I know zip squat moral theory either from the atheist position, the Christian position, the philosophical position, or any other position out there. I have little idea how to really think about the issue. Nevertheless, at the request of Boeciana, my first spasmodic attempts at figuring it out - and, specifically, why I think common Christian arguments against Atheist morality are nonsensical - are as follows. (I remind commenters that I do not consider the words of David Hume to be holy writ. I have not the slightest intention of accepting the very existence of the "is/ought" problem unless given very good reason to do so.)
(1) To begin: there is this moral instinct we call "conscience", shared by most human beings, concerning the ordering of our actions. How do we explain it? Where does it come from?
(2) "Right" and "wrong" are what we call the sensations of this instinct corresponding to desire and aversion. Insofar as this instinct can be likened to more physical instincts, they are the rough equivalents of satisfaction/pleasure and hunger/thirst/pain.
(3) As hunger relates to food, "right" and "wrong" relate to our behaviour towards other human beings and/or our own nature (particularly our sexual nature, as most human societies have some concept corresponding to "chastity") and, if we're believers, to God or the Gods. (The relation to God would be highly disputable from an atheist POV.) It is the clear nature of "right" and "wrong" that they apply at the very least to how we treat human beings.
(4) We all recognise a human being when we see one. We do not all share the same theoretical explanation for the nature of the human being. Different views of what it means to be "human" will lead to different views on morality and what the moral sense is detecting. If the human being is merely a collection of atoms, a walking meat machine, then "right" and "wrong" are concepts which relate to men, who happen to be walking meat machines; thus, the moral sense emerges from physical considerations. If the human being is a soul clothed in matter, then "right" and "wrong" are concepts relating to men, who happen to be souls clothed in matter, and "right" and "wrong" may thus have a spiritual/metaphysical aspect. If the moral sense arises from the purely physical, "moral" may be a kind of social self-preservation instinct: "moral sense" may be how we perceive "what is good for my family, tribe and society". If we are created by God, "moral sense" may be how we perceive "whether my intentions are actions are in resonance with the will of God". (There are probably other views. I don't know them yet. See disclaimer at start.)
(5) Thus: "it is not wrong to vandalise mere matter, if no spirit values or animates said matter" results only from assuming that humans are more than mere matter; if humans are mere matter, there are lumps of mere matter (namely human beings) that it is wrong to vandalise, because it is wrong to kill humans senselessly.
(6) Therefore, to say "if men are merely purposeless random lumps of chemicals, murder is no sin" is a circular argument: you are saying "let us derive our moral philosophy from the assumption that human beings have souls. This moral philosophy would clearly give junk results if applied to the hypothetical case in which human beings are mere matter. Therefore, materialism destroys morality." No, it doesn't. You've just switched your assumptions about what a human being is half-way through your argument and blamed the resulting logical pile-up on anyone who disagrees with you. Look, if I were an atheist, this would drive me hopping mad.
(7) Similar arguments apply to anything resembling "rights" or "moral imperatives". If you derive these things from a non-materialistic worldview, apply them within an non-materialistic worldview. Do not apply them to a materialistic worldview without appropriate modifications and blame atheists for your oversight. Do not claim that if human beings have no God-given human dignity then it's open season on the weak and the unfit: or at least, do not claim such a thing lightly. In the hypothetical situation of human beings having no God-given human dignity, the obvious implications are that there is something other than "God-given human dignity" behind the moral knowledge that "murder is wrong". (Whether this alternative view would be as satisfying or as useful I will not discuss yet.)
(8) The variation on this argument, that a God-free morality would have no binding claim on human beings, is similarly a circular argument. It makes the binding nature of morality contingent on the existence of God. This raises the question of "why does God have any right to tell us what to do?" But "morally binding" means "has the force of moral sense behind it" regardless of whether we posit (or have revealed to us) the existence of God as the essence of morality; your conscience has moral authority by definition.
Allow me to dramatise how all this possibly looks to anyone for whom the existence of God is not assumed or proven (with apologies for any wildly insulting generalisations and misrepresentations that follow):
Mr. Archibald CONSCIENCE: Murder is wrong!
Mr. Hiroki T. CHRISTIAN: Conscience guy is right!
Mr. Ngao F. ATHEIST: Yeah! Common ground! Although, uh, what about the Inquisition?
