Posts Tagged Philosophy

Brokenness

Posted by yirahyahweh in Uncategorized on May 27, 2014

The diversity of humanity seems to grow exponentially and the desire for inclusion of each person’s uniqueness gains more support each day. We learn more and more each day that God created us as individuals to be part of a community rather than cookie cutter stamps of a preset ideal that we are all required to be. We are individuals and are as different as snowflakes falling from the sky. We do however all have one thing that binds us together on the most basic level. We are broken. 

Brokenness is not a flaw that was built into us or an accident that happened to us. It occurred somewhere in the distant past and we are left with it’s effect. It is a flaw that is centered in our philosophical DNA. It is not necessarily something we have ever even seen or understood about ourselves but is definitely part of who we are. A chef may have the best recipe for gumbo with the freshest shrimp, chicken, and andouille sausage ever made, but if he starts with a butter that is tainted, the recipe will never be perfect. The broken spot happened at the beginning and reflects every action taken after that, no matter how pure the actions are. 

There is dogma and anti dogma, theology and rebuttal, philosophy and doctrine that all try to explain the reasons and the causal factors. In reality though focusing on the why somehow misses the point and drives us even farther apart. We are broken at the core and deal with ramifications daily.  

This one thing that really should unite us all seems to tear us apart the most. We have an innate desire to recognize other people’s brokenness and categorize it in a hierarchal fashion in relation to our own. If we like the person, we think there is hope for us to achieve what they have which is less broken in areas than ourselves and if we don’t, we see it as evidence that our own brokenness is not that bad. We chase the dream of evolution in that one day we might become more than we are and erase the broken parts. We pursue it philosophically and psychologically with self help books and structured treatments. We pursue it spiritually with levels of penance and forgiveness. But are we really just avoiding the issue? The allusive goal of a perfect non broken state is fleeting an can not be achieved. The broken part is in our past an all actions after that reflect it in some way. How can we expect to find perfection in a world that is broken? We approximate perfection and aim at it but can not even fully achieve our goals. So if we are aiming at 60% and get 75% of that, in reality we have achieved less than half perfect. We need to rethink the process.

We need to embrace our brokenness, not celebrate it, but embrace it. If we realize we are broken and unable to attain perfection or even a realistic approximation of that, we are only left with one thing, humility. The essence of humility is not born in the thoughts, it is born in the actions of the heart. If we approach relationships in humility, we stop the cycle of hierarchal evaluation and allow ourselves to experience the value that God created in each of us. The human perspective is real and we discount it far to much. Being real does not make it right, but being real makes it worth understanding and respecting as real before we start trying to fix each other’s brokenness. God created people who experience real circumstances and real fears and real concerns and real faults. Embracing that allows us to connect on a human level that gives us a perspective that can help in the healing process. 

Romans 8:29 tells us that we are intended to be conformed to the image of Christ. This verb is active. We will be conformed, not “this occurs when a person starts there journey with Christ”.The journey itself is what conforms them. It takes their brokenness and begins to heal it through this transformation. It is a daily process of recognizing and working with our broken parts and making them change. If we recognize that in ourselves, why is it so hard to recognize in others. Each person on this planet suffers from the same problems as us. If we address those problems by pointing fingers and calling names, we are just making them worse. If we realize that we suffer the same problems, we open the door to communicate and help each other see God better. 

Brokenness has no complete cure but it does offer fidelity with others in the same boat. It is the cosmic equalizer that gives us hope that there is more to life than just our own perspectives. 

 

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Broken Code

Posted by yirahyahweh in Uncategorized on February 2, 2014

I have spent many years working in technology on a team delivering software systems. I am not a coder but have developed a large amount of respect for them over the years. The focus and energy it takes to translate systematic requirements into binary statements that integrate into other chunks of binary statements and deliver an overall whole is impressive. Part of the reason is that even the smallest error or miss directed code jeopardizes the overall project. The devil is in the details so to speak. It does not have to be a critical fault or even an errantly written syntax; there are programs that check for those things. It just has to be something that veers off from the goal of the project to sink the whole thing. It is not even that the program wont function, it will just not be able to ever reach the potential that it was created for.

