Over at the American Scene, Alan Jacobs posts a couple of posts on facing death as an atheist.
Within, he notes a curious non-chalance or even celebratory attitude of some atheists towards death. He noted that biologist Richard Dawkins called the fear of death "illogical," and that fantasy author Philip Pullman wrote that some characters' deaths were like "vivid little burst of happiness [like] the bubbles in a glass of champagne." But this is a confused metaphor: any pleasure from the champagne bubbles bursting is within the tongue of the drinker. The bubbles are the object of the pleasure, not the subject, and this sloppy metaphor provides a way to gloss over their annihiliation with the foggy memories of past soirees. Alternatively, such language could be used to imply the bubbles are subsumed into the greater whole of the champagne itself---the raindrops becoming part of the ocean idea--but this is pantheist, and not atheist, thought, and Pullman should be clear and honest enough to say so.
Jacobs posted a portion of a poem by a more circumspect atheist, Philip Larkin, entitled "Aubade." An excerpt:
The mind blanks at the glare. Not in remorse
- The good not used, the love not given, time
Torn off unused - nor wretchedly because
An only life can take so long to climb
Clear of its wrong beginnings, and may never:
But at the total emptiness forever,
The sure extinction that we travel to
And shall be lost in always. Not to be here,
Not to be anywhere,
And soon; nothing more terrible, nothing more true.
This is a special way of being afraid
No trick dispels. Religion used to try,
That vast moth-eaten musical brocade
Created to pretend we never die,
And specious stuff that says no rational being
Can fear a thing it cannot feel, not seeing
that this is what we fear - no sight, no sound,
No touch or taste or smell, nothing to think with,
Nothing to love or link with,
The anaesthetic from which none come round.
So, if you want to pursue atheism, you are free to do so. Just be prepared to shudder; the reaper does not take kindly to glib snickering.
As exhibit A of what happens when we give up on ideals, I'd like to share a recent, and somewhat saddening, article from CNN. (My snarky readers may say this is me giving up on my ideals of posting more encouraging things here. I hear you...but this one connects to what I just wrote!!)
But sometimes the bad outweighs the good, and every once in a while a lady needs to take a break and keep her heart safe from scoundrels looking to shatter it.
However, that doesn't mean you should hole up alone in beat-up pajamas with only your old pals Netflix and Jim Beam for company. Even when you're not in the market for love, it's good to keep one toe in the dating pool. You just need to date effectively. Here are some ways to keep your heart safe while the rest of you has fun.
Hmm. I think someone just bought the one-way ticket to Splitsville, and is heading to the train station. Here's some, uh, helpful pointers from our esteemed author.
1. Date only the wildly inappropriate.
As someone who has befriended with the wildly inappropriate...
2. Take up recreational complaining.
Because misery loves company?
3. Pair the b****ing with moaning and bragging.
Sure-fire winner there.
4. Develop an annoying catchphrase and use it constantly.
5. If, God forbid, you really start to fall for a guy, pick out his negative traits.
I know this article is a bit out of the mainstream, but it's so bizarre I just have to laugh. Is this person serious? Is this supposed to be helpful advice? Are we this desperate? This sounds like a great premise for a reality show that I won't watch.
At the behest of my true friend, and last remaining loyal reader, Chris, I will put up some new content. Indeed, in honor of Lent, I will try to put something up daily, even if at sometimes I must resort to the trite or mundane, but hopefully I will be able to churn out something worthwhile, at least occasionally.
My ultimate goal for this blog is to serve as a source of commentary on the prospects of professing Christ in a world that is often disinterested, but is often
...as we eat the flour of our pursuits, so, too, shall we live.
disintegrating, as well. I understand that seems like both a vague and broad undertaking, and a daunting challenge, especially for one business medical student in a middling corner of the flat Midwest. At this point, and as a means of introduction of my ideas, I can do no better than quote at length TS Eliot, noted poet, Nobel laureate, and erstwhile cultural thinker:
The fact that a problem will certainly take a long time to solve, and that it will demand the attention of many minds for several generations, is no justification for postponing the study. And, in times of emergency, it may prove in the long run that the problems we have postponed or ignored, rather than those we have failed to attack successfully, will return to plague us. Our difficulties of the present moment must always be dealt with somehow: but our permanent difficulties are difficulties of every moment. The subject with which I am concerned in the following pages is one to which I an cconvinced we ought to turn our attention now, if we hope to ever to be relieved of the immediate perplexities that fill our minds. It is urgent because it is fundamental; and its urgency is the reason for a person like myself attemptiong to address, on a subject beyond his usual scope, that public which is likely to read what he writes on other subjects. [More than I can say personally.--TE] THis is a subject which I could handle better, no doubt, were I profound scholar in any of several fields. But I am not writing for scholars, but for people like myself; some defects may be compensated by some advantages; and what one must be judged by, scholar or no, is not particularised knowledge but one's total harvest of thinking, feeling, living, and observing human beings.
From, TS Eliot, Christianity and Culture, Harcourt Brace, 1939, p. 5.
Such is my endeavor, that "the total harvest of thinking, feeling, and living" as a believer in an age of uncertainty will be recorded here. This apt phrase "total harvest" crystallizes many of my grave concerns facing society today: the compartmentalization of concepts and pursuits into specialized and distinct realms. And as we sow our thinking, we reap our feelings and ideals, and as we eat the flour of our pursuits, so, too, shall we live.
When our basic understanding of mankind at a fundamental level is fragmented within the increasingly inward-looking academy, the public eventually responds with indifference and moves to more hedonic pursuits. And as hedonism is, at its core, selfish, what happens to society as people themselves become more inward-looking?