HT CHRISTIAN: *suddenly reproduces by cellular division, like an amoeba*
HTC(1): Uh, yeah, sorry about that. It was a really dumb idea, we won't do it again.
HTC(2): You kidding? The Inquisition was all HTC(1)'s fault! Besides, anyone who tortures someone else for the faith is obviously not a True Christian.
NF ATHEIST: ...can you say "No True Scotsman"?
HTCs (1) & (2) together: Also, what about the Soviet Union, dammit?
NFA: Stalinist communism was cultlike, like a religion! Stalin nicked all his ideas from the Jesuits! And the Russian Orthodox Tsars! That was all religion's fault too! He wasn't a Real Atheist!
HTC(1): ...can you say "No True..." what was it again? Irishman?
HTC(2): I'm pretty sure it was "Welshman". "No True Welshman." About jam on your scones or something?
HTC(1): No, no... I've got it! No True Frenchman!
HTC(2): No True Belgian?
NFA: All right, you've made your point already!
HTCs (1) & (2): (recombining) So, yeah. ANYWAY. We think the highest moral authority is one Mr. J. GOD. Therefore Mr. Conscience over there is the direct deputy of God! He speaks with the authority of God, and God is the authority of what's right and wrong.
NFA: Really? Hey, Conscience, is this true?
A. CONSCIENCE: Search me, mate, all I know is I've got this job to do.
HTC: So if you deny the authority of God, you deny the authority of Archibald here! And he's such a necessary chap you don't want to be undermining his authority.
NFA: ...wate wut? Why should I regard God as the source of moral authority?
HTC: Because he is!
NFA: Why can't I regard Archibald as the source of moral authority?
HTC: Regard Archibald as the source of moral authority? Ridiculous! Who gave him this authority?
NFA: Well, who gave God this authority?
HTC: God is the First Cause by definition! The termination of the infinite regression of cause and effect!
NFA: So in other words, He gave Himself authority?
HTC: Yeah!
NFA: Look, I can't see this God. Given that practically speaking, "moral authority" means "what Mr. Conscience here says", I think I'll forget you said all this and go back to howling about theocracy every time a politician mentions "God" in the same sentence as anything I disagree with.
HTC: But you're undermining Archibald by saying this stuff! Soon you'll be killing people in the street!
NFA: Mensch, you people are raving paranoiacs with a persecution complex. I'm glad my paranoia about significant participation of religion in public life being a sign of imminent fascist theocracy is more reasonable.
HTC: So where did Archibald here come from, anyway? Eh? EH?
NFA: Well, you might have heard of the Theory of Evolution? It makes sense to have evolved a strong negative instinct against screwing each other over, it clearly benefits everyone.
HTC: *Splits again into two*
HTC(a): I don't accept the Theory of Evolution!
HTC(b): Ignore that man. Look, the Theory of Evolution's fine, but really, Archibald clearly isn't just some random concatenation of matter. Can you really imagine his voice - Archie, remind us again?
A. CONSCIENCE: MURDER IS WROOOOOONG!
HTC(b): ...can you really imagine that that voice just represents some evolved instinct towards self-preservation of the species?
NFA: Can you really imagine that this wonderful and beautiful sensation of "green" really represents electromagnetic fluctuations of about 700nm wavelength? I mean, when you meditate on the concept of "700 nanometres", does "green" come into your head?
HTC(b): That's totally different. Our sense of sight and Archie's voice are qualitatively different! One speaks of physical things, one speaks of moral things!
NFA: Well, they may be different, but still analogous in some respects. And if the moral arises from the physical, they're not so different.
HTC(a): No! The moral doesn't arise from the physical!
NFA: Says who?
HTC(b): Says the fact that Archie-warchie is clearly too majestic and holy to arise from the physical!
NFA: Is this judgement perhaps informed by the fact you think Mr. Conscience is basically the deputised voice of God?
HTC(b): ....um, maybe?
NFA: Can you say "circular argument?"
HTC(b): So totally not circular it's not funny.
NFA: Also, "Archie-warchie"? You're getting very chummy with Mr. Conscience there.
A. CONSCIENCE: *feels loved*
NFA: So, like, do you have any actual arguments for this "God" person that aren't circular?
HTC(a) & (b) together: I've seen miracles!
NFA: All of which are dubious on source-critical grounds, as well as plain common sense.
