Reto

August Heinrich Plinke oil on canvas Gehilfe beim Kupferschmied

People say that, if God would exist, he would make it plain, he would show himself; but as it is now we cannot see God anywhere: therefore God does not exist.

This reasoning might make sense in a way, but as I see it, it makes more sense that God remains hidden and cannot be seen. Why?

If God would show his power openly nobody could deny him, that is true. But herein lies the reason IMO that he does not do this: he doesn't want people to worship him because they have to. He wants people to worship, yay, love him out of their own free will.

So he hides himself, but leaves traces for us to recognize that he exists, but not too many, because he desires that we seek him, that we humble ourselves. He wants us to have faith in him based on our reason, when we observe everything and recognize what he has made.

And the people that are proud, that see it as more probable that chance has created everything than God, when it is quite obvious that chance cannot have brought forth all the complexity we see: they are not honoring God but following vain ideas, and that's exactly what they should do from God's point of view as I see it.

God doesn't want to have anything to do with haughty people. Only the humble should be able to find him. The proud will never admit that they don't know, that their wisdom is lacking. But the humble will admit their deficiencies and they will seek refuge in God at some point.

So it makes a lot of sense to me why God is not doing what some atheists demand: they want proof they say, but God doesn't give them this kind of proof. He has given enough proof already, but if that is not sufficient, it is only good that anyone who denies this should follow his own reasoning to the end.

Come to me, all of you who are weary and loaded down with burdens, and I will give you rest. Place my yoke on you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is pleasant, and my burden is light. (Gospel of Matthew 11:28-30)

Endla Nature Reserve, Estonia (by Abrget47j, License)

According to Jesus, how does one “enter the kingdom of heaven” or “have eternal life”?

Behold, one came to him and said, “Good teacher, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life?” He said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but one, that is, God. But if you want to enter into life, keep the commandments.” (Matthew 19:16-17)

Jesus requires the keeping of the “commandments” from this guy (apparently a ruler as it is said in Luke) who approaches him and asks basically how he can be saved. This story is very well attested, it is part of Matthew (as quoted above), Mark (from 10:17 on) and Luke (from 18:18 on).

But what are the “commandments” really? How are they to be kept? What is the way to life according to Jesus?

Therefore whatever you desire for men to do to you, you shall also do to them; for this is the law and the prophets. Enter in by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and many are those who enter in by it. How narrow is the gate, and restricted is the way that leads to life! Few are those who find it. (Matthew 7:12-14)

The way that leads to life (or “eternal life”) is hard to find. Most people do not follow this way as Jesus points out. One has to observe the Golden Rule, “treat others as you would like others to treat you”.

When the ruler from above is confronted with the answer of Jesus, “keep the commandments”, he asks again, “which ones?” and Jesus says:

“‘You shall not murder.’ ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ ‘You shall not steal.’ ‘You shall not offer false testimony.’ ‘Honor your father and mother.’ And, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’” (Matthew 19:18-19)

The highest law, the saving principle, the way to life, Jesus repeats it again and again, “love your neighbor as yourself”:

“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the law?” Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. A second likewise is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.” (Matthew 22:36-40)

God is part of the equation, but the Golden Rule is required as well. Ending the sermon on the mount, after telling the people all they should do and not do, Jesus reiterates who will enter into the kingdom of heaven and who will not:

Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter into the Kingdom of Heaven; but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will tell me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, didn’t we prophesy in your name, in your name cast out demons, and in your name do many mighty works?’ Then I will tell them, ‘I never knew you. Depart from me, you who work iniquity.’

“Everyone therefore who hears these words of mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man, who built his house on a rock. The rain came down, the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat on that house; and it didn’t fall, for it was founded on the rock. Everyone who hears these words of mine, and doesn’t do them will be like a foolish man, who built his house on the sand. The rain came down, the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat on that house; and it fell—and great was its fall.”

(Matthew 7:21-27)

You can start building that stable foundation today. It isn't very difficult, just start to treat everyone like you would want to be treated. Good luck!

Woman with wax tablets and stylus (so-called “Sappho”)

Your thinking becomes your reality.

When you think you are an animal, then you become just like an animal. But it doesn't mean that it's true, that you are an animal. It only means that your faith in your animal-nature is strong enough to mold your reality.