I cant help but see the similarity in the world today. We seem to be living a dream that says somehow we will be able to master our circumstances and achieve success. Confucius said “The will to win, the desire to succeed, the urge to reach your full potential… these are the keys that will unlock the door to personal excellence.” The Dalai Lama said “With realization of one’s own potential and self-confidence in one’s ability, one can build a better world.” Pope John XXIII said “Consult not your fears but your hopes and your dreams. Think not about your frustrations, but about your unfulfilled potential. Concern yourself not with what you tried and failed in, but with what it is still possible for you to do.” These people are just icons of this overall thought process and have many counterparts. The problem is that their direction is as wrong as it is right. Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that there is no value in their wisdom. I am saying we need to be careful not to think that this will fix the world. It won’t. It can’t.

The problem is in the code. In the deepest structures of our soul we have a binary device that gives us the ability to choose right or wrong. The choices are not predetermined, they are left up to us. That is the bad code as essentially we are able to rewrite the code daily and even wipe out all existing code, barring consequences, up to but not including that initial line that gives us the ability to choose wrong. No matter what we do, no matter how hard we try, we will never wipe out the ability to choose incorrectly. This is what prevents us from being able to reach our utmost potential. Without that, we will never truly solve problems or eradicate evil in this world. Simply put, we cant because we will always have the ability to choose it. This is pandemic at the largest scale. It is not a few bad seeds but basically bad code in all.

We need to re-adjust our thinking in order to address this and stop proliferating the hollow ideal that says we can rise above it. We are breeding a problem by preaching two sides of this coin. We either preach that you are bad and will be punished by a God who is out to get you or we preach a false sense of security in that if you try hard enough you will finally after great patience and struggle reach a state of set actualization that will afford you true peace and happiness. I realize there are many other philosophical views on life but they seem to either broach off of or are summed up in these archetypes. Both however are wrong.

If we keep reproducing the same ideas without addressing the root cause we will never reach our intended and true potential. We can choose to blame God for instilling the bad code if we wish. There is a flaw in that as well. It presupposes that the code is bad because of the programmer and not the choices of the program. In other words if we always answered by choosing right, we would be able to reach God on our own. Again, the devil is in the details. We would be able to reach our human potential, but that does not mean we would attain or reach godliness. We would simply be fully productive humans or in other words, machines. God is what makes the machine human. God is the one who brings value to the potential. God is the one who brings reality to the dream. God is the one who takes that bad code and corrects it by forgiving the wrong choices and rebooting the program. God is the one who takes what is wrong and makes it right. God is the one who brings relationship to existence. God is the one who makes true potential occur. God is the one who takes bad code and makes it a son.

Without understanding the true expectations of the program, we will never be able to correct the bad code to reach what the program was intended to do.

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If We Don’t Know Where We Came From, How Can We Know Truly Where We Are Going?

Posted by yirahyahweh in Uncategorized on October 19, 2013

It is a given for anyone who has used a map program online or their phone that in order to get directions, you need to input a starting point. If you enter the wrong starting point, the directions are less valuable unless you already know how to make the corrections. It is interesting this basic concept is ignored in personal life in many ways. Many people tend to forget who they were and then portray an idealistic to escapist view of who they are today and somehow expect to build a better tomorrow. Not knowing who we are will never get us to who we want to be.

There seems to be almost an innate desire within some to look past their faults and only see their good qualities. Whether guided by fear, arrogance, or pollyannish bravado, refusing to look at the dark side of the soul only gives us part of the picture. Taoist philosophy refers to the yin-yang as a natural dualism. It is the balance of opposite forces in the natural world. It is morally neutral such as light and dark, fire and water, past and future, and life and death. In the well known Taoist symbol, each side balances and incorporates the other side to create the whole. They not only exist in each other’s space, they support each other. The concept loses something when it is applied to moral choice saying where there is moral choice, there is also amoral choice. Good and bad do not support each other. They are enemies at best and seek to destroy each other. When that battle is within the human soul, it can only lead to carnage or peace. Carnage comes through rationalizing the bad and accepting it as normal. Peace comes through accepting who you are and changing the focus from self to God.

