Hey, I got home to you having posted this and it put a huge smile on my face. As I told you in the email, Iām a fan of how your poem holds an authentic namaste quality and Iām just tickled to have taken a small part in it. Thanks, T, you fellow drop in the cosmic ocean, you.
Yes I thought instead of replying to your email, I'd surprise you ;-) You really do have magic in your fingertips. And thank you for that authentic namaste quality. This was a poem that felt channeled. Just swimming in that ocean of Spirit with you.
Oooh, ocean as wave! No material substance, only movement. Answering the quantum physics dilemma, particle or wave? I like that.
And you must be proud as punch (where do we think that phrase came from?) with the SOTUs you sparked. Did you mention that you'd started a separate Substack to post them? I didn't find a link but, if so, would you post it here?
The phrase "proud as punch" originates from the character Mr. Punch from the classic puppet show "Punch and Judy." In the show, Mr. Punch is often portrayed as being extremely pleased with his own misdeeds. This exaggerated self-satisfaction gave rise to the phrase "proud as punch."
Oh we need a rebrand on that one. Why was slapstick humor so popular? I never could stand Punch and Judy, The Three Stooges. How 'bout proud as a new mama? And thanks for that link!
Thank you, Neshma! BTW, I sent a note recently to the missing link on our collab and haven't heard back. I'll try again but I think that what's meant to be will happen and, if it doesn't, something else will come. Either way I'm not worried but excited for when we do have a chance to work together. Oh, to be surrounded by such talented friends!
Thank you for the compliment, Glen, and for subbing! I agree, without pride or humility, that is a very moving line. Maybe it's because I wrote this more than a decade ago, or maybe just because our higher gifts never come from the ego-self, but I can read this and be astonished.
Yes, that ego-skin wants separation but we have a whole congregation inside that's clamoring to get out ;-) Having Tonika turn this into a poem with wings makes it exceedingly clear that nothing worthy belongs to just me, I'm just a chipped (and perfect) vessel holding my drop of infinite truth--just like you.
As yu know, we live in bi-psycho territory on the Apple Lactation Trail. Also you always have fleurs front and center in your postings so I just could not help mine self. The mind reels at the possibilities of langwidge and images.
Thank you so much, Heather! I realized that I forgot two, between Ode to a Clothesline and The Holy Dark that was in You Are the Christ, so I edited those in too. Fun to have them all in one place. I forget that poetry used to be my main squeeze ;-)
Pardon me as I barge in with a question. I just discovered this stack off of Tonika's site. And hearing about your book, I went to the amazon reviews. I was going through the intro review happily nodding, um, very cool, until I came to something that stopped me in my tracks. She said: "This book holds one consistent belief: people are inherently good and when they behave badly, systems are to blame."
Really? Psychopaths are inherently good? Instead of getting indignant, heh, I thought I'd ask you to clarify. Many thanks.
Oh how lovely of you, erin, to come here from Tonika's stack, to check into my book and read the intro AND to ask for clarification rather than getting indignant. Thank you for all those!
Let me start by explaining why it matters, first on a theological level. I think we're in agreement on defining 'inherently' as born that way and a psychopath as someone born with the irrepressible desire to inflict pain, which we could call evil.
If people are born evil, then either God is evil or God doesn't exist--and the word God is synonymous with meaning and purpose. The purpose of the world as we know it is either a sadistic God who's laughing at us or completely random where death is the end and you might as well get what you can.
So you can believe in psychopaths or entertain the possibility of a God worth having around, but you can't do both. In my own experience, I knew a kid who inflicted pain from a very young age and showed no remorse. His mother was my best friend. What I tried to show her is that her system was rewarding his behavior with attention and giving him what he wanted--generally to go home. She saw me as thereby blaming her, and we stopped being friends. When she believed it was genetic (from the dad's side, of course) it didn't change the behavior but it let her off the hook. So I've never seen a kid 'born bad' no matter how good the mother. For the sociopaths running our society, I suspect they've been intentionally subjected to severe trauma and occult rituals, as I write about in this: https://thirdparadigm.substack.com/p/pedo-sadist-cults-and-anneke-lucas.
Last, on a social level. Our existing systems of gov't and economics are built on the assumption that some people are morally better than others, not because of their circumstances but because of their innate character. Those people, and even races, are fit to rule over others, and write the rules to which others are subjected. So our job is to judge people as worthy or not, not to judge policies as working or not.
