Brian is my friend...
...of long standing, and we cemented our friendship last night with a fair amount of alcohol, enough to leave me in a quasi-queasy state all day. And what DIDN'T we talk about? Well, the horses, or grayhounds, or the Weather, to mention but a few things we didn't mention. To use a phrase a mutual (I would like to think) friend once coined or used himself, we should have had a sign hung above our little spot in the pub saying "Bullshit Corner".
Here's what we talked about: Brian can fill in the gaps?: As if anybody's interested: about his teacher training, I think that's about where we started. The sort of person that is "ideal" for that sort of job, as Brian put it, would spend all day with the kids and then bring in a piece of work for the class she'd worked on all night (and it would be laminated) - it's funny how I used "she'd" in this sentence, a Freudian slip? The sort of person that is good at their job, in my opinion, IS their job, which is why the likes of Brian and myself will never be good at our jobs. To me, you take off your job "hat" when you walk out of the classroom, or boardroom, or whatever. You just can't really MAKE it though if that's your attitude. I say it's a good one: to be a human being is not to specialize, but to generalize, to be "well read" is not just to read one book over and over. To live well is to know a bit of everything, but especially to know you don't know that much about anything and the most important questions in Life, they're the ones worth worrying over and worth putting time into. If you can keep your sanity. I can just hear somebody shouting "You can KEEP your sanity, I'm going to get to the bottom of this!". Anyways. I agreed with Brian and assured him I was exactly the same in my job in the civil service, for Seven years I tried to be happy being a bog-standard worker but they always want more than just your (mere) time. The feeling I get when I consider the efforts of people to be good at their job (the laminators of this world) is like someone's pulling a plug out inside me: I don't understand it, I feel like there's something missing in me, and my enthusiasm just disappears. I do understand that if everyone was like me, the world (as it is) would probably fall apart, but I can't help feeling there's something positive about not viewing yourself as BEING something that has a definite role, something elevating and godlike: not "I'm a shovel, therefore I dig": more "I think, therefore I am, but as to what I AM, I'm not too sure!" Part of the answer to this "problem" could be something we discussed for most of the night.
Brian and myself both having "had the answers" to all Lifes questions, being part of the same fundamentalist religion, now both believe we didn't have them. What can take that place? When you've considered the "world" and it's vocations as "so much refuse" as Paul put it, when you've considered the pursuit of a career as being equivalent to wanting to work on the Titanic, what can make you think completely the opposite, what can fill the gap left by the job of working for God, with eternal life as the pay? Nothing. We've been institutionalized by our religion of many years, and we're having a hard time coming to terms with being citizens of this world, even being neighbours to the people next door to us. That's about the best I can put it. And when you've had the "big picture" view all your life, you really can't shake it, it's hard mustering up the desire to laminate when "we're all going to Die and probably be non-existent forever and ever".
We of course talked lots more about philosophy, religion and the Bible, what better things are there to talk about? I mentioned the website I had come across here and particularly the section on slavery which begins here. This site presents the Bible in a pictorial way, by the use of Lego! In keeping with my current quest to (proudly forging ahead in my foolish wisdom of men way) understand things MYSELF, and come to my OWN conclusions about things, I must admit I didn't check to see whether there existed a "Questions from readers" relating to the scriptures mentioned, believing that no answer could satisfy me, though ANY answer used to (the mentality being: "They've addressed the question, so they've answered the question"). How come it was such a "loving" thing for a master to let his slaves go, when they couldn't take their wife and kids with them? How come we never heard THAT before? And (this gets me) what is a human Life worth? Thirty pieces of silver? No, shouts the devout, that's disgusting: look here in the "Word" and see how it condemns that view! Well, erm, sorry but what other view can you come away with when the Bible also says that if a SLAVE dies (a slave's life, you will grant, is worth as much as the next mans) at his masters hand, as long as he doesn't die straight away, but dies 24 hours or more later, the master is not to be punished, because he's (basically) "lost his money"? He's lost his MONEY? Then the Bible is saying that the human life in this case equates to that monetary value, say, thirty pieces of Silver. There is no other way of looking at it, and I hate to say it, but if any government today allowed slavery and allowed Laws like that, we wouldn't be making improvements, would we? How then is the Law "perfect"? It pains me to say it, believe me.
We also talked briefly about the reactions of people still within the bounds of our former religion to ourselves, or more particularly, to any remark we may offer that would question their beliefs (I have to be careful how I phrase this), but by way of illustration, say I had sent the above remarks on the scriptures discussing slavery to a friend who sticks to the "way", he would feel obliged, even though that person be otherwise very intelligent and rational, to argue the case "for the defense", though there be no such case to a reasonable person (which he on any other subject WOULD be). This made me think of a comparison between the Lawyer, who's JOB it is to defend the sometimes indefensible, and the Devout, who's JOB it is to defend the Bible and his particular Religion, at any cost! "This is what I get paid for!" they both say, and one is looking to be paid a hell of a lot more than the other! Believe it or not, peoples actions actually show this to be true. "The Bible can't be wrong, and neither can my Religion which is based on it": see my previous posting of the quotes by Raymond Franz, one of which I think is the one where he states that there's no admission of any PRESENT wrongs within Jehovah's Witnesses, and although some veiled admissions of error are made respecting PAST statements or beliefs, it is the duty of the present Christian to view and act as if all PRESENT doctrine is infallible or face Disfellowshipping: this must be the case because any prolonged questioning of the rightness of current beliefs and you end up being Disfellowshipped!
