One of my favorite tracks off "Days of Future Passed" -- written, as the pictures slyly suggest, by Ray Thomas.
["The Moody Blues-Twilight Time"]
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For your easy listening pleasure...
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["Mantovani & Orchester - Limelight" and "Mantovani - Edelweiss.flv"]
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What it comes down to is this -- is everyone in the universe entitled to
justice? If not, then who isn't? It only seems well advised then to try to
do others justice.
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You get your priorities straight, have faith, do your work and perform (in
some helpful and beneficial capacity or other) in this life, are tested,
and get paid commensurate with such efforts in the next. And what is so
strange or incomprehensible about this? And were this so, and as appears to
be the case, would it not after all explain almost everything? And is it
not far worse at the end of life to have of little or no substantial help
to anyone than to have merely missed out on some pleasure or privilege?
Life then can be perhaps be best likened to a job; which whether you like it
or not, you'd better do and endeavor to do well at -- or else risk regretting your mistake.
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Here is YouTube installment number three (of six) of "The Great Battle on the Volga" (1962); which film I uploaded just earlier today.
["Great Battle on the Volga (1962) - part 3/6 Stalingrad documentary"]
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["The doors and albert King (July 3rd)" and "Albert King - Memphis Live 1975.avi"]
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Zomboism, Magicianism, Ophianism, Pseudo-Christianity, call it what you like, but it all boils down to the same thing – Demonism.
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Greeting us in this morning's (May 13, 2012) headlines:
Isn't this perhaps somewhat like saying the team was on its way to winning the pennant; only they didn't have to play against anyone very good? Meanwhile, the other day I came across this instructive passage in Emory Elliott's Revolutionary Writers: Literature and Authority in the New Republic, 1725-1810 (1986). The specific context is dated (e.g., creeping fascism rather than lording monarchy threaten us today), yet the remarks, with slight modification respecting current conditions and circumstances, bear re-hearing.
"Nowhere was [Philip] Freneau more explicit about the effect of politics upon the literary situation than in his essay, 'Royal Dangers in the Stage.' There he argued that those who controlled the popular imagination would wield great political power, and theatrical entertainments approved by the wealthy and powerful for public consumption were merely tools for enforcing aristocratic values. The simplistic themes of such plays served only to distract people from their political, economic, and social conditions: 'It has ever been the policy of ministers of state, in all monarchical government, or governments urging toward monarchy, to create and countenance alluring investments, in order to prevent the people from thinking...Fancy and imagination among mankind are everything. Aristocracy and Royalty by taking hold of these leading faculties in human nature, have rendered the theater subservient to their own purposes. In a Republic like America...the theater...should be a school of virtue and public good.'" (p. 135)
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Everything you think of is always in some measure other than what you think it is; for insofar as we are not omniscient it can't be helped. This intellectual handicap can doubtless be mitigated to some degree, but never, as it were, completely so. An implied corollary to which premise might lead us to conclude that inasmuch as our thoughts and conceptions are finite, any given particular thing known is or could be potentionally infinite -- and despite appearances. (Hence faith could be said to be necessary for the possibility of apodictically true and ineluctable knowledge.)
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Excerpts from Augustine's epistles continued.
* To My Lord and Brother, Augustine, Rightly and Justly Worthy of Esteem
and of All Possible Honour, Nectarius Sends Greeting in the Lord.
1. In reading the letter of your Excellency [i.e., Augustine], in which you
have overthrown the worship of idols and the ritual of their temples, I
seemed to myself to hear the voice of a philosopher...
2. I therefore listened with pleasure when you urged us to the worship and
religion of the only supreme God; and when you counselled us to look to our
heavenly fatherland, I received the exhortation with joy. For you were
obviously speaking to me not of any city confined by encircling ramparts,
nor of that commonwealth on this earth which the writings of philosophers
have mentioned and declared to have all mankind as its citizens, but of
that City which is inhabited and possessed by the great God, and by the
spirits which have earned this recompense from Him, to which, by diverse
roads and pathways, all religions aspire,— the City which we are not able
in language to describe, but which perhaps we might by thinking apprehend.