My system assumes that all communities are equally capable of self-governance. Within a community, if people are behaving badly and you can't outsource them, I think you ask 'why?' My system makes it the job of the local gov't to enable families and households, and the job of regional gov't to protect and enable local gov'ts.
We don't need to agree, of course, on whether people are inherently good. I'm pretty certain we agree that the system we have now rewards sociopathic behaviors. Like my friend and her son, I would have liked for her to try my system for a few months, and see if it could have spared them both the trajectory he continued on.
If you create a fair economic system in your commonwealth, in which people are rewarded for a myriad of roles that serve your community and families have what they need to raise healthy kids, and you still see psychopaths being born for no reason whatsoever, that's something your community can deal with. Early psychopath screening? Pre-incarceration?
As a mother of three, however, I can't imagine deciding one of my daughters was 'born bad' and that's just the way it is. Love is asking 'why?'
So those are my thoughts and again, thanks for asking.
Awesome! I never expected such a thorough reply. Thank you for that!
I agree with you that this is a crucial issue. No need to talk me into it. :-)
What I hear you saying (and feel free to correct me if my any of my impressions are not quite on the money), is that you go through this elaborate argument to decide whether or not there are psychopaths out there. -- I look. And I see people without conscience. They are not āall badā by any means, many are variously talented and live more or less normal life. Nevertheless, they do not have a conscience (or their conscience is severely impaired).
The research tells me that they comprise about 4% of populations, with women at roughly 25% of them; most of them are males. It also claims that genes play some 50% of the reason why someone becomes a psychopath -- the other 50% is cultural.
If I had three daughters, I would consider it crucial to warn them about these people. And if one of my girls was one of them, it would of course be very important to know this so that I could steer her closely from an early age. Even though genetics matter, some societies have overtly many fewer in the population because that society discourages antisocial behavior.
Some of them, however, are unable or unwilling to modify their inclinations. Tribal societies had a variety of means of āgiving them a chance to turn aroundā but if all failed... the Eskimos called them kunlangeta and if all failed, they were pushed off an ice floe some cold day. They did not -- unlike us -- underestimate the huge danger they pose to society.
So this is what I (and many others) see out there. I was told as a young woman that all people are good, deep down, and I paid a brutal price for it. As I see it, you do nobody any favors sweeping it under the rug by pointing to systems alone, and to sweeping theories about past trauma. We all have genetic and cultural burdens; and we all are responsible for what we do. So thatās my own view of it.
But I will gladly take up your (unexpected! yum!) theological challenge -- so few people are willing to take this path! :-)
I define a psychopath as someone without a conscience. Not āall bad.ā Many have much to contribute. They are unable to feel normal human feelings -- what they show is practiced imitation. They are remarkable by their inability to empathize. (They donāt necessarily have āirrepressible desire to inflict pain.ā)
You seem to say that even though it looks like they are (I add: in part) born that way, you will not accept it because it would besmirch God. Itās a valid objection.
If children are born without arms or legs or functioning brain, or if they are born without conscience, same issue, right? Yet we donāt deny that the physically damaged ones do get born so. Why deny the other?
Here is how I have solved that ancient conundrum. You say... āIf people are born evil, then either God is evil or God doesn't exist.ā Well, no. That strikes me as black and white thinking: only two options, when others exist. I accept that God exists.
God is good. God is powerful. And some people are born damaged. Yet I do entertain the possibility of a God worth having around (love that turn of phrase! :-).
I assume that the creation is unfinished. God went back to work on the eight day, and is still at work. Look at the miracle that has been accomplished so far... from howling heat and emptiness... all this life, all this beauty and goodness and love. When I look around at this beautiful world, I marvel at how far itās come! But not everything has been accomplished yet. And that is why damage happens, whether it be a baby born with malfunctioning heart or conscience, or whether a town is destroyed by a volcano or an avalanche.
My heart aches for all the angry people who refuse God because they donāt see a resolution to the problem of evil.
"I will gladly take up your (unexpected! yum!) theological challenge" I laughed so hard at that, Erin! I have exactly the same reaction when someone takes me up on a theological challenge <grin>
Another way that I word this dogma, which is my only one, is that I'm no better than anyone else--if I was dropped into anyone else's life, their genetic makeup, their exact circumstances, I would do no better and possibly worse (if there's divine meaning that the life we're born into is one we're uniquely suited to make sense of).
Your initial argument, from what I gathered, was that people are not born inherently good, because psychopaths. But rather than cruel or sadistic, aka 'bad', you describe them as "unable to feel normal human feelings -- what they show is practiced imitation. They are remarkable by their inability to empathize."
