Quotes & Sayings


We, and creation itself, actualize the possibilities of the God who sustains the world, towards becoming in the world in a fuller, more deeper way. - R.E. Slater

There is urgency in coming to see the world as a web of interrelated processes of which we are integral parts, so that all of our choices and actions have [consequential effects upon] the world around us. - Process Metaphysician Alfred North Whitehead

Kurt Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem says (i) all closed systems are unprovable within themselves and, that (ii) all open systems are rightly understood as incomplete. - R.E. Slater

The most true thing about you is what God has said to you in Christ, "You are My Beloved." - Tripp Fuller

The God among us is the God who refuses to be God without us, so great is God's Love. - Tripp Fuller

According to some Christian outlooks we were made for another world. Perhaps, rather, we were made for this world to recreate, reclaim, redeem, and renew unto God's future aspiration by the power of His Spirit. - R.E. Slater

Our eschatological ethos is to love. To stand with those who are oppressed. To stand against those who are oppressing. It is that simple. Love is our only calling and Christian Hope. - R.E. Slater

Secularization theory has been massively falsified. We don't live in an age of secularity. We live in an age of explosive, pervasive religiosity... an age of religious pluralism. - Peter L. Berger

Exploring the edge of life and faith in a post-everything world. - Todd Littleton

I don't need another reason to believe, your love is all around for me to see. – Anon

Thou art our need; and in giving us more of thyself thou givest us all. - Khalil Gibran, Prayer XXIII

Be careful what you pretend to be. You become what you pretend to be. - Kurt Vonnegut

Religious beliefs, far from being primary, are often shaped and adjusted by our social goals. - Jim Forest

We become who we are by what we believe and can justify. - R.E. Slater

People, even more than things, need to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone. – Anon

Certainly, God's love has made fools of us all. - R.E. Slater

An apocalyptic Christian faith doesn't wait for Jesus to come, but for Jesus to become in our midst. - R.E. Slater

Christian belief in God begins with the cross and resurrection of Jesus, not with rational apologetics. - Eberhard Jüngel, Jürgen Moltmann

Our knowledge of God is through the 'I-Thou' encounter, not in finding God at the end of a syllogism or argument. There is a grave danger in any Christian treatment of God as an object. The God of Jesus Christ and Scripture is irreducibly subject and never made as an object, a force, a power, or a principle that can be manipulated. - Emil Brunner

“Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh” means "I will be that who I have yet to become." - God (Ex 3.14) or, conversely, “I AM who I AM Becoming.”

Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. - Thomas Merton

The church is God's world-changing social experiment of bringing unlikes and differents to the Eucharist/Communion table to share life with one another as a new kind of family. When this happens, we show to the world what love, justice, peace, reconciliation, and life together is designed by God to be. The church is God's show-and-tell for the world to see how God wants us to live as a blended, global, polypluralistic family united with one will, by one Lord, and baptized by one Spirit. – Anon

The cross that is planted at the heart of the history of the world cannot be uprooted. - Jacques Ellul

The Unity in whose loving presence the universe unfolds is inside each person as a call to welcome the stranger, protect animals and the earth, respect the dignity of each person, think new thoughts, and help bring about ecological civilizations. - John Cobb & Farhan A. Shah

If you board the wrong train it is of no use running along the corridors of the train in the other direction. - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

God's justice is restorative rather than punitive; His discipline is merciful rather than punishing; His power is made perfect in weakness; and His grace is sufficient for all. – Anon

Our little [biblical] systems have their day; they have their day and cease to be. They are but broken lights of Thee, and Thou, O God art more than they. - Alfred Lord Tennyson

We can’t control God; God is uncontrollable. God can’t control us; God’s love is uncontrolling! - Thomas Jay Oord

Life in perspective but always in process... as we are relational beings in process to one another, so life events are in process in relation to each event... as God is to Self, is to world, is to us... like Father, like sons and daughters, like events... life in process yet always in perspective. - R.E. Slater

To promote societal transition to sustainable ways of living and a global society founded on a shared ethical framework which includes respect and care for the community of life, ecological integrity, universal human rights, respect for diversity, economic justice, democracy, and a culture of peace. - The Earth Charter Mission Statement