HTC(b): On "source-critical grounds", do you mean "on the grounds the only people who report them are superstitious, ignorant fools", and by "common sense" you mean "they never happened to me"?
NFA: Well, yes, and that they happened neither to me or anyone whose word I'd trust.
HTC(a): And you can tell how superstitious and ignorant someone is by how much they believe in miracles?
NFA: It stands to reason.
HTC(b): So the only testimony you'd believe is that of someone who saw a miracle but still doesn't believe in them?
NFA: It's an entirely reasonable philosophy, dammit. It gave us science!
HTC(b): Can you say... what was it... "triangular argument"?
HTC(a): I think it was "oblong". Yeah, definitely "oblong".
HTC(b): I've got a sneaking suspicion it might have been a "trapezoid argument"? Hey, Mr. Atheist, can you help us here?
NFA: You do know sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, yes?
HFC(b): Except when you're mocking us?
NFA: TouchÃĐ.
--
....and at this point I run out of both material and snark, and draw the dialogue to a close. (Maybe next time NFA undergoes amoeba-like division into NFA(Hitchens) and NFA(everybody else). Hilarity ensues!) In conclusion: I propose that it's self-evident that morality is a mode of perception which evaluates our actions according to some particular end which is hard-wired into us, and that it's of no small importance how or why this mode of perception has been given to us, and also that it's utterly silly to point at someone whose explanation is different from yours and shout "if my explanation is right, yours is wrong!" and assume this constitutes a crushing rebuke. If Christianity is right, "moral force" means "resonance with the will of God" (AFAIK, Judaism and Islam would essentially agree). If Atheism is right and morality means a kind of self-preservation instinct directed to the society and not the individual, "moral force" means "for the good of everyone, particularly my family and tribe" (unless there are any other atheist explanations out there for what "moral force" means; as I say, I know very little about the area. What non-monotheistic religions think constitutes "moral force" I have no clue).
Whew. Maybe at some indefinite point in the future, I'll be able to say something more informative on the subject, like the relative merits of different views of morality, which (as I said) I know little about. Anyone who feels their views have been unfairly belittled above, please hit the combox to clarify. (Anyone who feels their views haven't been unfairly belittled, uh, I'll try and pencil you in for the future >.>)
...you know, I didn't really intend to do anything much with this blog beyond stick up art every now and then so when I get an art site running I'd have a blog to point to with some minimal archives to flick through so people weren't disappointed. And here I am sucked into philosophising...
PS Boeciana (or anyone), do you have an english translation of Walafrid's Ad Amicum around? Because I can't read latin, alas.
PPS Important credit: above dialogue semiconsciously riffing off and covering some of the territory of Nick Milne's treatment of the idea that "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" (worth reading, and commendably takes the matter seriously rather than slipping into farce mode, unlike a certain other blogger whose post you happen to be reading right now >.>)
PPPS Also, having checked, green is ~500 nm; 700 would be red. I think I got confused because something would look green if it absorbed 700 nm light.
PPPPS Via Mark Shea, I note that the Pope's just weighed in on atheist morality. He thinks atheist morality insufficient and a shortcut to Bad Things, but does credit it with desiring justice in a world where God doesn't seem in any hurry to turn up and provide it for you. (I looked, and there was no-one to help; I was appalled that there was no-one to support; so my own right arm worked salvation for me, and my fury, it upheld me.) I also notice that the comments section features someone launching philosophical arguments against Atheist morality (including the highly interesting question as to where the idea of justice could be derived from); whether to wade in or not? H'mmmm....
PPPPPS I suppose if I'm going to treat moral sense as being like any other mode of perception, the question should be asked as to whether self-righteousness is a form of gluttony?
PPPPPPS Waded in on Mark Shea's combox; any interesting arguments may wind up here in short order. Also, a good-humoured atheist's joined in discussing the Pope's comments, and has a post up here: 266 of 266 Popes agree: You Should Believe in Our God, Atheism is Naughty. Well, to be fair, sticking up for the Catholic Faith is in the Pope's job description. You want atheist priests, mix it up with the Anglicans...
Friday, 30 November 2007
So, morality.