It was a good night, made even better (strangely) by us missing the last train home and having to walk the two hours back. There are many other things we talked about and, perhaps, the web could not contain the blogs that could be written about it... ;-)
Here's what we talked about: Brian can fill in the gaps?: As if anybody's interested: about his teacher training, I think that's about where we started. The sort of person that is "ideal" for that sort of job, as Brian put it, would spend all day with the kids and then bring in a piece of work for the class she'd worked on all night (and it would be laminated) - it's funny how I used "she'd" in this sentence, a Freudian slip? The sort of person that is good at their job, in my opinion, IS their job, which is why the likes of Brian and myself will never be good at our jobs. To me, you take off your job "hat" when you walk out of the classroom, or boardroom, or whatever. You just can't really MAKE it though if that's your attitude. I say it's a good one: to be a human being is not to specialize, but to generalize, to be "well read" is not just to read one book over and over. To live well is to know a bit of everything, but especially to know you don't know that much about anything and the most important questions in Life, they're the ones worth worrying over and worth putting time into. If you can keep your sanity. I can just hear somebody shouting "You can KEEP your sanity, I'm going to get to the bottom of this!". Anyways. I agreed with Brian and assured him I was exactly the same in my job in the civil service, for Seven years I tried to be happy being a bog-standard worker but they always want more than just your (mere) time. The feeling I get when I consider the efforts of people to be good at their job (the laminators of this world) is like someone's pulling a plug out inside me: I don't understand it, I feel like there's something missing in me, and my enthusiasm just disappears. I do understand that if everyone was like me, the world (as it is) would probably fall apart, but I can't help feeling there's something positive about not viewing yourself as BEING something that has a definite role, something elevating and godlike: not "I'm a shovel, therefore I dig": more "I think, therefore I am, but as to what I AM, I'm not too sure!" Part of the answer to this "problem" could be something we discussed for most of the night.
Brian and myself both having "had the answers" to all Lifes questions, being part of the same fundamentalist religion, now both believe we didn't have them. What can take that place? When you've considered the "world" and it's vocations as "so much refuse" as Paul put it, when you've considered the pursuit of a career as being equivalent to wanting to work on the Titanic, what can make you think completely the opposite, what can fill the gap left by the job of working for God, with eternal life as the pay? Nothing. We've been institutionalized by our religion of many years, and we're having a hard time coming to terms with being citizens of this world, even being neighbours to the people next door to us. That's about the best I can put it. And when you've had the "big picture" view all your life, you really can't shake it, it's hard mustering up the desire to laminate when "we're all going to Die and probably be non-existent forever and ever".
We of course talked lots more about philosophy, religion and the Bible, what better things are there to talk about? I mentioned the website I had come across here and particularly the section on slavery which begins here. This site presents the Bible in a pictorial way, by the use of Lego! In keeping with my current quest to (proudly forging ahead in my foolish wisdom of men way) understand things MYSELF, and come to my OWN conclusions about things, I must admit I didn't check to see whether there existed a "Questions from readers" relating to the scriptures mentioned, believing that no answer could satisfy me, though ANY answer used to (the mentality being: "They've addressed the question, so they've answered the question"). How come it was such a "loving" thing for a master to let his slaves go, when they couldn't take their wife and kids with them? How come we never heard THAT before? And (this gets me) what is a human Life worth? Thirty pieces of silver? No, shouts the devout, that's disgusting: look here in the "Word" and see how it condemns that view! Well, erm, sorry but what other view can you come away with when the Bible also says that if a SLAVE dies (a slave's life, you will grant, is worth as much as the next mans) at his masters hand, as long as he doesn't die straight away, but dies 24 hours or more later, the master is not to be punished, because he's (basically) "lost his money"? He's lost his MONEY? Then the Bible is saying that the human life in this case equates to that monetary value, say, thirty pieces of Silver. There is no other way of looking at it, and I hate to say it, but if any government today allowed slavery and allowed Laws like that, we wouldn't be making improvements, would we? How then is the Law "perfect"? It pains me to say it, believe me.
We also talked briefly about the reactions of people still within the bounds of our former religion to ourselves, or more particularly, to any remark we may offer that would question their beliefs (I have to be careful how I phrase this), but by way of illustration, say I had sent the above remarks on the scriptures discussing slavery to a friend who sticks to the "way", he would feel obliged, even though that person be otherwise very intelligent and rational, to argue the case "for the defense", though there be no such case to a reasonable person (which he on any other subject WOULD be). This made me think of a comparison between the Lawyer, who's JOB it is to defend the sometimes indefensible, and the Devout, who's JOB it is to defend the Bible and his particular Religion, at any cost! "This is what I get paid for!" they both say, and one is looking to be paid a hell of a lot more than the other! Believe it or not, peoples actions actually show this to be true. "The Bible can't be wrong, and neither can my Religion which is based on it": see my previous posting of the quotes by Raymond Franz, one of which I think is the one where he states that there's no admission of any PRESENT wrongs within Jehovah's Witnesses, and although some veiled admissions of error are made respecting PAST statements or beliefs, it is the duty of the present Christian to view and act as if all PRESENT doctrine is infallible or face Disfellowshipping: this must be the case because any prolonged questioning of the rightness of current beliefs and you end up being Disfellowshipped!
It was a good night, made even better (strangely) by us missing the last train home and having to walk the two hours back. There are many other things we talked about and, perhaps, the web could not contain the blogs that could be written about it... ;-)
posted by John Doran-Armstrong at 1:11 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home