HAPPY BIRTHDAY ALEX B!

posted by Tae-Yeoun Keum   [11:01 PM]

I'm so sorry - I severely miscalculated the time difference - what I meant to say yesterday plus or minus half a day was,

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BRYAN!

to compensate, I say it again:

HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY BRYAN!

posted by Tae-Yeoun Keum   [4:05 AM]

In the past ten minutes I've caught up on the past month's discussion, and regretted the lost time. My understanding of YHWH (remember the tetragrammaton) is incomplete and not very healthy. It seems like a sort of disease. Even so, here goes. First, I want to proceed by a different path in describing reality. N.T. Wright suggested in one of his works that narrative is much more fundamental to worldview than philosophy/theology. I would go further and say that some worldviews, especially the theistic one, are inexpressible and incomprehensible except through narrative. At least for me. I share in Tae-Yeoun's faith (really it seems too obvious to require faith) that literature allows to experience perspectives we would otherwise never understand. Mainly though, I am talking about the big stories, metanarratives. This could be the belief of much of America that Jesus will soon appear and push Beverly Hills into Silicon Valley (an expression of contempt for an elite). Or the story of Oedipus (there’s no way I'm going to try to state it in 'philosophical' terms). Both of these have a hold on certain groups and betray key aspects of their worldviews. They even seem at times to create worldviews. To describe god’s actions is easier and more sensible than describing his character, just as discussions of evolutionary history are the quickest way to understand the the darwinist outlook. So when I talk about what god I believe in, I want to tell you a story about him.
For nearly a year I have been haunted by one tale from the Torah. Moses has just been at the burning bush and is about to return from exile.
It is in Exodus chapter 4 of my bible.

19And the LORD said unto Moses in Midian, Go, return into Egypt: for all the men are dead which sought thy life.
20And Moses took his wife and his sons, and set them upon an ass, and he returned to the land of Egypt: and Moses took the rod of God in his hand.
21And the LORD said unto Moses, When thou goest to return into Egypt, see that thou do all those wonders before Pharaoh, which I have put in thine hand: but I will harden his heart, that he shall not let the people go.
22And thou shalt say unto Pharaoh, Thus saith the LORD, Israel is my son, even my firstborn:
23And I say unto thee, Let my son go, that he may serve me: and if thou refuse to let him go, behold, I will slay thy son, even thy firstborn.
24And it came to pass by the way in the inn, that the LORD met him, and sought to kill him.
25Then Zipporah took a sharp stone, and cut off the foreskin of her son, and cast it at his feet, and said, Surely a bloody husband art thou to me.
26So he let him go: then she said, A bloody husband thou art, because of the circumcision.
27And the LORD said to Aaron, Go into the wilderness to meet Moses. And he went, and met him in the mount of God, and kissed him.

(It is really necessary that you read all of the Moses material previous to that and all of the narrative on Jacob. Hopefully, though, this snippet will suffice)

This passage begins with YHWH's seemingly ironic statement that no one in Egypt wants to kill Moses. However, YHWH himself seeks to kill Moses. I do not think we can assume He would have been unhappy if his intent had been realized. This vision of a murderous god has possessed me. It excites in me an ambivalent feeling, at once YES and NO. It is a god I sense to be a real but fear, a god who may really be responsible for this beautiful and terrifying and banal world.
This passage comes immediately after the dialogue, argument really, at the burning bush where Moses tries to make YHWH disclose his name. The physical struggle and the contention over the name both recall Jacob's struggle with the angel when he was about to return from his exile (I remember Jacob discussing this once during seminar). The God of these early books of the Torah seems to be one violently involved with his most devout followers. Such involvement suggests that the Fall was a very, very serious event, one which 'original sin' does not adequately describe. It seems that these men and their god have been in battle since that moment.
Of couse this picture of god does not resemble Dostoevsky’s illuminating 'image of the Russian christ' or any other god much worshipped by civilized people or TASPers. Though I have yet to locate this image in the gospels, perhaps it is there. Jesus came to bring the sword that would turn father against son. When he spoke of his kingdom he said 'the violent will bear it away.' When Moses arrived at the inn and Jacob camped on the Jabbok, they found themselves at the edge of that eden kingdom. In return from a common exile they received YHWH's violent welcome.

So...for one year I have been stopped before that story, unable to proceed in meditation on any other object. As I said, I hold narratives to be the preferable way of ordering and expressing our understanding of the world, or 'experience'. We must choose the one that does the best job for us. Since we can step out of ourselves in reading it is always possible to exchange one's outlook, or narrative, for one that makes better sense of experience. At this moment, I am still trying to understand this particular tale and the type of god and men it describes. It works in me like the seed of an eccentric faith.

posted by Matthew Schmitz   [8:49 PM]

ny times review of 'primo'.

posted by Tae-Yeoun Keum   [6:17 AM]

So, I figure Snape loved Lily, and that's why Dumbledore trusts his disloyalty to Riddel, and that R.A.B. refers to Regulus.