Friday, 16 November 2007
FOR SCIENCE
'Tis done, and my apologies for the unconscionable delay. I couldn't get it totally complete (it's missing some of the snazzy stained-glass-window effects) for reasons which are technical and I will not bore you with; but it's important to get a version up today, and God willing the full version will be up within a few days [EDIT: current version vastly improved over initial version yesterday]. So, without further ado:
In honour of it being his feast day (well, on the other side of the Atlantic) (and if you're a catholic - which I'm not, tho I am seriously consideringit - a subject for another post, however) - and of him having been a pretty cool guy, and because drawing power-crazed mad scientists doesn't, really, need an excuse: some art pertaining to St. Albertus Magnus, Swabian, discover of arsenic, and patron saint of science, medical technicians and Cincinnati, Ohio.
(Click here for a larger version.)
Friday, 9 November 2007
On Godescalc
I first heard of Godescalc (or Gottschalk, or Gothescalcus) of Orbais, my 9th-century namesake (or pseudonymsake, maybe - my real name is far less exotic), a few years back when Elberry sent me an e-mail declaring he'd stumbled across a 9th-century prior incarnation of me. He enclosed a quote from Helen Waddell's book The Wandering Scholars on the fellow. I now have the book myself, and shall quote liberally for your edification. Helen Waddell's style is more fun to read aloud than to read silently; in fact, I got weird looks on the bus this morning when reading it (with great relish) to a coworker.
----
[Walafrid] was a friend of the doomed Gottschalk, and if his name is hidden in the ascription "Ad Amicum" - Walafrid does not often leave his poems anonymous - one would gladly believe the imprisonment lighted by some such tenderness, for of tenderness Gottschalk had little and needed much. There is no halo about that scarred and tormented figure, unless the dark flame of his black and passionate sincerity. He was brought an oblate, like the child Samuel, to the monastery at Fulda, a knight's son with restless blood in him, and growing up fought for liberty like a caged panther. At sixteen a council of bishops granted his appeal, but his abbot, Hrabanus Maurus, strong on prerogative, carried the case to the Emperor, and Gottschalk was doomed, "condemned for life to the order of St. Benedict." But there are other ways of escape; at eighteen Gottschalk discovered St. Augustine, and wrung from him the secret of his passionate peace; in 835 he was ordained priest. There are natures doomed to be unfortunate, to find the bitter in the sweet; the doctrine which he wrested from Augustine and thereafter preached through France and Italy to the terror of many was predestination not only to grace, but to damnation. The Church in consternation brought in John Scotus to refute him, and though, "before the Irish philosopher could be checked, he had refuted Sin and Hell," it took them three centuries to find it out. Gottschalk's book went to the flames first; he burnt it himself after torture, like one dead. They condemned him to solitary confinement; but somehow this indomitable malignant secured ink and parchment and the book appears again. There followed further accusations, further vengeance on this man found hereticus et incorrigibilus. Twenty years later, in 870, the long misery ended. Gottschalk, dying, begged for the sacrament from which he had so long been barred. It was promised him, and Christian burial, after he should sign a refutation drawn up for him by Hincmar. He refused, and died without the sacraments. "A worthy end to such a life," says Hincmar, speaking more wisely than he knew. There is no grace about Gottschalk; he had seen truth and it blinded him.
----
Other accounts of Godescalc's life can be found at the Gottschalk homepage and, of course, wikipedia, where one can also find information on Hincmar of Reims, the guy who had him hauled before a kangaroo synod and then locked up until he went insane; and John Scotus Erigena, who wrote a book in refutation of him and who shouldn't be confused with John Duns Scotus the scholastic theologian.
Monday, 5 November 2007
Some scattered thoughts (In defence of atheists/David Crane had a point)
God willing, here will be art here on the 15th. If I can get it done by then. Until then, there's some topics I've been thinking of writing about, but decided against for now - first among them the usual Christian arguments against atheist morality, which annoy me massively - specifically, the complaints that "if it's just one complex arrangement of molecules causing structural damage to another complex arrangement of molecules, what's wrong with that?" or "if it's just the arrangement of electrochemical discharges in my brain that make me do wrong, why blame me for it?" etc. These implicitly assume that God exists, or at least, that a hardline materialist explanation of morality is a priori insufficient, and then proceed to sneer at atheist morality on the basis that it's self-evidently insufficient. (Christians often back this up by quoting a certain dead atheist's words on the is/ought problem like they were holy scripture.) This seems to me not dissimilar to the standard atheist argument against miracles, which runs as follows: "Miracles do not happen. We know this because we have constructed and think according to a philosophy in which there is no room for miracles. QED." By probably meaningless coincidence, the aforementioned dead atheist is quoted a lot in that context too.
