be accompanied by belief in human immortality. You can have the first without the second (e.g. Aristotle, some Judaism, arguably?); and you can have the second without the first (e.g. John McTaggart!). But obviously, the two tend to go hand-in-hand, as part of a "package deal."
As for the claim, "You implicitly believe in God, even though you think you're an atheist" - I'm not sure what to make of this sort of argumentation in general. It can be pretty interesting, IMO, but also, it can easily come off as irritating sophistry. It seems to belong to the same family as, "There are no selfless acts," or, "It is impossible to voluntarily choose evil," or even, "It is impossible to say anything completely false." (Maybe I'm all over the place with these examples, but as a casual impression, I get a common flavor.)
I think an argument that there are no theists sounds equally promising. It'd be based on the impossibility of believing in anything so perfect, transcendent, and supremely incomprehensible as God - "belief" being the operative word, taken to mean the sort of "mundane" cognitive act characteristic of our limited, imperfect subject-hood. Perhaps the self-professed theist on this view is as illogically and inadvertently "blasphemous" as the self-professed atheist would apparently be on a Saacks-style view. (Very loosely and ironically similar would be Nietzsche's remark, "There was only one Christian, and he died on the cross.")
re: the letter "h", i.e., the aspirate
ReplyDelete“BREATHING HIS NAME INTO ABRAHAM Originally, Abraham's name was Abram (Gen. 17:1). After God confirmed His covenant to him, God inserted the fifth letter of the Hebrew alphabet, a letter in His own sacred name, into Abram's name making the name Abraham. When you pronounce ABRAHAM you can hear the breathing sound of the letter hei (pronounced "hey") inserted into Abraham's name. Abraham's wife, Sarah, was formerly known as Sarai (Gen. 16:1), until God confirmed a covenant to Abraham in Genesis 17. God inserted the letter hei (H) into Sarai's name making it Sarah! Once again, we hear the breathing sound inserted into the names of Sarah and Abraham. Symbolically, God was breathing His name into this couple so a child could be born to them in their old age. God's Breath brought new life.”
— Perry Stone, Breath of the Holies
In Sufi doctrine, the letter "h" is one of the Names of Allah, which fits in with what is quoted above. That means that from the time a child is born, they being to breathe the Name of God. So while a person can choose to not believe in God, they can't choose to not glorify God.
"There was only one Christian, and he died on the cross." —Nietzsche
The Bible says:
"And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience;" —Romans 5:3 (KJV)
To glory means to rejoice. I've never seen a Christian rejoicing in tribulations. Mostly, they just whine and complain. That's not to say they don't exist, it's just that I've never seen one.
"I've never seen a Christian rejoicing in tribulations. Mostly, they just whine and complain."
ReplyDeleteI admit that I am a Christian that only whines and complains.
But for knowledge of Christians that don't whine and complain there is a good book by Eusubius called the History of the Church.
Also, this book:
https://www.amazon.com/Golden-Legend-Selections-Jacobo-Voragine/dp/0140446486/ref=mp_s_a_1_6?crid=3RX49WWRVGS4H&keywords=the+golden+legend+jacobus+de+voragine&qid=1643063556&sprefix=the+golden+legend%2Caps%2C220&sr=8-6
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