Monday, December 14, 2009

Art of Soul

No philosopher can be an island. You can read a lot and think a lot by yourself, but you can only truly measure the value of ideas when you bounce them off other people. I've been extremely lucky this year to have people who have been willing to challenge my ideas and inspire my thinking. So if you have commented on this blog, sent me emails, or have met with me over cups of coffee sometime during 2009, I want to thank you. Your willingness to discuss ideas has been extremely valuable to me.

But most of all I want to thank a great group of friends from Art of Soul, a film and literature discussion group that Cori and I belong to. Meeting one evening a month, the group discusses
spiritual and philosophical aspects of popular films and books. I want to thank Barbara, Curtis and Melanie (the three founding members of the group), as well as Jacomien, Salomè, Futhi, Sylvia and others for fascinating discussions on topics ranging from violence, peace narratives, the Holocaust, atheism, the meaning of religious belief, and white South African guilt. Some of the ideas I've posted over the last year can be directly attributed to you guys, especially the posts Where is the virtue in martyrdom and Is a person moral if they simply obey the law.

So thank you for your willingness to share, but more importantly, thank you for your willingness to listen.

The Art of Soul crowd at Pappas in Duncan Yard, Pretoria

1 comment:

Unknown said...

I find that the happiest and most content people are realist and atheist. They know that all religions and beliefs want control or have some power over the nature laws of nature. True peace with life is with nature and accepting its hard reality, while still allowing ourselves to dream. If you used to be a Christian than you probably found the old testaments god difficult to accept! I did but after realizing gods actions are in line with the nature of things in this world. I was so much happier than before with the sure truthfulness you don’t get in the church. God is the creator of good and evil who sends evil spirits to people and supports war. So, blame everything on god who loves all the glory! lol! How, could you give that up?
In that truth I found myself liberated but also let down with my image with god and still accepted him for what he was and was grateful for what I’ve learned. I could have abandoned the faith but I knew I was on to something and continued to push forward. Stories of the old testament about Moses and Job started to open up right in front of me and I was able freely discern the world of god now I could hold god accountable with his own written word. Then came discerning Jesus and what’s his true purpose? What a was a mess, and its full of misleading verses to come up with different reasons for Jesus and his mission but this one’s right. I John 3:8 "The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil's work"! he wasn’t her to judge or die for are sins, or to become king or god and be worshiped! The real story of Jesus, was to liberated his people and expose the kingdom of Satan trying to tell the people, listen what you think is god isn’t your worshiping something else! and the whole argument if Jesus ever lived or not is irrelevant because he is surely alive to me in this book exposing to us the piece of shit of a father our god really was. Finally, I could see god in front of me for what he really was and what a great day that was. I'm now an ex-christian, who found his ending to the bible in testing the spirits, using god’s word against him and holding a higher moral standard than god. My only regrets which I have taken back was using a human sacrifice (Jesus), as payment for my sins and to be resurrected from the dead for an eternity (Fucking Gross dawn of the dead)! I don’t pray or ask anything from above, no help or guidance and pay no attention to spirits! Yes, the spiritual world is real, and that’s how I gain most my knowledge and understanding of Christianity being based on a spirit saying its god. Like the bible itself was written by men but inspired by the holy spirit of god. That’s not god and the earth was not made in seven day! Jesus, said he’s the father of all lies and he’s been a liar since the beginning! That’s Jesus the man not god speaking! People, just can’t discern which comes to us naturally but only from experience! So, to all them Jesus freaks and all those words and scripture they throw at you are not even their own words but inspired from an evil spirit! How ironic, to be Satan worshipers and they think there is good and bad spirits. Who cares if you can’t discern and they are invisible how would you know, and they don’t! The good news is god has not been discovered by mankind so anything else is fake, evil spirit, an idea, or just a fantasy. I can tell you that god doesn’t want us to worship or submit to anyone including it, and put humans first not spirits or space aliens. With all that said there just might be an eternal hell with a power hungry god that will raise Christians you from the dead!