This seems to fit the autistic, not looking to inflict pain but unable to put themselves in another's place. I've wondered if this is a feature and not a bug of the childhood vax schedule. It seems useful to have a mass asocial workforce who have no conscience. I would say these child-adults are victims of the true psychopaths, if we define psychopaths as made not born.
Since we seem to agree that you can't blame someone for the way they're born or made, maybe we agree that evil people don't exist. Evil actions done by damaged people, yes. I define doing evil as causing others to cause pain, and I calibrate that by the number of people caused the most amount of pain, determined by what would be worse if done to me or my daughters.
On that scale, no evil compares to what's being done in Gaza. I'll attach one article that makes the point explicitly but I'll assume you're already well informed and will spare you a reiteration of the details: https://www.unz.com/runz/the-state-of-israel-as-cartoonishly-evil/.
So in terms of inflicting pain exponentially through other people, Netanyahu is the greatest psychopath of the present time. And in Congress, he just got 72 ovations, 60+ of them standing. Of the 100 members who didn't attend, like Harris, it was more from cowardice and coming elections than conviction. What does this say about our system?
No lone wolf psychopath has ever tortured as brutally, killed more children, terrorized more ruthlessly, gaslit more brazenly, or used more horror film techniques. They're in a civil war now over whether anal rape with a broomstick is going too far. 70% of all homes have been demolished. And he got 72 ovations from the leaders of the US!
Were the people of Israel, all of whom have been in the military, born without a conscience, genetically defective? How about members of Congress? Or is the system that's put them in power over others psychopathic?
Back to theology, if God made damaged people because he didn't have time to get it perfect yet, I think that's saying that God is not all-Powerful. God didn't have the power to do it right in just seven days. And there are many who make that argument.
I have my own solution to the theodicy triangle, defined as God is all-Good, God is all-powerful and the World of pain and death exists. The first two can be true but not the third if we are really OneMind Dreaming. But that's a series of posts I'll link another time, if you're interested (and I'd say this poem speaks to it too.)
You said: "if God made damaged people because he didn't have time to get it perfect yet, I think that's saying that God is not all-Powerful. God didn't have the power to do it right in just seven days. And there are many who make that argument."
Yes, indeed, many do. But it does not solve the puzzle, it just negates it.
I am not saying that God did not have the power to do it right in just seven days. I am saying that God chose to create in time. God chose certain parameters for creation, and to thereafter be limited by those parameters. Like time. Or logic. Or ongoingness rather than slam-bam-done. Also known in the secular world as evolution. :-)
Does that mean that God is not all-powerful? Well, not exactly. If you say God cannot choose to create ongoingly in unbounded time, arenāt you saying that God is not all powerful? If you say God cannot choose to be responsive to creation as it evolves, (meaning depending on the emergent feedback from creation), arenāt you saying that God is not all powerful? If you are saying God cannot be surprised, are you not saying that God is not all powerful? Or, I could put it this way: if you insist that God cannot choose, for a specific purpose and context, to be less than All-powerful, arenāt you saying God is not All-Powerful?
It is a pleasure to be thinking this through, with the inspiration you provided. I won't be able to write till evening, but wanted to send at least the part dealing with the theodicy. May you have a lovely day. :-)
I think we're both in agreement on this, but just to clarify, we're both dealing in the realm of perception. Neither of us knows the truth. So there is no right or wrong that we're trying to prove, just presenting the options and our own logic for what would make one or the other more or less likely.
So the premise you're putting forward is that God created people lacking empathy who can torture, rape and kill without remorse because God likes to be surprised? Would you choose that for your children if you were all-Powerful?
So I'll throw out my premise as another possibility for solving it, not one I believe in but one that I consider along with Creationism and Evolution.
Time and eternity can't coexist, the same as space and infinity. To calibrate something you need a beginning point. God does like surprise and delight, which is why He (and I do use the masculine) put the little bit of separation between God and God's Creativity, which is us--not God's Creations. We are the womb of God with All That Is in our belly, delighting God in eternity and infinity.
But we got this crazy idea that we could create without God, and that made us afraid of God. So God made a bubble of Time and Space where we could work out our crazy dream that we were multiple people hurting and killing each other, until we came to our senses (so to speak) and realized that we're One and that this is a dream we control, and that God never stopped loving us and we never stopped loving God.
So God didn't make this world, we made it up in our dream. God is all-Good and all-Powerful and this blip of time and space was over as soon as it began in Reality. We're just running on a hamster wheel inside our bubble until then.
