TV v. God
Paul Mackin
paul.mackin at verizon.net
Sun Aug 5 09:10:51 CDT 2001
MalignD at aol.com wrote:
> <<.... the material universe is the manifestation of God and animated by
> God's spirit, then everything in it, even TV -- even Pynchon-L -- is animated
> by God's
>
> spirit, flowing out of the ultimate creative source that some people call
>
> God.>>
>
> If God were other than a ludicrous myth. (And in this I'm not flaming the
> Millison; Ijust find the idea of God--"God"--absurd. If there's a God I'm a
> dugong.)
Isn't absurdity a good part of the charm? Tertullian said something to this
effect almost 2000 years ago. Because of his apostasy from orthodox Christianity
he never made Saint but remains a respected Christian writer. "I believe
because it is absurd." Not a precise quote. God serves the purpose of helping to
drive out our devils. Not a trivial task--something quite weird is required.
The devils for Tertullian were the excesses of the dominant Greco-Roman Culture.
Today they will be secularism and postmodernism and often more importantly
freightful personal addictions and compulsions. For George W. Bush the devil was
Demon Rum. For the less monied classes it will be drug addiction. It is of
course the devils beguiling our children that is of most concern. God in America
is very much a class thing I think it can be reasonably argued. The more favored
classes receive modernism and postmodernism with their mother's milk. It seems
most of the time to serve them reasonably well.The God of mainline Protestantism
and even Catholicism, is comparartively pro forma. Their God doesn't need to do
battle with anyone. It is the downtrodden followers of the evangelical groups
who seek out, walk with, and talk to the Lord. An important use of God (and an
important democratizing influence) in post revolutionary, 19th Century, America
was as a sword for the common folk against the rather elitist ideas of those
Enlightenment gentlemen we call the Founding Fathers--ideas with regard to who
amongst us is fit to rule.
Personally when someone asks me if I believe in God I like to answer that I
don't understand the question. For truly how could anyone ? Don't make no
sense.
` P.
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