But while this City ought therefore to be, above all others, desired and
loved, I am nevertheless of opinion that we are bound not to prove
unfaithful to our own native land—the land which first imparted to us the
enjoyment of the light of day, in which we were nursed and educated, and
(to pass to what is specially relevant in this case) the land by rendering
services to which men obtain a home prepared for them in heaven after the
death of the body; for, in the opinion of the most learned, promotion to
that celestial City is granted to those men who have deserved well of the
cities which gave them birth, and a higher experience of fellowship with
God is the portion of those who are proved to have contributed by their
counsels or by their labours to the welfare of their native land.
~ Letter 103
[ch. 2] 7. When any one uses measures involving the infliction of some
pain, in order to prevent an inconsiderate person from incurring the most
dreadful punishments by becoming accustomed to crimes which yield him no
advantage, he is like one who pulls a boy's hair in order to prevent him
from provoking serpents by clapping his hands at them; in both cases, while
the acting of love is vexatious to its object, no member of the body is
injured, whereas safety and life are endangered by that from which the
person is deterred. We confer a benefit upon others, not in every case in
which we do what is requested, but when we do that which is not hurtful to
our petitioners. For in most cases we serve others best by not giving, and
would injure them by giving, what they desire. Hence the proverb, “Do not
put a sword in a child's hand.” “Nay,” says Cicero, “refuse it even to your
only son. For the more we love any one, the more are we bound to avoid
entrusting to him things which are the occasion of very dangerous faults.”
He was referring to riches, if I am not mistaken, when he made these
observations. Wherefore it is for the most part an advantage to themselves
when certain things are removed from persons in whose keeping it is
hazardous to leave them, lest they abuse them. When surgeons see that a
gangrene must be cut away or cauterized, they often, out of compassion,
turn a deaf ear to many cries. If we had been indulgently forgiven by our
parents and teachers in our tender years on every occasion on which, being
found in a fault, we begged to be let off, which of us would not have grown
up intolerable? Which of us would have learned any useful thing? Such
punishments are administered by wise care, not by wanton cruelty. Do not, I
beseech you, in this matter think only how to accomplish that which you are
requested by your countrymen to do, but carefully consider the matter in
all its bearings. If you overlook the past, which cannot now be undone,
consider the future; wisely give heed, not to the desire, but to the real
interests of the petitioners who have applied to you. We are convicted of
unfaithfulness towards those whom we profess to love, if our only care is
lest, by refusing to do what they ask of us, their love towards us be
diminished. And what becomes of that virtue which even your own literature
commends, in the ruler of his country who studies not so much the wishes as
the welfare of his people?
[ch. 4] 13. In the meantime, however—and this, I think, may suffice in the
present reply to your Excellency,— seeing that Christ has said, “I am the
way,” [John 14:6] it is in Him that mercy and truth are to be sought: if we
seek these in any other way, we must go astray, following a path which
aspires to the true goal, but does not lead men there. For example, if we
resolved to follow the way indicated in the maxim which you mentioned, “All
sins are alike,” would it not lead us into hopeless exile from that
fatherland of truth and blessedness? For could anything more absurd and
senseless be said, than that the man who has laughed too rudely, and the
man who has furiously set his city on fire, should be judged as having
committed equal crimes? This opinion, which is not one of many diverse ways
leading to the heavenly dwelling-place, but a perverse way leading
inevitably to most fatal error, you have judged it necessary to quote from
certain philosophers, not because you concurred in the sentiment, but
because it might help your plea for your fellow citizens— that we might
forgive those whose rage set our church in flames on the same terms as we
would forgive those who may have assailed us with some insolent reproach.
~ Letter 104