Just a theory but it solves the Theodicy Triangle and explains pyramids and how matter can be both a wave and a particle and Schrodinger's cat. ;-)
"we're both dealing in the realm of perception. Neither of us knows the truth."
Of course, I take it as a given. (I think we have much agreement over all. I hope we donāt lose track of that while we jostle over some details. :-) Elsewhere, you said: āI'm pretty certain we agree that the system we have now rewards sociopathic behaviors.ā Yes indeed.
āSo the premise you're putting forward is that God created people lacking empathy who can torture, rape and kill without remorse because God likes to be surprised?ā
No, that is not the premise I am putting forward. That sounds to me like an unkind interpretation of my words. Perhaps you were aiming for reductio ad absurdum? Fair nuff. What I meant is, for example, that God built randomness into creation. Why? My sense of it is that you cannot have creativity without some randomness. But only God knows for sure. Think, for example, of non-viable babies who get born with their genes scrambled. How do you explain them -- assuming Godās goodness -- without positing some randomness? Itās not only other people who sometimes harm us, but the universe itself.
My sense of the theodicy puzzle is that it cannot be solved by invalidating one of the three propositions. As in:
I give up. God is a jerk after all. Like an abusive parent, he massively deceived us regarding the true nature of reality, and then we end up running the hamster wheel. And itās supposed to be for our own good! :-)
I give up, God is not omnipotent.
I give up, evil does not exist after all.
None of these are solutions, IMO.
This does resonate with me:
āBut we got this crazy idea that we could create without God.ā
Dreams and poetry originate from the same source, no? Info sent to bypass the critical factor by traveling incognito, as metaphor.
Debby's been pretty tame. Just a lot of rain and wind, and a TON of rocks ejected from the sea into the normally-smooth beach. I did some bodysurfing today, which was an unusual benefit. There's usually not enough oomph to the waves. š I'll check out the story/comment!
I hear it's going to bring some much-needed rain up the coast to my MD hometown. Summers are usually so lush and green there but I hear it's dry and crackly. So thanks for taking the brunt of it, which sounds like it was pretty blunt.
Sooo beautiful, dreamy, and sweet! This one really spoke to me: "The ocean in me greets the daughter of sea: so shall the waves reply." Gorgeous, Tereza. I love the imagery you've employed, and how the Tonika Magic only amplifies it all. Just wonder-filled.
And thank you for highlighting my recent post; much obliged. It's glorious to have supportive, creative, fun artist-friends!! xox
Interesting that you'd mention dreamy along with that line. That line came to me like a song lyric, and it keeps echoing back to me throughout the years. I've even tried to figure out if there's a song I got it from but I don't think so. But it feels very imbued with the sense of a dream that has more meaning to me than I rationally understand.
I almost wrote 'thanks for sharing your secret weapon' and then thought, no--thanks for sharing your superpower ;-) I've been directing readers to your posts from Unz Review and a spirited debate on the Trump kayfabe. You and Tonika are a match made in ... I'm reaching for an appropriate Vedic sidereal analogy to heaven, but I'm sure I'd botch it. You know what I mean. A gestalt that's more than the sum of your parts. Which is also how I feel about this!
I just forwarded a convo with Tonika where your pretty little ears shoulda been burning. The Tonika treatment may be coming to our OMGdess project in Sept!
I answered you and the answer is yes, yes and more yes. All the yesses.......*aaaahhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!runs around the room
Hey, I got home to you having posted this and it put a huge smile on my face. As I told you in the email, Iām a fan of how your poem holds an authentic namaste quality and Iām just tickled to have taken a small part in it. Thanks, T, you fellow drop in the cosmic ocean, you.
Yes I thought instead of replying to your email, I'd surprise you ;-) You really do have magic in your fingertips. And thank you for that authentic namaste quality. This was a poem that felt channeled. Just swimming in that ocean of Spirit with you.
A sweet and sparkly collaboration holding a deep message.
Just lovely. Thank you both.
And, to answer the question: ocean-as-drop (or maybe ocean-as-wave :-))š§š§š§
Oooh, ocean as wave! No material substance, only movement. Answering the quantum physics dilemma, particle or wave? I like that.
And you must be proud as punch (where do we think that phrase came from?) with the SOTUs you sparked. Did you mention that you'd started a separate Substack to post them? I didn't find a link but, if so, would you post it here?
Thanks for asking - I forget to post it. No wonder it doesn't get a lot of traction. :-)
https://kathleen846.substack.com/
And yes, its gratifying!