However, writing down all my thoughts on this will have to wait until I know something about atheist moral philosophy, which at present I don't. Knowing something about Christian moral philosophy might also help. Knowing the first thing about philosophy should probably be on my list at some point...
On a somewhat briefer note, Mark Shea's hammering away on the issue of torture eventually got me pondering a few things - firstly, that once you've started thinking about torture and/or prisoner abuse/hostile interrogation (and I'll admit to my shame that it took a while for me to really start being bothered about this issue), the degree to which popular culture is totally blasÃĐ about hurting people for the greater good can become rather disturbing. I was reading issues of Starman the other night in which the O'Dares - and not the black sheep, Matt O'Dare, but the upstanding side-of-good-and-light ones - were administering beatings and arm-twistings to various criminals to get information; and the Sandman was shown beating/intimidating people for the same reason. I'm pretty sure Batman does this a lot, too. Implied assumption: hit a dead end and you can get somewhere by beating up enough criminals. What the hell?
Now, Starman's a mature comic (as in, "written for adults", rather than "unsuitable for kids"), but I remember a while back reading a '90's Captain America comic (Comics Code Authority Approved, kids!) where he interrogated a white supremacist terrorist by "waterboarding" him (if that's still the right word) in a tar pit.
Then there's Sin City, where I'm pretty you're not supposed to approve of Marv's tactics (but I have the feeling some people would), and 24 which I've never seen and therefore can't comment on but is apparently rather popular and highly brutal, and doubtless numerous other things I've been spared by the simple expedient of not having a TV (which is why my list of examples consists chiefly of comics).
Anyway, some of Mark Shea's comments on fear as the problem made sense to me, and, after a short while percolating through my subconscious, re-emerged in the form most disturbing to me. (It sometimes takes a while to reformulate arguments into the form that makes most sense to me, which isn't always the form that made most sense to anyone else.)
It comes naturally to worry about and imagine situations (see: "ticking bomb" etc, and all that I just listed) in which brutality can prevent crime, loss of life, etc., and may even be the necessary price of protecting people. Such scenarios are easily constructed.
It is equally conceivable and reasonable to fear the negative consequences of brutality: alienation of allies, increasing the resolution of one's enemies, demoralisation of one's own side, tipping people over the line between passive and active hostility, and other things besides. No-one seriously imagines that violence comes without a downside. But unless we can convince ourselves that the potential target of our violence is an overhyped threat (an approach which is fine as long as there's no actual danger), it can be difficult to give the downside a thought, let alone fear it like we can fear a ticking-bomb scenario. This is logically inconsistent, to say the least. (And a good reason to value having pacifists in your society to correct the imbalance.)
Torture and prisoner abuse are weapons of a sort - double-edged swords, so to speak. On a purely practical level, not even considering the (commendable) moral horror of sinking to certain acts: why should the fear of going... not even unarmed, but devoid of these particular weapons be so much stronger than the fear of the weapons cutting back? And why (to take a current example) is it so much easier to support torturing terrorists - or at least, using "advanced interrogation" techniques on them - if one thinks that al-Qaeda are really the vanguard of the barbarian horde at the door, and so much easier to oppose if one thinks that the whole War On Terror is overhyped fearmongering by Bush & co.? This disturbs me greatly.
Chesterton had this to say about Carthage (Everlasting Man, I:VII): There is always a sort of dim idea that these darker powers will really do things, with no nonsense about it... In the New Town which the Romans called Carthage, as in the parent cities of Phoenicia, the god who got things done bore the name Moloch... the worshippers of Moloch were not gross or primitive. They were members of a mature and polished civilization abounding in refinements and luxuries. The consequences were slightly different but the fundamental error is the same: a casual indifference to the potential blowback of being brutal, coupled with an irrational fear - even terror - of not being vicious enough to survive. The assumption is that the world is just a plain nasty place, and only the nastiest can get by - that the world will punish you harder for not adopting the Devil's tactics than God can possibly reward you for it.
It's not like I ever approved of waterboarding or kicking the crap out of prisoners, although I could see where they were coming from who approved of such things. But for some reason, only when it clicked how irrational it is that fear of disaster almost invariably acts as a drive towards brutality did it really disturb me, and it's been bothering me all evening. Previously it looked like an understandable error, but from this angle it looks positively demonic.
