Education, Spirituality, and Metaphors : A Journal Post

[jackshoegazer]

The last major assignment for my English class is a research journal. Today, with much coaxing (I gave out five of the twenty suggestions) the class compiled a list of possible topics and people started choosing. I was going to do Creationism/Intelligent Design because I am truly baffled by it. (Seriously, even if there is some great Creator/Designer, how does that fit into Science? It DOESN'T. It doesn't matter one little bit who or what created the processes that made everything, the fact is that the processes exist and those can be scientifically observed. The giant tinker in the sky cannot.)

However, I think I'm going to go off-the-wall a bit and do mine on Atlantis. Since the only real evidence for actual Atlantis is a little blurb in one of Plato's notebooks, I'm going to try and run in the metaphoric/metaphysical direction, concentrating on why people love to believe in some past Golden Age or Eden. What does it mean and what does it say about our psychological make-up.

The idea of a golden past, a missing center, is especially interesting to me as I wrap up The Crying of Lot 49. I was unenthusiastic earlier, but the last half or so has gelled in a very beautiful way. It shares a theme or at least a vein with Foucault's Pendulum and several other books I've read in that the central mystery is never actually spoken of, it is only mentioned in metaphor. The whole narrative dances around it, like a bird that flies past your head so close and so fast, you only catch a fragment, but somehow you know what it is.

The esoteric aspects of many religions and spiritual traditions are like this as well. The idea of God or one's Holy Guardian Angel, or the Tao, are concepts so huge, so all-encompassing that they cannot exactly be grasped by the mind. The Tao that can be spoken is not the true Tao. If you can think of God, that is not God, but a concept of God. The "reality" is always bigger, so their literature dances around the main mystery, it hints and jabs and feints toward it, leading you nearer and nearer, but it is like a bright light at the edge of your vision - you can feel the heat and your surroundings are illuminated but you never quite see the light itself. If you ever manage to look directly into the sun, it is blinding and the image fades and you spend the rest of your life trying to recapture that image burned in your retina.

On a more mundane note, while discussing the global-warming/carbon/petroleum/apocalypse issue in sociology today, I equated the battle between corporations and the green/renewable movements to the good guy and the bad guy battling it out in a speeding train that's headed off a cliff.  Eventually one of them has to win - either we switch to renewable energy or we burn the oil up until either we run out and civilization collapses/climate change kills us off.  If the good guy doesn't win, we're going off that cliff.  I thought that was a good metaphor.  I'm sure someone else has used it but I invented it independently.  I'm tired of inventing things independently.  I once wrote a story for a 6th grade Don't Drink/Alcohol is Bad program only to discover later it was the the plot for a Family Ties episode.

Comments

[blackbuttoneyes.livejournal.com]

When I was 12 I wrote an X-Files fan fic that became an episode in thr 7th season.

(realizes she publicly admitted to writing fan fic, commites hari kari)

[blackbuttoneyes.livejournal.com]

I don't mean MY fan fic BECAME an episode, but one with the same plot came out a few years later. I just realized I made it sound lie they paid 12 year old Jenn to write an X-Files episode. Sadly that is not true.

[jackshoegazer.livejournal.com]

I understood you :) A friend and I used to joke that we were bugged by the CIA or something because we would come up with some great idea or invention and a month later some company would announce its release :P We hated that :D

[blackbuttoneyes.livejournal.com]

Heehee, that's hysterical. Too bad you can't manifest political change in the same way.

[jackshoegazer.livejournal.com]

If that were true, in about a month, we'll have the beginnings of a one-world government and a single currency and a world-wide minimum wage and labor laws and environmental protections. Riiiiight.

[blackbuttoneyes.livejournal.com]

Yeah....it's nice to dream.

[jackshoegazer.livejournal.com]

I forgot, not only that, but kitten will stay kittens forever. That's very important for world peace.

[blackbuttoneyes.livejournal.com]

Yes! Can we also make that retroactively true? So that full grown cats can once more be kittens? (eyes Simon)

[pretzelcoatl.livejournal.com]

I think the Atlantis idea is much more interesting anyway. I say this partly because you have some really cool ideas about it, but also because it's not as topical as the whole Creationism/Intelligent Design controversy.

Which reminds me, I still need to read Foucault's Pendulum. Every time I attempt to, I've been thwarted by some Real Life Issue or Project. DAMN YOU, REAL LIFE.

[jackshoegazer.livejournal.com]

Foucault's is awesome. It's the thinking-man's DaVinci Code, or to be more specific, it's as if a real historian were also a conspiracy theorist. It's amazing.

The Atlantis thing will be fun merely because of its lack of seriousness, methinks. I've already covered world-wide governmental reform. I should go with something lighter this time :P

[anubis75.livejournal.com]

The idea of God or one's Holy Guardian Angel, or the Tao, are concepts so huge, so all-encompassing that they cannot exactly be grasped by the mind. The Tao that can be spoken is not the true Tao.

