thread: 2006-09-08 : Salvation, damnation, justification, a la Sydney
On 2006-09-11, Sydney Freedberg wrote:
Wow - crossposting.
Ethan: Don't worry, I've been in therapy at least once a week for the last five years, and I'm discussing this thread with my current practitioner, who happens to be (1) an MD and (2) Jewish.
Tony: Yes, Martin Luther King is inspiring (and I would argue divinely inspired), and his legacy endures beyond his death. Even my legacy will endure beyond my death, assuming my daughter lives to old age, and especially if she has children in her turn, who have children in their turn, all of which is probable but hardly certain. Ultimately, though, our civilization will fall and be forgotten, the human race will go extinct, and the stars will flicker out like candles. This may seem like borrowing trouble, but it bothers me, and the only answer the secularists can give me is "well, thanks for trying, anyway." Religion in general offers me the answer, "someone eternal remembers the good you did, and cares." The Judaic-Christian-Islamic tradition in particular offers the answer, "Okay, the universe is over, now we can start the really good stuff."
Tony again: Yes, God is within me, as well as outside me. But it's different aspects of God, and the God-within-me is radically incomplete. There's simply no way I, as an individual human being, can ever express all the aspects of divinity: I don't even think the whole universe can express everything about God (here is where I differ from Hindus, to the very limited extent that (a) I understand them and (b) they agree with each other). But I certainly can express more of God than I do, so my challenge is to open myself up more and more, strengthening and broadening my God-within to let the God-beyond pour into and through me.
A poem I once scribbled probably expresses this thought better:
I am a compass, and you are True North
I am the planet that circles your star
I am at the point where metaphors fail me
I am what I am, and you are what you are.