...I know, this should not be news to anyone who believes in Original Sin. But Original Sin still has power to disturb. God have mercy.
"He has not given us a spirit of fear, but a spirit of love, and of power, and a sound mind - " St. Paul, 1 Timothy somewhere. So may it be.
Friday, 21 September 2007
Friday
I danced on a Friday when the sky turned black
It's very hard to dance with the Devil on your back
When I were a lad, in school assembly we sometimes sang Sydney Carter's Lord of the Dance, stopping always at the 3rd verse. The remainder of the song was a well-kept secret; I only ever heard it sang once in full, and the dark imagery of the 4th verse made an impression on my 9-year old mind.
Thursday, 6 September 2007
Stoicism
I've been reading the Moral Discourses of Epictetus for a while, and they're pretty awesome. Epictetus' comments on desire and aversion - that if you allow yourself to want or fear anything, anyone who can give or take those things away becomes your master - may seem a tad obvious, but sometimes the obvious needs stating. Similarly, his point that Reason is a mark of humanity, and therefore it is living conformably to nature to have Reason command or restrain your passions (a similar point could be made regarding the development of morals and manners to regulate the appetites being an entirely natural activity) - although the idea that Jupiter gave us desires and aversions that he expects us to be completely indifferent to is somewhat curious. I was unable to determine how Epictetus got from "only virtue and reason are entirely under your own control" to "only virtue and reason are good and should be desired", but maybe that's why Epictetus is more famous than me.
That all things independent on choice should be regarded with indifference Epictetus extends to the loss of wife and children and friends, quoting with approval some greek hero who, upon the loss of his son, accepted it with the words "I knew that I had begotten one born to die". "I do not say you should not groan outwardly", the E-man says of such occasions as one's child dying, "but take care not to groan inwardly also". A somewhat inhumane approach to life, but it's mitigated by his choice of metaphor to justify this - when invited for dinner, you don't complain if the courses are not to your choosing; and when the servant carrying wine or food passes you, he says, reach out your hand, but be content to wait until he does, and don't complain at his absence. This doesn't entirely bear up to the weight his philosophy puts on it - to what does one compare death, torture and bereaval? Hunger pangs, or the torment of having leeks or sweet'n'sour food put in front of you and being expected to eat it? - but it does show an instinct towards regarding life as a good thing, and an honour to be able to participate in.
Anyway; while pondering all of this, I realised Job was also a stoic of sorts, at least initially. When he says "the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away", and remonstrates with his wife, saying "shall we accept good from the Lord, and not evil?" he displays an attitude towards suffering that Epictetus would have whole-heartedly approved of; and the writer of Job approves as well, for basically the same reason Epictetus didn't want to regard suffering as a bad thing: not wanting to charge God with unreason (curious, as God has already charged himself with unreason - "you incited me to ruin him without reason", he tells Satan). But inwardly Job grieves and groans in a manner unbecoming a Stoic, and when his friends turn up and try to comfort him, he erupts and starts ranting.
Epictetus has lived his life with the consequences of the Fall, having been a slave and seen all the sundry evils of life in the city and the tyranny of the roman emperors; he knows that both good and evil come from the mouth of the Lord, and thinks, well, we'd better get used to it. But Job had been living in a sort of Eden, even if surrounded by people who didn't, and was then fast-tracked into the depths of human misery, for no fault of his own. He'd flown higher and sunk lower than Epictetus, and was thus very poorly suited for the project of just accepting his lot (which makes it more impressive that he could just sit there and say "The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away"). Furthermore, Epictetus believed in following the light of Reason and pretty much nothing else; but the sense of the numinous, or living in the sunlight of the presence and goodness of God, aren't comprehensible to reason or philosophy, but I'm pretty sure Job felt them strongly. His demand of God is not a matter of cold philosophy, but comes from the heart of one who was, and somehow still is, convinced of the divine goodness and mercy. He can't be satisfied with mere endurance of misery, so he cries out to God - "shakes the pillars of the world and strikes insanely at the heavens", as Chesterton has it; "he lashes the stars, but it is not to silence them; it is to make them speak."