Found this:
Where Does "Proud as Punch" Come From?
The phrase "proud as punch" originates from the character Mr. Punch from the classic puppet show "Punch and Judy." In the show, Mr. Punch is often portrayed as being extremely pleased with his own misdeeds. This exaggerated self-satisfaction gave rise to the phrase "proud as punch."
Oh we need a rebrand on that one. Why was slapstick humor so popular? I never could stand Punch and Judy, The Three Stooges. How 'bout proud as a new mama? And thanks for that link!
Proud as a new mama is much better.
I never got that humor either.
Beautiful words and video! Such a nice collaboration <3
Thank you, Neshma! BTW, I sent a note recently to the missing link on our collab and haven't heard back. I'll try again but I think that what's meant to be will happen and, if it doesn't, something else will come. Either way I'm not worried but excited for when we do have a chance to work together. Oh, to be surrounded by such talented friends!
Was just going to reach out about that to see if there was an update. Well we will no doubt do something together soon!
That was just lovely Tereza!
Shall read through rest later
This is a wonderful turn of a phrase:
"The skin resists evaporation,
the heart yearns to break free.
cracking the shell of life, deathās beak
sets loose the spiritās congregation."
Thank-you for a beautiful poem; it rings close to where I'm at.
Thank you for the compliment, Glen, and for subbing! I agree, without pride or humility, that is a very moving line. Maybe it's because I wrote this more than a decade ago, or maybe just because our higher gifts never come from the ego-self, but I can read this and be astonished.
Yes, that ego-skin wants separation but we have a whole congregation inside that's clamoring to get out ;-) Having Tonika turn this into a poem with wings makes it exceedingly clear that nothing worthy belongs to just me, I'm just a chipped (and perfect) vessel holding my drop of infinite truth--just like you.
I NEW YOU WERE A POET TEREZA BUT NOW I REELY NOSE IT! I can smell one a mile away when I am not showering new brides on bicycles with petals.
Great image, Ernest!
As yu know, we live in bi-psycho territory on the Apple Lactation Trail. Also you always have fleurs front and center in your postings so I just could not help mine self. The mind reels at the possibilities of langwidge and images.
Beautiful poem, Tereza! Love all your poetry posts. šā¤ļø
Thank you so much, Heather! I realized that I forgot two, between Ode to a Clothesline and The Holy Dark that was in You Are the Christ, so I edited those in too. Fun to have them all in one place. I forget that poetry used to be my main squeeze ;-)
Pardon me as I barge in with a question. I just discovered this stack off of Tonika's site. And hearing about your book, I went to the amazon reviews. I was going through the intro review happily nodding, um, very cool, until I came to something that stopped me in my tracks. She said: "This book holds one consistent belief: people are inherently good and when they behave badly, systems are to blame."
Really? Psychopaths are inherently good? Instead of getting indignant, heh, I thought I'd ask you to clarify. Many thanks.
Oh how lovely of you, erin, to come here from Tonika's stack, to check into my book and read the intro AND to ask for clarification rather than getting indignant. Thank you for all those!
Let me start by explaining why it matters, first on a theological level. I think we're in agreement on defining 'inherently' as born that way and a psychopath as someone born with the irrepressible desire to inflict pain, which we could call evil.
If people are born evil, then either God is evil or God doesn't exist--and the word God is synonymous with meaning and purpose. The purpose of the world as we know it is either a sadistic God who's laughing at us or completely random where death is the end and you might as well get what you can.
Theologians have presented this dilemma as the Theodicy Triangle that only two of the following can be true: God is all-good, God is all-powerful, Evil exists. I talk about it in this pre-Substack YT: https://youtu.be/h-z8qDYrrfg?si=vUuAHL8CRjQqSAaM and this one: https://youtu.be/taJfTNOGy5U. But probably the most relevant is this episode: https://thirdparadigm.substack.com/p/ponerology-the-question-of-evil.
So you can believe in psychopaths or entertain the possibility of a God worth having around, but you can't do both. In my own experience, I knew a kid who inflicted pain from a very young age and showed no remorse. His mother was my best friend. What I tried to show her is that her system was rewarding his behavior with attention and giving him what he wanted--generally to go home. She saw me as thereby blaming her, and we stopped being friends. When she believed it was genetic (from the dad's side, of course) it didn't change the behavior but it let her off the hook. So I've never seen a kid 'born bad' no matter how good the mother. For the sociopaths running our society, I suspect they've been intentionally subjected to severe trauma and occult rituals, as I write about in this: https://thirdparadigm.substack.com/p/pedo-sadist-cults-and-anneke-lucas.