The past is not interpretable, it is factual. Decisions are not explainable, they occurred. No one can look at the choices another person had and evaluate them in a vacuum. They can only see the choices made. They either benefited the person and their character or they only benefited the person in the moment. If we are to truly accept ourselves and change our focus, we need to recognize the fact that each person has within themselves the ability to perform great evil. This is not theoretical. It is verifiable simply by honestly evaluating our past. If we have committed wrong on any level we have within us the ability to commit wrong on all levels. We just need the right motivating factors to do it.

All major religions recognize that mankind has fallen far short of where he would like to be. They do not all provide a way to correct that. Some offer meditation or penitence. Some advocate restorative justice and others punishment by fire. Christianity has an answer for this through grace. The model of grace explained by the Apostle Paul provides the ability to stop the battle and change the focus.  But if we are not willing to walk through and address our past, we will never understand that.

Choosing to drive in a direction we think will make us arrive where we want is a good way to get lost. If we are unwilling to use a guide, we are responsible for where we end up.

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Opinions Create Truth Like An Actor Creates Reality

Posted by yirahyahweh in Uncategorized on September 15, 2013

A friend of mine and I recently had dinner at a little Greek place we had never been to before. I was unfamiliar with the menu and asked the waitress what was good there. She told us her favorites and we both ordered one of them. When the food was delivered it was a little more like cafeteria food than had been expected. The overall flavors were not necessarily bad; they just didn’t rate high compared to other dining options for that evening. Maybe the waitress and I have differing palates. The real question is why did I accept the recommendation of a person whom I don’t know anything about without looking into it more?

I saw a post on Facebook showing a picture of Johnny Depp with a quote that basically says to do what you need to do and don’t care what other people think. I personally think there is wisdom in this quote. I think that people put far too much stock in what others think about them. With that said, why is this more valuable because a celebrity said it? Johnny Depp makes a reported 100 million dollars a year. I really think he has a far different perspective on caring what others think than I do. Why would I accept this advise without truly struggling through it just because a celebrity said it? Popular thought does not create truth. God creates truth.

It amazes me sometimes how we accept so easily philosophical assertions without truly questioning the supporting ideas. There is a prevalent thought in our world that truth is a relative concept and that absolute truth is at least archaic and at the most completely impossible. It is not a new philosophy. Traces of it date back to Greek thought hundreds of years before the time of Christ (see Al_theia by Protagoras of Abdera or Theaetetus by Plato). It has morphed through history and is now linked mostly to Postmodernism. I believe that concepts of this movement have valuable insight into philosophical thought; however relativism is probably one of the weakest.

We would like to believe that truth is malleable. It is a comforting thought to our souls to believe that we can bring correctness to our actions simply by redefining the rules but overall it falls in on itself. If truth is not absolute and can be interpreted by the user, how can anything be trusted? We want to choose our definitions when it is to our benefit, but not when we need the truth. If a person has a sick child or spouse, the last thing they need is a doctor’s opinion based on a variant definition of health or treatment. If we get a speeding ticket for going 35 miles an hour in a 35 MPH zone because the officer wants to redefine speeding, we won’t stand for it. If we found a one pound diamond in the ground on the edge of our property, we will not stand for our neighbor redefining property lines and making a claim on it. If a scientist tells us that cholesterol levels in beef are lower than we thought, we won’t accept it if he redefines his test parameters to do so. If we go to a restaurant to eat dinner, we will not want the chef to choose an alternative definition of cleanliness and food safety standards.

The problem seems to be that we want to use this philosophy to our advantage but are unwilling to accept it across the board. If that is the case, how can it be legitimate? In reality, people want absolute truth, it just seems they want executive authority to create that absolute when it benefits them.

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