It could still be totally wrong, just as any conviction you hold that you have not tested for yourself but merely adopted from your environment.

You have to make yourself free from any convictions that you have not proven to yourself – only then you will be able to find truth.

Distraction by William-Adolphe Bouguereau

For once I'm just going to quote, since I find this text so relevant and important. It applies just as well to our time as it did then in the 17th century. This is from the “Pensees” or “Thoughts” by Blaise Pascal and usually goes by the number 139:

Diversion. – When I have occasionally set myself to consider the different distractions of men, the pains and perils to which they expose themselves at court or in war, whence arise so many quarrels, passions, bold and often bad ventures, etc., I have discovered that all the unhappiness of men arises from one single fact, that they cannot stay quietly in their own chamber. A man who has enough to live on, if he knew how to stay with pleasure at home, would not leave it to go to sea or to besiege a town. A commission in the army would not be bought so dearly, but that it is found insufferable not to budge from the town; and men only seek conversation and entering games, because they cannot remain with pleasure at home.

But on further consideration, when, after finding the cause of all our ills, I have sought to discover the reason of it, I have found that there is one very real reason, namely, the natural poverty of our feeble and mortal condition, so miserable that nothing can comfort us when we think of it closely.

Whatever condition we picture to ourselves, if we muster all the good things which it is possible to possess, royalty is the finest position in the world. Yet, when we imagine a king attended with every pleasure he can feel, if he be without diversion, and be left to consider and reflect on what he is, this feeble happiness will not sustain him; he will necessarily fall into forebodings of dangers, of revolutions which may happen, and, finally, of death and inevitable disease; so that if he be without what is called diversion, he is unhappy, and more unhappy than the least of his subjects who plays and diverts himself.

Hence it comes that play and the society of women, war, and high posts, are so sought after. Not that there is in fact any happiness in them, or that men imagine true bliss to consist in money won at play, or in the hare which they hunt; we would not take these as a gift. We do not seek that easy and peaceful lot which permits us to think of our unhappy condition, nor the dangers of war, nor the labour of office, but the bustle which averts these thoughts of ours, and amuses us.

Reasons why we like the chase better than the quarry.

Hence it comes that men so much love noise and stir; hence it comes that the prison is so horrible a punishment; hence it comes that the pleasure of solitude is a thing incomprehensible. And it is in fact the greatest source of happiness in the condition of kings, that men try incessantly to divert them, and to procure for them all kinds of pleasures.

The king is surrounded by persons whose only thought is to divert the king, and to prevent his thinking of self. For he is unhappy, king though he be, if he think of himself.

This is all that men have been able to discover to make themselves happy. And those who philosophise on the matter, and who think men unreasonable for spending a whole day in chasing a hare which they would not have bought, scarce know our nature. The hare in itself would not screen us from the sight of death and calamities; but the chase which turns away our attention from these, does screen us.

The advice given to Pyrrhus to take the rest which he was about to seek with so much labour, was full of difficulties.

[To bid a man live quietly is to bid him live happily. It is to advise him to be in a state perfectly happy, in which he can think at leisure without finding therein a cause of distress. This is to misunderstand nature.

As men who naturally understand their own condition avoid nothing so much as rest, so there is nothing they leave undone in seeking turmoil. Not that they have an instinctive knowledge of true happiness ...

So we are wrong in blaming them. Their error does not lie in seeking excitement, if they seek it only as a diversion; the evil is that they seek it as if the possession of the objects of their quest would make them really happy. In this respect it is right to call their quest a vain one. Hence in all this both the censurers and the censured do not understand man's true nature.]

And thus, when we take the exception against them, that what they seek with such fervour cannot satisfy them, if they replied – as they should do if they considered the matter thoroughly – that they sought in it only a violent and impetuous occupation which turned their thoughts from self, and that they therefore chose an attractive object to charm and ardently attract them, they would leave their opponents without a reply. But they do not make this reply, because they do not know themselves. They do not know that it is the chase, and not the quarry, which they seek.

Dancing: we must consider rightly where to place our feet. – A gentleman sincerely believes that hunting is great and royal sport; but a beater is not of this opinion.