Last, on a social level. Our existing systems of gov't and economics are built on the assumption that some people are morally better than others, not because of their circumstances but because of their innate character. Those people, and even races, are fit to rule over others, and write the rules to which others are subjected. So our job is to judge people as worthy or not, not to judge policies as working or not.
My system assumes that all communities are equally capable of self-governance. Within a community, if people are behaving badly and you can't outsource them, I think you ask 'why?' My system makes it the job of the local gov't to enable families and households, and the job of regional gov't to protect and enable local gov'ts.
We don't need to agree, of course, on whether people are inherently good. I'm pretty certain we agree that the system we have now rewards sociopathic behaviors. Like my friend and her son, I would have liked for her to try my system for a few months, and see if it could have spared them both the trajectory he continued on.
If you create a fair economic system in your commonwealth, in which people are rewarded for a myriad of roles that serve your community and families have what they need to raise healthy kids, and you still see psychopaths being born for no reason whatsoever, that's something your community can deal with. Early psychopath screening? Pre-incarceration?
As a mother of three, however, I can't imagine deciding one of my daughters was 'born bad' and that's just the way it is. Love is asking 'why?'
So those are my thoughts and again, thanks for asking.
Awesome! I never expected such a thorough reply. Thank you for that!
I agree with you that this is a crucial issue. No need to talk me into it. :-)
What I hear you saying (and feel free to correct me if my any of my impressions are not quite on the money), is that you go through this elaborate argument to decide whether or not there are psychopaths out there. -- I look. And I see people without conscience. They are not āall badā by any means, many are variously talented and live more or less normal life. Nevertheless, they do not have a conscience (or their conscience is severely impaired).
The research tells me that they comprise about 4% of populations, with women at roughly 25% of them; most of them are males. It also claims that genes play some 50% of the reason why someone becomes a psychopath -- the other 50% is cultural.
If I had three daughters, I would consider it crucial to warn them about these people. And if one of my girls was one of them, it would of course be very important to know this so that I could steer her closely from an early age. Even though genetics matter, some societies have overtly many fewer in the population because that society discourages antisocial behavior.
Some of them, however, are unable or unwilling to modify their inclinations. Tribal societies had a variety of means of āgiving them a chance to turn aroundā but if all failed... the Eskimos called them kunlangeta and if all failed, they were pushed off an ice floe some cold day. They did not -- unlike us -- underestimate the huge danger they pose to society.
So this is what I (and many others) see out there. I was told as a young woman that all people are good, deep down, and I paid a brutal price for it. As I see it, you do nobody any favors sweeping it under the rug by pointing to systems alone, and to sweeping theories about past trauma. We all have genetic and cultural burdens; and we all are responsible for what we do. So thatās my own view of it.
But I will gladly take up your (unexpected! yum!) theological challenge -- so few people are willing to take this path! :-)
I define a psychopath as someone without a conscience. Not āall bad.ā Many have much to contribute. They are unable to feel normal human feelings -- what they show is practiced imitation. They are remarkable by their inability to empathize. (They donāt necessarily have āirrepressible desire to inflict pain.ā)
You seem to say that even though it looks like they are (I add: in part) born that way, you will not accept it because it would besmirch God. Itās a valid objection.
If children are born without arms or legs or functioning brain, or if they are born without conscience, same issue, right? Yet we donāt deny that the physically damaged ones do get born so. Why deny the other?
Here is how I have solved that ancient conundrum. You say... āIf people are born evil, then either God is evil or God doesn't exist.ā Well, no. That strikes me as black and white thinking: only two options, when others exist. I accept that God exists.
God is good. God is powerful. And some people are born damaged. Yet I do entertain the possibility of a God worth having around (love that turn of phrase! :-).
I assume that the creation is unfinished. God went back to work on the eight day, and is still at work. Look at the miracle that has been accomplished so far... from howling heat and emptiness... all this life, all this beauty and goodness and love. When I look around at this beautiful world, I marvel at how far itās come! But not everything has been accomplished yet. And that is why damage happens, whether it be a baby born with malfunctioning heart or conscience, or whether a town is destroyed by a volcano or an avalanche.
My heart aches for all the angry people who refuse God because they donāt see a resolution to the problem of evil.
Looking forward to what you may have to say.