Has anyone else noticed that the Ministry of Magic is not at all Democratic with absolutly no seperation of branches of the government (and no congress of any sort)? Also, there is only one major Newspaper, heavily influenced by the hand of the State! ha-

posted by Adrian   [7:36 PM]

I'm going to be in New York from Friday to Sunday with some friends. If anyone is around the city this weekend, please give me a call!
(651) 983-3379

posted by Eunice   [11:40 AM]

Also, yesterday, two years ago, St. Monas descended unto the ADPi house and showed us the light. Happy belatd St. Monas's Day.

posted by Tae-Yeoun Keum   [3:39 AM]

Lately I'd begun to lose my faith in reading. The ultimate last straw was when I got to Book 2 of Dead Souls, which I'd purchased in January for the exclusive purpose of being able to say I've been where Russian novels began. The premise of the book was a poetic idea, and the writing in Book 1 was so brilliant, albeit plotless, but by the time I got to Book 2 I was completely lost amidst the footnoted ellipses with the translators saying, oh yeah, here the manuscript burned off, or, here Gogol's handwriting's illegible, or, an entire page went missing and we've lost track of the chapter numbers so this chapter will just be called One of the Later Chapters. The last sentence was unfinished and footnoted.

I emailed a friend who's read it before, and he said:

Uh, you shouldn't have read Book 2, kid! Gogol never actually finished it -- well, he did but he burned the draft in a fit of despair. Books 2 are always reconstructions and translators' attempts to show how much they think they know Gogol...

Sorry you went through the whole thing --

That was it. Pushing myself to read literature had no point anymore, and I was ready to run to the nearest foreign bookstore and grab the new Harry Potter or something.

Then, another friend had to remind me:

There did not have to be a moral. She need only show separate minds, as alive as her own, struggling with the idea that other minds were equally alive. It wasn't only wickedness and scheming that made people unhappy, it was confusion and misunderstanding; above all, it was a failure to grasp the simple truth that other people are as real as you. And only in a story could you enter these different minds and show how they had an equal value. That was the only moral a story need have.

- Ian McEwan, Atonement.

I love this man.

posted by Tae-Yeoun Keum   [11:59 PM]

sigh...

posted by Bryan Lee   [3:26 PM]

I hunger and thirst for your true rightousness.

In what I've obtained my soul cannot rest.

An ocean I see without bottom or shore,

O feed me, I'm hungry, enrich me, I'm poor.

I'll cry unto god, I never can cease,

Till my soul's filled with love,

Love perfect love and sweet peace.

posted by Adrian   [9:15 PM]

I skimmed this some time ago and had thought it unremarkable, but I stumbled upon it again today and I nearly sighed myself off my chair. I still can't figure out what's so sublime about it but it just is. My apologies for the half-or-more of you who must be familiar with this poem already, but here's our beloved older poet again:


Washing the Corpse


They had, for a while, grown used to him. But after
they lit the kitchen lamp and in the dark
it began to burn, restlessly, the stranger
was altogether strange. They washed his neck,

and since they knew nothing about his life
they lied till they produced another one,
as they kept washing. One of them had to cough,
and while she coughed she left the vinegar sponge,

dripping, upon his face. The other stood
and rested for a minute. A few drops fell
from the stiff scrub-brush, as his horrible
contorted hand was trying to make the whole
room aware that he no longer thirsted.

And he did let them know. With a short cough,
as if embarrassed, they both began to work
more hurriedly now, so that across
the mute, patterned wallpaper their thick

shadows reeled and staggered as if bound
in a net, till they had finished washing him.
The night, in the uncurtained window-frame,
was pitiless. And one without a name
lay clean and naked there, and gave commands.

- Rainer Maria Rilke, from New Poems

[trans. by Stephen Mitchell]


Matt, John, Eunice, or anyone else: have you heard the new Philip Glass album? Would you recommend it?

posted by Tae-Yeoun Keum   [3:35 AM]

I WILL DEVOUR YOUR SOUL!

posted by Adrian   [12:23 PM]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ADAM!

posted by Tae-Yeoun Keum   [4:55 AM]

edit (the next day): the following post is a response to adrian's "should i take chinese?" post that's not here anymore. continue discussing god, everyone.