They imagine that if they obtained such a post, they would then rest with pleasure, and are insensible of the insatiable nature of their desire. They think they are truly seeking quiet, and they are only seeking excitement.

They have a secret instinct which impels them to seek amusement and occupation abroad, and which arises from the sense of their constant unhappiness. They have another secret instinct, a remnant of the greatness of our original nature, which teaches them that happiness in reality consists only in rest, and not in stir. And of these two contrary instincts they form within themselves a confused idea, which hides itself from their view in the depths of their soul, inciting them to aim at rest through excitement, and always to fancy that the satisfaction which they have not will come to them, if, by surmounting whatever difficulties confront them, they can thereby open the door to rest.

Thus passes away all man's life. Men seek rest in a struggle against difficulties; and when they have conquered these, rest becomes insufferable. For we think either of the misfortunes we have or of those which threaten us. And even if we should see ourselves sufficiently sheltered on all sides, weariness of its own accord would not fail to arise from the depths of the heart wherein it has its natural roots, and to fill the mind with its poison.

Thus so wretched is man that he would weary even without any cause for weariness from the peculiar state of his disposition; and so frivolous is he, that, though full of a thousand reasons for weariness, the least thing, such as playing billiards or hitting a ball, is sufficient to amuse him.

But will you say what object has he in all this? The pleasure of bragging to-morrow among his friends that he has played better than another. So others sweat in their own rooms to show to the learned that they have solved a problem in algebra, which no one had hitherto been able to solve. Many more expose themselves to extreme perils, in my opinion as foolishly, in order to boast afterwards that they have captured a town. Lastly, others wear themselves out in studying all these things, not in order to become wiser, but only in order to prove that they know them; and these are the most senseless of the band, since they are so knowingly, whereas one may suppose of the others, that if they knew it, they would no longer be foolish.

This man spends his life without weariness in playing every day for a small stake. Give him each morning the money he can win each day, on condition he does not play; you make him miserable. It will perhaps be said that he seeks the amusement of play and not the winnings. Make him then play for nothing; he will not become excited over it, and will feel bored. It is then not the amusement alone that he seeks; a languid and passionless amusement will weary him. He must get excited over it, and deceive himself by the fancy that he will be happy to win what he would not have as a gift on condition of not playing; and he must make for himself an object of passion, and excite over it his desire, his anger, his fear, to obtain his imagined end, as children are frightened at the face they have blackened.

Whence comes it that this man, who lost his only son a few months ago, or who this morning was in such trouble through being distressed by lawsuits and quarrels, now no longer thinks of them? Do not wonder; he is quite taken up in looking out for the boar which his dogs have been hunting so hotly for the last six hours. He requires nothing more. However full of sadness a man may be, he is happy for the time, if you can prevail upon him to enter into some amusement; and however happy a man may be, he will soon be discontented and wretched, if he be not diverted and occupied by some passion or pursuit which prevents weariness from overcoming him. Without amusement there is no joy; with amusement there is no sadness. And this also constitutes the happiness of persons in high position, that they have a number of people to amuse them, and have the power to keep themselves in this state.

Consider this. What is it to be superintendent, chancellor, first president, but to be in a condition wherein from early morning a large number of people come from all quarters to see them, so as not to leave them an hour in the day in which they can think of themselves? And when they are in disgrace and sent back to their country houses, where they lack neither wealth nor servants to help them on occasion, they do not fail to be wretched and desolate, because no one prevents them from thinking of themselves.

Jan Miense Molenaer – Allegory of Vanity

I often see this, that people spend hours, days, weeks and years with stuff that is really not important. If they would consider that they will die, they wouldn't make so much ado about nothing.

Solomon said:

I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and indeed, all is vanity and grasping for the wind.

Now if we are dying, what is the only thing that counts concerning our lives? To find out if there is some higher truth and if there might be something we need to know or follow before we die.

If we just die and it is all finished then it doesn't really matter what we did. But if life goes on in another form, it might be a deciding factor. Maybe it is so that everything we did here is reversible and even if we led a terrible life, we can turn it around.

But maybe it isn't so and we cannot turn it around anymore. Would you rather take a risk on that or try to make sure you don't end up in such a position?