"I will gladly take up your (unexpected! yum!) theological challenge" I laughed so hard at that, Erin! I have exactly the same reaction when someone takes me up on a theological challenge <grin>
Another way that I word this dogma, which is my only one, is that I'm no better than anyone else--if I was dropped into anyone else's life, their genetic makeup, their exact circumstances, I would do no better and possibly worse (if there's divine meaning that the life we're born into is one we're uniquely suited to make sense of).
Your initial argument, from what I gathered, was that people are not born inherently good, because psychopaths. But rather than cruel or sadistic, aka 'bad', you describe them as "unable to feel normal human feelings -- what they show is practiced imitation. They are remarkable by their inability to empathize."
This seems to fit the autistic, not looking to inflict pain but unable to put themselves in another's place. I've wondered if this is a feature and not a bug of the childhood vax schedule. It seems useful to have a mass asocial workforce who have no conscience. I would say these child-adults are victims of the true psychopaths, if we define psychopaths as made not born.
Since we seem to agree that you can't blame someone for the way they're born or made, maybe we agree that evil people don't exist. Evil actions done by damaged people, yes. I define doing evil as causing others to cause pain, and I calibrate that by the number of people caused the most amount of pain, determined by what would be worse if done to me or my daughters.
On that scale, no evil compares to what's being done in Gaza. I'll attach one article that makes the point explicitly but I'll assume you're already well informed and will spare you a reiteration of the details: https://www.unz.com/runz/the-state-of-israel-as-cartoonishly-evil/.
So in terms of inflicting pain exponentially through other people, Netanyahu is the greatest psychopath of the present time. And in Congress, he just got 72 ovations, 60+ of them standing. Of the 100 members who didn't attend, like Harris, it was more from cowardice and coming elections than conviction. What does this say about our system?
No lone wolf psychopath has ever tortured as brutally, killed more children, terrorized more ruthlessly, gaslit more brazenly, or used more horror film techniques. They're in a civil war now over whether anal rape with a broomstick is going too far. 70% of all homes have been demolished. And he got 72 ovations from the leaders of the US!
Were the people of Israel, all of whom have been in the military, born without a conscience, genetically defective? How about members of Congress? Or is the system that's put them in power over others psychopathic?
Back to theology, if God made damaged people because he didn't have time to get it perfect yet, I think that's saying that God is not all-Powerful. God didn't have the power to do it right in just seven days. And there are many who make that argument.
I have my own solution to the theodicy triangle, defined as God is all-Good, God is all-powerful and the World of pain and death exists. The first two can be true but not the third if we are really OneMind Dreaming. But that's a series of posts I'll link another time, if you're interested (and I'd say this poem speaks to it too.)
Thanks for the excellent conversation!
You said: "if God made damaged people because he didn't have time to get it perfect yet, I think that's saying that God is not all-Powerful. God didn't have the power to do it right in just seven days. And there are many who make that argument."
Yes, indeed, many do. But it does not solve the puzzle, it just negates it.
I am not saying that God did not have the power to do it right in just seven days. I am saying that God chose to create in time. God chose certain parameters for creation, and to thereafter be limited by those parameters. Like time. Or logic. Or ongoingness rather than slam-bam-done. Also known in the secular world as evolution. :-)
Does that mean that God is not all-powerful? Well, not exactly. If you say God cannot choose to create ongoingly in unbounded time, arenāt you saying that God is not all powerful? If you say God cannot choose to be responsive to creation as it evolves, (meaning depending on the emergent feedback from creation), arenāt you saying that God is not all powerful? If you are saying God cannot be surprised, are you not saying that God is not all powerful? Or, I could put it this way: if you insist that God cannot choose, for a specific purpose and context, to be less than All-powerful, arenāt you saying God is not All-Powerful?
It is a pleasure to be thinking this through, with the inspiration you provided. I won't be able to write till evening, but wanted to send at least the part dealing with the theodicy. May you have a lovely day. :-)
I think we're both in agreement on this, but just to clarify, we're both dealing in the realm of perception. Neither of us knows the truth. So there is no right or wrong that we're trying to prove, just presenting the options and our own logic for what would make one or the other more or less likely.
So the premise you're putting forward is that God created people lacking empathy who can torture, rape and kill without remorse because God likes to be surprised? Would you choose that for your children if you were all-Powerful?
So I'll throw out my premise as another possibility for solving it, not one I believe in but one that I consider along with Creationism and Evolution.
Time and eternity can't coexist, the same as space and infinity. To calibrate something you need a beginning point. God does like surprise and delight, which is why He (and I do use the masculine) put the little bit of separation between God and God's Creativity, which is us--not God's Creations. We are the womb of God with All That Is in our belly, delighting God in eternity and infinity.