That's along similar lines as I'd resort to when I'd get into debates about the validity of exoteric Judeo-Christian teachings. I'd start by asking them what God was to them. They'd come of with the typical Christer answers, and then I'd ask them if God was capable of anything, if he was a male, and is he all-knowing? They would of course respond in the affirmative. Then I'd drop the other steel-capped Doc Marten by asking so why should you limit the divine? If god is as capable of all things as you say god is, then aren't you trying to pidgeon hole something that can't be pidgeon-holed by human concepts. The more thoughtful ones would scatch their heads and think about it, the fervent ones would curse me for a blasphemer because I causeed them to doubt their fragile faith. (It's the 3rd Day of the Writing of the Book of the Law and I'm feeling very RHK today)

[jackshoegazer.livejournal.com]

That's one of the best logic-traps to get them with because their logic requires them to imagine something illogical and "outside the box" or rather something that is both inside and outside the box and is the box itself.

Creationism/Intelligent Design

[mustangsally78.livejournal.com]

I spend about half a class explaining the difference between Evolution, Creationism, and Intelligent Design.

eg: Intelligent Design is Creationism.

:::sigh:::

Re: Creationism/Intelligent Design

[jackshoegazer.livejournal.com]

But doesn't Intelligent Design sound so much more scientificy? Grrrr! One of my guilty pleasures on Saturdays at work is driving around listening to the Creationist radio programs. Their science is SO bad it hurts.

Re: Creationism/Intelligent Design

[jesuslovesbono.livejournal.com]

correct me if i'm wrong, but i thought ID could include the idea that God/whoever *used* evolution to make everything? (of course, God/whoever is probably outside science, so i'm aware that one can't scientifically prove/disprove it/him/her/whatever)

Re: Creationism/Intelligent Design

[jackshoegazer.livejournal.com]

Noooo, ID is anti-evolution. ID is celestial architecture. ID says that God is real smart and designed everything perfectly. There are some religious people who view evolution as the process God uses to manifest things, but they don't really have a name or a movement.

[helpimarock.livejournal.com]

I really like this Golden Past concept. One could say that people who believe in Creationism or ID have Golden Past Syndrome -- they can't (or refuse to) grasp the chaos of an infinite universe and have to have some sort of simple, logical, and elegant foundation to believe in. That probably sounds pretentious and arrogant, but you get the idea.

About Atlantis though, there is actually a lot of evidence for it beyond Plato's writings. There are many candidate sites throughout the world -- one even as far away as Japan -- but it is now widely believed that Crete was Atlantis. Excavations of the Minoan Palace at Knossos have revealed architecture and technology that were nearly 1500 years ahead of their time.

Granted, I'm fascinated by the concept of Atlantis and probably have a touch of Golden Past Syndrome myself. However, civilizations disappearing (almost) without a trace is something that has happened -- at least one example per continent last time I checked -- and only now in the Modern Era have we found the tools and methods to uncover what was lost and forgotten for millennia. My favorite example was the discovery of ancient remains of a whole new type of human being, i.e. Homo floresiensis, in Indonesia only four years ago.

It's amazing what time and change can sweep under the carpet. Can you imagine what's still out there waiting to be found just on *this* planet? Have fun with the paper, this is a great topic to work with.

[jackshoegazer.livejournal.com]

I think we all have GPS. I think it comes from a deep and abiding knowledge, buried deep within us. That knowledge is our root, our origin, our soul, the golden spark, that shard of divinity that is our true selves. But that sounds pretentious too, but hey, if you got it, flaunt it.

I was just reading an article today talking about how Plato's writings of Atlantis were a metaphor for Athens versus the rest of Greece. I also read an article that talked about how effing weird it was when Christianity started spreading and they tried to meld Greek & Jewish history by making Plato a disciple of Moses :P

I loved that Hobbit-island story. The major problem is that most civilizations developed on coasts and those ancient coasts are all underwater now. Only recently have we had the technology to really search for them. Graham Hancock wrote a book about them. Have you read much Graham Hancock? If not, pick up Fingerprints of the Gods and enjoY :D

[lokis-raven.livejournal.com]

I love that painting. Who did it?

[jackshoegazer.livejournal.com]

The background is part of a Rembrandt, but the rest, the hand, the paintbrush, the monkey, the white sculpture and gazebo, I added then made the whole thing look like a painting :)

[lokis-raven.livejournal.com]

Wow, that's something else! I really like it. It looks like the monkey's wearing sunglasses. :) And I thought, maybe his eyes are dark because he's blind, just a blind monkey who can't see what the Painter is doing.

[jackshoegazer.livejournal.com]

Isn't that just a beautiful metaphor for human existence - blind monkeys who can't see what the Painter/Creator is doing?

Except in rare moments of spiritual understanding when "ye shall be as gods" and we see a bit, a moment, a glimpse of the divine.

[lokis-raven.livejournal.com]

Yes, I agree!

Sometimes I wonder where we're headed as a species. As we evolve our brains become more and more complex so we understand more and more. I would love to look back on earth 10,000+ years from now and see what happened to us! Is there a God out there who's evolving us toward something in particular, and we're but a speck on the timeline? This is where I have to remind myself of what Rilke said, Try to love the questions. :) But I'd love to hear your thoughts on it, too.