[what went well:
- almost nonexistent grammar that's really very similar to english
- most of the words and even the characters are formed parataxically, so it just makes a lot of sense - you feel like you construct words more on gut feeling than grammatical rules; also, characters that look similar tend to sound similar as well.
- sometimes convincing eunice that i understood anything she said
- and generally, it's a really fun language, i don't know how else to describe it.

what's not so bad:
- the intonations. again like a gut feeling thing - because it's somewhat musical in a sense, the sounds of words stick the way jingles on tv commercials do. plus it's what makes it all so fun.
- again the parataxis thing; you can guess what a sentence means even if you don't know all the words in it.

what didn't go so well:
- characters are so easy to forget
- characters you don't know make it impossible for you to even read a paper after six years of study, much less anything literary
- singing. how do you do the intonations at the same time?]

posted by Tae-Yeoun Keum   [11:19 PM]

John, I too feel as if we stand before the verge of emptiness (it hurts doesn't it). There are those who say "when I look down, I have faith that there will not be emptiness below, even though it should be there. I believe that there will be something beyond this" This is not a way that you or I can take. It is a way that Bryan and Alex can take. We are all the same and not the same. For your part, stand there, and instead say "there is emptiness beyond this" and be not afraid, for it is true. Emptiness does not hurt. it is the fear of emptiness which causes suffering.
fear not.
So to these questions, let us have no view. Let us let off and let go, for to contemplate them is to hold a burning stick and wonder about its burning. It is more important to let go the stick and refrain from harm. There will never be a perfect answer to these questions. Take refuge in not knowing and thus be at peace.

This is excerpted from a translation of the Digha Nikaya. I feel it is ironically appropriate to the nature of our discussions, and to what John writes of. Vaccha was a wandering Monk who asked the Buddha a number of very clever questions;

"These questions that you ask Vaccha, they lead to a tangle of views, a dense dark jungle of views, they are difficult to shine a light upon, they make for endless discussion and dispute, they make for agitation and worry, they are a heavy burden, replete with suffering and discord, they do not lead to tranquility, to harmony, to detachment, to relinquishment, they do not lead to clarity, to knowledge, to wisdom. This is the fear that I have Vaccha, in contemplating these questions, and this is why I do not take up any of these ideas."
..."Vaccha, I have nothing to do with beliefs or theories, but declare what I know. I declare the nature of from, how it arises and how it perishes; the nature of perception, how it arises and how it perishes. And because I have abandoned all fantasies, false ideas, and imaginings about the nature of self, or anything to do with self, I am freed from it."

but, perhaps "the question cannot be answered reliably within the limits of human knowledge, since thesis and antithesis are equally valid (Kant, Critique of Pure Reason )"
...I mean, honestly, it's not even possible to visualize a 4D coordinate system (give it a try) which we can proove mathematically, so um, yeah. Abide in peace, all of you-

posted by Adrian   [11:12 AM]

I hesitate to even reply to you bryan. I like what you said, but I feel like it contradicts every sense I have. And yet your outlook is so much superior to mine. Does that make sense? I feel like my atheism is a disease, and I worry that by talking about it too much I'm going to spread it. It's something I'm trying to get rid of myself, so why do I defend it so vehemently? I guess because I know I can't have faith unless it is built on something more solid than what I've encountered so far.

That said, in reply to Bryan's remarks, it seems that believing in God for the sole reason that 'it gives my life meaning' is a bitter pill to take. If you can keep it down then good, congratulations, you now believe in God and have meaning. You can run along at a fast clip knowing your actions have higher purpose and wake up and go to sleep happier. But if you can't keep it down, (and how can you once you've all but admitted that you only believe in order to have some more meaning in life) then the seeds of doubt will grow and spread and suddenly you'll find yourself running along without meaning, waking up and going to sleep empty, and trust me that's not a fun transition.

I think I could just say, "poof! I believe" and I would go to church thrice a week and pray every night and attend seminary (because if you believe why would you not want to devote your life to it? A different problem I have) and I would have meaning. And it would last a while. But those seeds would grow and I would end up suddenly with no faith and no coping mechanisms for not having faith. And I would probably kill myself, because I have no idea how I would take that.

And so I don't do it that way, I stumble along slowly, being inhibited by a very strong feeling that life is meaningless and that nothing I'm doing matters in the least. But safe from any sudden overwhelming jolt of meaninglessness that could take me down too hard.

Does anyone else worry that giving in too much to those kisses and grand canyons (and Hubble telescope images) can set you up for a great fall. That all those millions of credit card receipts, and getting up and shaving the same stubble every morning, and mopping the same floor twice a week and all, that it will just add up and one day to take you down when you're not expecting it? That fear is almost as great in me as the fear that I'll never find a God to believe in.

posted by john owens-ream   [12:06 AM]

mmm... interesting - not so much as the topic itself, but the development of the topic from its inception. Where one had begun with the question of logic ended with the question of 'what do you feel?'