Christian humanism is the belief that human freedom, individual conscience, and unencumbered rational inquiry are compatible with the practice of Christianity or even intrinsic in its doctrine. It represents a philosophical union of Christian faith and classical humanist principles. - Scott Postma

It is never wise to have a self-appointed religious institution determine a nation's moral code. The opportunities for moral compromise and failure are high; the moral codes and creeds assuredly racist, discriminatory, or subjectively and religiously defined; and the pronouncement of inhumanitarian political objectives quite predictable. - R.E. Slater

God's love must both center and define the Christian faith and all religious or human faiths seeking human and ecological balance in worlds of subtraction, harm, tragedy, and evil. - R.E. Slater

In Whitehead’s process ontology, we can think of the experiential ground of reality as an eternal pulse whereby what is objectively public in one moment becomes subjectively prehended in the next, and whereby the subject that emerges from its feelings then perishes into public expression as an object (or “superject”) aiming for novelty. There is a rhythm of Being between object and subject, not an ontological division. This rhythm powers the creative growth of the universe from one occasion of experience to the next. This is the Whiteheadian mantra: “The many become one and are increased by one.” - Matthew Segall

Without Love there is no Truth. And True Truth is always Loving. There is no dichotomy between these terms but only seamless integration. This is the premier centering focus of a Processual Theology of Love. - R.E. Slater

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Note: Generally I do not respond to commentary. I may read the comments but wish to reserve my time to write (or write off the comments I read). Instead, I'd like to see our community help one another and in the helping encourage and exhort each of us towards Christian love in Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior. - re slater

Showing posts with label Epistemic Humility. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Epistemic Humility. Show all posts

Thursday, April 17, 2014

David Foster Wallace, "The Key To Living A Compassionate Life"


"This Is Water," by David Foster Wallace (Full Speech)



David Foster Wallace, "The Key To Living A Compassionate Life"
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/16/david-foster-wallace-keny_n_5148773.html?ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000051&ir=Religion


The Huffington Post | by Carolyn Gregoire
Posted: 04/16/2014 12:05 pm EDT Updated: 04/16/2014 1:59 pm EDT

David Foster Wallace, widely considered one of the most brilliant writers of his generation, wrote prolifically about an incredibly wide spectrum of human experience. In novels, stories, essays, and magazine articles, he won legions of fans, established deep connections with readers and established a reputation as a towering intellect. But it was in his commencement address to Kenyon College's graduating class of 2005 that Wallace spoke with unprecedented directness, telling graduates in how to live in the "day to day trenches of adult life" with awareness and compassion.

The deeply moving and wryly humorous address -- later published in book form with the title This Is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered On A Significant Occasion, On Living A Compassionate Life -- quickly took its place among the most famous commencement addresses in recent history. And in the wake of Wallace's tragic death in 2008, the speech took on a new level of significance to his admirers.

"It captures his electric mind, and also his humility -- the way he elevated and made meaningful, beautiful, many of the lonely thoughts that rattle around in our heads,"as The Economist's magazine More Intelligent Life put it. "The way he put better thoughts in our heads, too."

Here are five universally applicable lessons from Wallace's now-iconic 2005 address:


1 - Ruthlessly question your own beliefs and assumptions.

Wallace is quick to dismantle our preconceived notions about the liberal arts cliche that education "teaches you how to think," and makes it the goal of his discussion to illuminate what this platitude really means. And it's not just about critical thinking or the ability to analyze or argue well.

An important part of truly learning how to think, he says, is becoming "just a little less arrogant" -- having some awareness of how little we actually know, and behaving accordingly.

"To have just a little critical awareness about myself and my certainties," Wallace explains. "Because a huge percentage of the stuff that I tend to be automatically certain of is, it turns out, totally wrong and deluded. I have learned this the hard way, as I predict you graduates will, too."

Educating ourselves is a lifelong process of stripping away our deeply-held convictions and assumptions in order to transcend our own limited viewpoints and, as a result, allow ourselves to think more openly and broadly. For Wallace, this is a way to escape the confines of our own minds.

2 - Growing is a movement from narcissism to connection.

We live and think from a completely self-centered place, says Wallace -- and of course, it's natural to perceive all things relative to ourselves. This is the way we automatically engage with the world -- self-centeredness is our "default setting."