But we got this crazy idea that we could create without God, and that made us afraid of God. So God made a bubble of Time and Space where we could work out our crazy dream that we were multiple people hurting and killing each other, until we came to our senses (so to speak) and realized that we're One and that this is a dream we control, and that God never stopped loving us and we never stopped loving God.
So God didn't make this world, we made it up in our dream. God is all-Good and all-Powerful and this blip of time and space was over as soon as it began in Reality. We're just running on a hamster wheel inside our bubble until then.
Just a theory but it solves the Theodicy Triangle and explains pyramids and how matter can be both a wave and a particle and Schrodinger's cat. ;-)
"we're both dealing in the realm of perception. Neither of us knows the truth."
Of course, I take it as a given. (I think we have much agreement over all. I hope we donāt lose track of that while we jostle over some details. :-) Elsewhere, you said: āI'm pretty certain we agree that the system we have now rewards sociopathic behaviors.ā Yes indeed.
āSo the premise you're putting forward is that God created people lacking empathy who can torture, rape and kill without remorse because God likes to be surprised?ā
No, that is not the premise I am putting forward. That sounds to me like an unkind interpretation of my words. Perhaps you were aiming for reductio ad absurdum? Fair nuff. What I meant is, for example, that God built randomness into creation. Why? My sense of it is that you cannot have creativity without some randomness. But only God knows for sure. Think, for example, of non-viable babies who get born with their genes scrambled. How do you explain them -- assuming Godās goodness -- without positing some randomness? Itās not only other people who sometimes harm us, but the universe itself.
My sense of the theodicy puzzle is that it cannot be solved by invalidating one of the three propositions. As in:
I give up. God is a jerk after all. Like an abusive parent, he massively deceived us regarding the true nature of reality, and then we end up running the hamster wheel. And itās supposed to be for our own good! :-)
I give up, God is not omnipotent.
I give up, evil does not exist after all.
None of these are solutions, IMO.
This does resonate with me:
āBut we got this crazy idea that we could create without God.ā
Dreams and poetry originate from the same source, no? Info sent to bypass the critical factor by traveling incognito, as metaphor.
Debby's been pretty tame. Just a lot of rain and wind, and a TON of rocks ejected from the sea into the normally-smooth beach. I did some bodysurfing today, which was an unusual benefit. There's usually not enough oomph to the waves. š I'll check out the story/comment!
I hear it's going to bring some much-needed rain up the coast to my MD hometown. Summers are usually so lush and green there but I hear it's dry and crackly. So thanks for taking the brunt of it, which sounds like it was pretty blunt.
Sooo beautiful, dreamy, and sweet! This one really spoke to me: "The ocean in me greets the daughter of sea: so shall the waves reply." Gorgeous, Tereza. I love the imagery you've employed, and how the Tonika Magic only amplifies it all. Just wonder-filled.
And thank you for highlighting my recent post; much obliged. It's glorious to have supportive, creative, fun artist-friends!! xox
Interesting that you'd mention dreamy along with that line. That line came to me like a song lyric, and it keeps echoing back to me throughout the years. I've even tried to figure out if there's a song I got it from but I don't think so. But it feels very imbued with the sense of a dream that has more meaning to me than I rationally understand.
How are you doing with Hurricane Debby? On Tonika's post of this, I replied with a story about it that you might like: https://visceraladventure.substack.com/p/drops-of-god.
Thanks for being my supportive, creative, fun artist-friend!
Lovely!
I almost wrote 'thanks for sharing your secret weapon' and then thought, no--thanks for sharing your superpower ;-) I've been directing readers to your posts from Unz Review and a spirited debate on the Trump kayfabe. You and Tonika are a match made in ... I'm reaching for an appropriate Vedic sidereal analogy to heaven, but I'm sure I'd botch it. You know what I mean. A gestalt that's more than the sum of your parts. Which is also how I feel about this!
Gorgeous!!
Wow, that was incredibly beautiful. How do people do those videos? Must investigate. Your poem is amazing. I will listen again.
I just forwarded a convo with Tonika where your pretty little ears shoulda been burning. The Tonika treatment may be coming to our OMGdess project in Sept!
Love the sound of an OMGdess project!!
I answered you and the answer is yes, yes and more yes. All the yesses.......*aaaahhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!runs around the room
you are so friggin' adorable, Amy. Tell us how you really feel?