Religion to me, the belief in God or god or gods or anything otherwise, is not so much any question of logic. And, I'm sorry if my own opinions offends anyone, but I very much staunchly believe that anyone who uses the question of logic or rationalism to show why they cannot believe in God is missing the point entirely. Those who do believe face exactly the same questions of how or why and for what. The difference is those who believe continue to believe despite such questions. It is, quite simply, faith.

And what is this faith? It isn't something or anything that's measurable. It simply means to believe - even without any logical foundation.

How is it then that we are able to draw a distinction between religion and pseudoscience? Tarot cards and fortune tellers - these things people believe in without any logical foundation as well. Where religion differs however is that the act of faith and believing is a form of transformation in the 'spiritual' self. Another way of putting it is that the act of faith and believing gives meaning and purpose to our own lives whereas pseudoscience does not answer the questions of 'so what?'

I don't mean to attack people who don't believe in God or religion. My own father is an atheist, more staunchly so than anyone else I've met in my life. However, believing to believe is something that gives meaning to the human life (in my opinion). I don't have or understand any more than anyone else, but without faith, life to me is meaningless. I don't live, and can't live, for me, and the idea of living without purpose is something that might as well be suicide to me. This idea of God is much closer to the emotional self than it is to the rational self, but all this is still far, it seems, from the spiritual self. Spirituality is not emotional, and while people argue that spirituality is really an emotional attachment, I find hard to believe that when spirituality can cause just as much pain as it can joy, spirituality is not a creation of emotional desires and needs - although they do interact closely.

Where I believe is the roadblock for people to not believe in God is not rationalism or any logical excuse. (I'm sorry that I'm talking as though all people should believe in God, but I don't know how else to phrase what I'm trying to say) I think it's really other people. Those who do believe in God aren't any different from those who don't, and moreover, those who do tend to hold it above those who don't. (I'm really trying not to be one of those, but I do realize that this paragraph is coming off as such) Religion, then, becomes an excuse in the eyes of those who don't believe, a convenient way to relieve oneself of emotional baggage and stress of guilt and sin and somehow some idea we have of right and wrong - all while becoming 'righter' than anyone else. At least, in the end, that's what I see, that's what I hear from other people, and that's what I think is one of the greater struggles of being religious in today's society.

posted by Bryan Lee   [8:15 AM]

Only silly questions have answers.

Has anyone else just felt a resounding "No?"

I'll admit that there are beautiful things vast and deep, small and delicate. The sky over the ocean or a seed, but like Alex, feel that they are simply impersonal and appear to be substances doing what substances do. Fog is beautiful, but not to fog. To people.

Good quote, Tae-Yeoun. Probably Good book, Alex. Haven't we all attempted to order a light back on as it blinks out, or a deflating bike tire to reinflate? We have of notions about what "will" can do in the universe despite daily disproof. Watch an episode of Wind and Cloud or Power Rangers and you'll see, for instance, how universal the desire to be able to blow things up at will is. I would just like to say I enjoy reading everyone else's perspectives. Whenever you're alone measuring fish for six hours as part of humanity's grand effort to name everything, you really get the feeling that the ideas in your skull are obviously going in the right direction. But everyone here, I feel, beautifully illustrates how people don't feel or live, and thus think, the same.

Theory: Alex 1 feels a resounding "YES" and Alex 2 does not feel a resounding "YES" because both strategies and both biochemistries have permitted their parents to breed. -though this works, I'll bet it is dissatisfying for some of you. I agree, but can't disagree with it. Does that make sense? It makes sense, I suppose, to feel that God is what maintains the laws of Physics as "Laws." That his ever-presence is what keeps existence existing... but that still, to me, feels like a "NO" because it didn't actually answer the question, it just gave you a different word.

It is "God" = It is "I Don't/Can't Know so Don't have an answer for why..."

Every answer leads to a question, and every question can be extended to the precipice and the void, that great unseeable gray horizon of "I can't know this." Close your eyes for a second and feel how existence (our existence inside our heads) is surrounded on all sides by ignorance. touch it. Taste it, with your lips and tongue. Lift your hands and feel it an inch beyond your finger tips.
I for one envy. It is my sin and my suffering, and so deeply is it in my blood that I'll likely die before I can let it go. I envy those who can ignore a question, or answer it “satisfactorily,� or be happy somewhere in the middle. especially the last one, since they didn't have to try.

We think by feeling, what is there to know?

Only silly questions have answers.
Happy Collective Birthday, Everyone.

posted by Adrian   [2:41 PM]

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