In the end Job gets an answer; or rather, he gets the enigmas of God, which are somehow more satisfying than your typical theodicy ("the riddles of God are more satisfying than the solutions of man" - Chesterton). Epictetus was never as favoured, but then, he never railed against heaven and demanded answers of God, either. One suspects Epictetus (if accordingly transplanted in time and space) would have sided with Job's friends, explaining that the universe was entirely reasonable and that he should just calm down a bit; and would likewise have been denounced by God at the end of the poem. (Chesterton again: "The mechanical optimist... points out that the fine thing about the world is that it can all be explained. That is the one point, if I may put it so, on which God, in return, is explicit to the point of violence. God says, in effect, that if there is one fine thing about the world, as far as men are concerned, it is that it cannot be explained.")
In conclusion: Epictetus put forth his philosophy with intelligence and humour and a lack of sententiousness, making some good points along the way, and his philosophy achieved virtue and a restricted awesomeness at the price of being somewhat inhumane. Stoicism was for people who'd never heard of Eden, I think, which might explain why it disappeared shortly after Christianity started spreading. (The fact that Christianity upstaged Stoicism by having its martyrs patiently endure suffering without the benefit of philosophical education probably contributed, as well.)
(Chesterton's comments on the Book of Job may be read here.)
Friday, 24 August 2007
Ecce Malleus
I leave this night for England, for a ten-day holiday and only sporadic net access; but before I go, I throw up art as chaff to cover my retreat, and slip away beyond your sight while you are distracted. All of the art posted so far is archive material, from the time when I worked under a different name; I've been too busy recently to devote much attention to drawing. Hopefully a respite from work will allow me to remedy this.
Behold, the Cluehammer. It hammers clues into people. This is not a painless procedure.
This, from a friend's comic script that never came to pass, is a black hole, complete with accretion disk.
(I know, I said I'd hardly be posting, and here I am with three posts in a week - I guess I'm just the unreliable type. I can't keep deadlines well either....)
Wednesday, 22 August 2007
Some art, manga-style.
I likes me the manga. It has been a great aid to me in learning german - reading a book in a foreign language is tough going and requires either fluency or gritted teeth, and I'm short on willpower; but if you've got pretty pictures to help things along and fill in the gaps where you don't understand something, it becomes a lot easier. Manga are slightly better than western comics for this, as the decompressed style makes them lighter on text.
Also, when you're reading non-translated comics, the vocabulary tends, I find, to be a bit more extensive, and hence, troublesome; whereas the translated stuff is easier to understand. But this depends on the translator, and Masamune Shirow's work (Ghost in the Shell, and suchlike) is tough going in the german translation.
I also like the art style, and how I draw is heavily influenced by reading how-to-draw-manga books and tutorials (on which subject, let me plug Polykarbon, which is an awesome resource). Attempting straightforward imitation is a hit-and-miss thing, though - my attempts to do cutesy shoujo girls just look wrong, like those (in)famous pictures of bearded overweight men dressing up as sailor moon. But here are some attempts that worked. The first is fanart for a comic entitled "Angel Knights", which has sadly vanished from the internets. The second, entirely unintentionally, came out looking very like a german girl I had a crush on.
Tuesday, 21 August 2007
A post, by way of introduction.
Greetings, all you who stumble upon this place. I style myself Godescalc, in honour of the 9th century predestinarian heretic monk of the same name (usually called Gottschalk, or Gotheschalcus, but I prefer this version of the name; his sorry tale may be found at wikipedia).
At the time of writing, I have a livejournal, which I use for thoughtless chatter, occasional memeage and largely meaningless updates on the levels of happiness, angst and drama in my life. This blog, on the other hand, I intend to slowly (and I mean slowly - don't check back too often) fill with art, writing, musings on art and writing, discussions of theology, and other such highbrow matters. Should I ever get my intended webcomic(s) up and running, I'll comment on them here, as well.
(A sketch, as a foretaste:
)
Who I am: Christian, scientist, bearer of a Y chromosome, amateur guitarist, amateur comics artist; I like Leonard Cohen, U2, G. K. Chesterton, Stephen Lawhead and the Sin City graphic novels. Also, manga.
My online reading tastes currently tend towards webcomics, wikipedia browsing (something you can lose yourself for hours doing; the dangers of starvation, sleep deprivation and inability to find a mate posed by wikisurfing will probably have bred intellectual curiosity out of our species by 2120), the musings of catholic literary types, and more politics than is probably good for me. This will probably be reflected when I get the links bar up and running.