What is more important, that you get your nice car or your nice house – or that you prepare for what could come after you die? Because you cannot take a single thing with you when you leave this world. Job said:

Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will depart.

Say you would be playing a game and if you lose you might be killed, but you are not sure, would you just ignore this possibility and play as if you couldn't die at all?

Probably not. But then why do people play the game of life like that? Surely it is foolish to ignore possible negative consequences after life.

“Faces in the crowd” by Elvert Barnes, CC-BY 2.0

In my experience thinking has been a nuisance. Ever since I wanted to know the meaning of life, my thinking was a hindrance to me so much that I wanted to get rid of it.

This is why meditation is so popular: it is a try to get rid of thinking. I always thought that the truth is beyond thinking, that thinking is just preventing me from realizing the truth.

But everything changed when I started to shift my underlying convictions. What I found out is this: that the thinking can never come to a rest when there is no stable foundation.

And the only solution then is to turn against thinking: this is what many teachers advice, because they themselves have not found any other solution.

In my opinion the reason for this is that their worldview is not right. When the worldview is not right the thinking cannot find something to hold on to, it is confused and goes in circles, never being able make any sense.

When one's views are aligned with the truth, then the thinking supports those views. It deepens one's understanding and the insight into the truth.

So if you want to know if you're on the right the track, just ask yourself, “does my thinking make any sense or is it more like a problem I would like to get rid of?”

#philosophy #thinking #worldview #meditation

Recently I had been in a second hand store and I saw a small guitar amp there and bought it for less than 20 bucks. The last time I had an amp myself was more than 10 years ago. Here's how my setup looks like at home now (the amp is in the middle):

I route the amp into the bigger speaker you can see on the picture. It sounds pretty cool. The big speaker has wheels and a battery and could be used outside without the need of an electric plug but I'm just using it at home now like this.

Using the guitar you can see in the picture I have recorded a little demo with a stereo condenser mic so you can hear how it sounds:

Recently it became clear to me why it is so hard for most of us to suffer injustice: if we get mistreated we immediately feel the need for retribution. We demand justice. We think that only when the perpetrator has been punished, we will be able to find peace.

This happens because we do not believe that there is any justice apart from us. We think that if we don't do it justice ourselves, there will be no justice at all – and that's why we cannot suffer injustice.

It all hinges on our belief in the accidental nature of life. This belief is deeply rooted in our soul, we have been brought up with it. Charles Darwin prepared the way for this ideology and more and more people started sucking it in with their mother's milk.

It means that we are probably not as independent and clever as we might think, because our fundamental views are not our own, but we have adopted them from the people around us. Just like 500 years ago we would probably have adopted the Christian views as personal truth.

This is the same argument some atheists bring up to discredit religion. They say e.g.:

If you would have been brought up in Iran you would be a Muslim now

This could very well be true, but they forget that their own view, that is atheism, is the product of our own culture – and not much different from religion in this regard. Instead of relying on your surroundings you should strip yourself from all that culture has put into you. That is the only way to find truth – if there is such a thing at all.

But now back to the problem of injustice. My current conviction is, that this view, that life is accidental and that there is no justice, is wrong. In my opinion the correct view is, that even the smallest violation of the golden rule, do unto others as you would have them do unto you, brings retribution in some form.

But it is hard to recognize what it is. It usually comes in the form of what we call bad luck. If you are often “unlucky” this is a pretty good indicator that you're not following the golden rule, that's what I think.

Another aspect of how I understand this principle is, that bad luck does not always hit every person in the same way. My guess is that bad luck can also be kind of a message or warning to the individual saying:

Hey now! Watch out and better your life!

But with some people there is not even the slightest chance that they will do this and therefore they don't experience as much bad luck but it is withhold. The retribution will then come suddenly after many years of seeming “success”, it can even be sudden death in a car accident or something like that.

I know that this view is quite controversial and it is not at all like what believe in the West nowadays. But to me it's not important what the majority believes, but only what is true. And if it is the case that what I'm saying, that there is justice and that everyone gets what he deserves: wouldn't that be a wonderful thing?

Then we would finally be able to suffer injustice, knowing that retribution will come and we don't have to do anything about it.

#retribution #justice #materialism #philosophy