My goal is to restore and proclaim Truth that builds up such inward personal fulfillment that we can resume humanity's charge to live socially. That the despair of consumption and its concomitant atomization of our society into the whims of the individual could subside into contentment and forgiveness. Of course, I don't want to approach this naively, and want to convey emphatically that there are no easy answers, the usual suspects may not be guilty of the sins we charge, and supposed heroes may be flawed at best. That arguing from conventional labels prevents serious thinking, but also that seeking common ground for fear of contention can be just as much an abdication. That understanding first demands scrutiny of one's one positions, but not the assumption that apologies and doubt means you're being honest. Perhaps you're just a wimp. Strife is never valuable for its own sake, but contention sometimes is necessary. It's been said before, but there is a difference between the use of a dagger and scalpel.
I understand there's not much flesh on this skeleton of an argument right now, and you may have doubts or questions. That's fine, and they're welcome. I hope over the coming months I can, like in Ezekiel's vision of the valley of dry bones1, put sinew and muscle on them, and in the process, begin the resuscitation of a dying and dessicated culture.
Happy Christmastime, everybody! Now that Thanksgiving's over, you can put up your lights and listen to obnoxious music without drawing the ire of Holiday Celebration Time Period Purists like myself.
Good post by Rod Dreher this morning, "Media, Black Friday and the Last Shopper," in which he, besides detailing the media's complicity in creating a consumption free-for-all after Thanksgiving, relates this sad comment on the state of the American Shopper Psyche:
Carr's ending is a jolt, suggesting a consumerist version of Nietzsche's Last Man:
Even consumption may have limits. Mr. Cohen said that in his 32 years interviewing consumers in malls during the holiday season, he had never heard what he did this year. "People really have no idea what they want," he said.
They don't even want anything. They want to want. Our popular culture, driven by news and entertainment media, and advertising, has stimulated their appetites, such that all they know now is appetite. I don't know whether it's more pathetic or frightening. Maybe it's frightening because it's pathetic: the Last Shopper.
Is this what the Consumerist Experience has come down to? Originally, man could view his possessions as a blessing, a means towards seeing Someone greater, but then we elevated material goods as an end themselves.
The act of consumption has become an end itself.
Now, apparently, our alienation has increased by another order: the goods themselves are meaningless1, and the act of consumption has become an end itself. The Urge to Appropriate has become so generalized and ingrained that it has become our prime motivation. All we know how to do is abate the need, at least temporarily. This bears striking similarity to my current course material in medical school.
Addiction.
Consider for contrast this video my church just played yesterday from the Advent Conspiracy:
Interesting opportunity and needed wake-up call. We would be wise to remember Paul's words in Phillippians:
I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.
How often does our culture do the opposite? Whether in want or wealth, we are consumed with bitterness and envy. and as the fading economy forces us to live with less materially, what will we do relationally?
A friend of mine had a blurb on her GChat away message asking if it was ok to start up a Christmas Countdown. I say yes. We have 25 days. A brief amount of time. What will we do to commemorate the season? What will we do to heal the wounds of the mad pursuit? Will we:
call up friends we have neglected, whether due to indifference in the face of a crowded schedule, or avoidance in the wake of old conflict?
show concern to those we'd otherwise ignore, as if one could merit our love (how often others have cared for us, when we were insolent or ignorant)?2
give money, when we'd rather keep money?
cleanse our hearts so we could love guests amidst their messy lives, rather than cleansing our homes for fear guests wouldn't love us amidst our messy lives?3
look for ways to bear another's suffering?4
Ostentatious verbiage to "put Christ back in Christmas" does little.5 We, and those around us, are best served by putting Christ back in our hearts.
Footnotes:
1. You want meaningless? Check this out. Wrong on so many levels. Kids do not need to make numerous copies of their artwork--even if it looks like a Jackson Pollock, it doesn't mean you can sell the prints for decor. Plus, why are we giving kids "adult"-like toys? Why are we accelerating childhood into miniature adulthood, replete with office supplies to match? Next they'll be wanting cell phones. Oh, wait... I had to use cups and string.
2. Matt 18:21-35
3. Luke 10:38-42
4. Mother Teresa said:
Once they came to a door and no one answered. The woman had been dead for 5 days and no one knew - except the odor in the hallway. So many people are known for the number on their door. The worst disease today is not leprosy; it is being unwanted, being left out, being forgotten. The greatest scourge is to forget the next person, to be so sufficated with the that we have no time for the lonely Jesus - even a person in our own family that needs us. Maybe if I had not picked up that one dying person on the street, I would not have picked up the thousands. We must think ONE, ONE. That is the way to begin.
5. I appreciate their sentiment, but no one else does, and that is precisely the reason institutionalized drives like this fail. In other words, there is a diseconomy of scale to cultural change: the bigger an entity, the less effective it is, primarily because "sentiment" is the first thing expunged from a petition. Emotion, care, and concern cannot be communicated via an organization, and an intimate and living interpersonal connection is absolutely necessary if hearts and minds will ever be changed. This is not to say that individual people cannot create that connection as members of a group, but the focus should be on the organization's resources reinforcing the message of love already communicated through the person. (Organizational resources are why larger organizations may have economies of scale (bigger equals better) in regards to financial concerns, but cultural change must be local). Too often, the member becomes subservient to the group, a nameless, faceless amoeba of mission statements and donation requests.
Excellent work from Paul Spears, and a reminder for us all.
Humanity has become trapped in a culture that cannot rest, because most of us do not have a destination. They are always chasing a moving target, and cannot find satisfaction. This moving target is great for manufacturers and advertising agencies, but horrible on human souls. This frenetic pursuit ultimately will lead to exhaustion, depression and disillusionment, because we cannot stop looking for fulfillment of purpose even when it is misdirected.