"Everything in my own immediate experience supports my deep belief that I am the absolute centre of the universe; the realest, most vivid and important person in existence," explains Wallace.

But this self-centered mindset can keep us from engaging with the world with awareness and compassion. Our work as people who are learning to think, says Wallace, is to choose in each day and moment (for instance, when we're sitting in traffic or waiting in line at the supermarket, annoyed and impatient at anyone who might be slowing us down) to move beyond our own self-centered frame of mind.

"It's a matter of my choosing to do the work of somehow altering or getting free of my natural, hard-wired default setting which is to be deeply and literally self-centered and to see and interpret everything through this lens of self," says Wallace.

3 - Stay present and open.

Wallace's address touched upon an ancient truth: The mind is naturally unruly, and if we are to live with a sense of freedom and peacefulness, we must take some measures to gain control over it. Wallace quotes the old cliche, "The mind is an excellent servant but a terrible master."

"It is extremely difficult to stay alert and attentive," says Wallace, "instead of getting hypnotized by the constant monologue inside your own head."

But learning to stay alert and attentive are central to learning how to think. If we can learn to exercise some control over how and what we think, we'll become increasingly able to choose what we pay attention to and how we construct meaning from our experiences.

Wallace jokes that if you're unable to exercise this choice as an adult, you'll be "totally hosed":

"This is what the real, no bullshit value of your liberal arts education is supposed to be about: how to keep from going through your comfortable, prosperous, respectable adult life dead, unconscious, a slave to your head and to your natural default setting of being uniquely, completely, imperially alone day in and day out," says Wallace.

Through the "day in and day out" of adult life, Wallace says, we must choose how we react to countless small annoyances, boredoms, frustrations and injustices. When something doesn't go our way (even if it's simply getting stuck in traffic), we make the situation about ourselves -- what we want and how unfair it is that we're not getting it.

"That petty, frustrating crap like this is exactly where the work of choosing is gonna come in," says Wallace. "Because the traffic jams and crowded aisles and long checkout lines give me time to think, and if I don't make a conscious decision about how to think and what to pay attention to, I'm gonna be pissed and miserable every time I have to shop.

4 - Create your own meaning.

Learning how to think leads to the freedom to consciously impose meaning on your own experience.

"You get to consciously decide what has meaning and what doesn't," says Wallace. "You get to decide what to worship."

In some of the speech's most memorable words, he explains:

"In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship -- be it JC or Allah, be it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles -- is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. It's the truth. Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally grieve you."

5 - Above all, be good to others.

We educate ourselves and learn to control the mind for one important end: To be less self centered and more connected to others; to choose compassion in as many moments as we can.

"The really important kind of freedom," says Wallace, "involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day."



Sunday, September 1, 2013

Thinking about God Makes Me Just Want to Keep My Mouth Shut


expanding universe for dummies diagram

And at the other end of the spectrum we have subatomic particles–as if atoms weren’t small enough–and string theory.

If there is a God….a higher power, a supreme being, who is behind all this, I feel we should just stop talking for a minute and…well…just stop talking for a minute.

What kind of a God is this, who is capable of these sorts of things? What claim can we have to speak for him, to think his thoughts are our thoughts? Who do we think we are, anyway?

Here’s another thing that unsettles me into silence. According to the Christian tradition, this God who does literally incomprehensible things, is also willing to get very small–to line up next to us, to know us, even love us (as the Bible says again and again).

If there really is a God like this–a God who understands and controls things so big my calculator has to use a letter to get it across, who is also a God who walked among a tiny tribe of ancient people called Israelites, who allowed them to write about him in their tiny ancient ways, and who subjected himself to suffering and death (what we work so hard to avoid), well…

I think we’re talking mystery here, people.

A God who does both. There are no words for this sort of thing. Yeah, King David in the Psalms talked about praising God because of the wonders of the heavens (Ps 19), and wondered out loud how a God who put the moon and stars in their place could be bothered by puny people (Psalm 8). But David had a limited, quaint, view of “up there.” He did not, and could not, think of “heavens” as we now have to, what with our telescopes and such.

One God responsible for the unfathomably large, who is also near us. If there is such a God….