№ 800. Viktor Frankl & Freedom

Viktor Frankl

№ 787. A History of God by Karen Armstrong

Calvin & Hobbes

A History of God: The 4000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam by Karen Armstrong is a comprehensive exploration of how the concept of God has evolved across three major monotheistic religions—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Below, is the outline of the thesis, a detailed summary, and strategic insights based on the key arguments and themes Armstrong develops in the book.

Thesis of the Book

The central thesis of A History of God is that the concept of God has evolved over time in response to changing cultural, historical, and social contexts. Armstrong argues that the image of God is not static, but rather, it is continuously reinterpreted and shaped by human experience, philosophical development, and theological reflection. Throughout history, each of the three major Abrahamic religions—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—has wrestled with the nature of God, and these struggles have influenced not only religious thought but also broader societal structures, political ideologies, and personal identities.

Armstrong proposes that religion, especially in these three traditions, often becomes more about human attempts to understand the divine and its relationship to humanity, rather than a purely objective revelation. The quest for understanding God, according to Armstrong, is a deeply human endeavor marked by constant tension between faith, reason, and experience.

№ 782. Love, Pedro Arrupe

Ignited to Inspire

 

№ 781. Fear

 

Fear

№ 780. Perception versus Reality

Gurong Arkitekto

 

№ 799. Summum Bonum

Travel Tips

Summum Bonum is an expression from Cicero, Rome’s greatest orator. In Latin, it means “the highest good.”

And what is the highest good? What is it that we are supposed to be aiming for in this life?

№ 797. Is ‘Joyspan’ the Key to Aging Well? A long life doesn’t matter much if you don’t enjoy it.

Amorsolo

№ 780. The Long Now

 

Longnow

№ 777. “Instruments of a Beating Heart”

№ 774. Destinational Living

Author Annie Dillard wrote that “how we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives”. So, how was it that I spent a large portion of my 20s​­ terrified of the big, long life I had before me? After Stanford University, I’d moved to New York to work at Google but I was depressed, anxious.

When I realised that many brilliant and accomplished people were also secretly miserable, just trying to make it through the day, I looked for terminology to describe this, but there was none. So I came up with my own: the underfulfilled overachiever, or UFOA. This describes a constant striver who is living a great‑­on‑­paper life, yet feels disconnected from their work, life and self. UFOAs see success as the organising principle of our lives. We call it by a catchy name: hustle culture. We brag about our intense busyness. Side hustles are a badge of honour. Going “above and beyond” in our jobs is routine. Our primary purpose, unabashedly, is achievement.

Most of us were shaped around expectations from the beginning. We praise kids for being “good students”, by which we don’t mean curious and engaged. We mean high grades and awards. Our education system is built on this principle. This means prioritising productivity – achievement’s codependent ­partner – above almost all else. The central question becomes: “How can I be the most productive today?”

The way we’ve been taught to “do” life is all wrong. “Destinational living”, by which we pursue recognisable outcomes based on the lie that these will guarantee security and happiness, is an “end justifies the means” philosophy. Destinational living says: “Decide what you want your life to look like, come up with a 10-​­year plan, and then work backward to determine the most advantageous place to start.” In the abstract, this is a lovely idea. There’s a reason why it’s the dominant cultural paradigm. It’s comforting to believe that the world is so predictable that we can plot it all out in­ advance. If only it were true.

But if this is supposed to guarantee our happiness, why do almost 50% of millennials report symptoms of depression and/or anxiety disorders and ­84% report burnout? And why are these numbers rising? Those are not metrics of success by anyone’s definition. Clearly, our system is broken. The problem is the expectation that with achievement comes fulfilment. It’s not about the most enjoyable way to get to work or being and feeling well during your day; it’s about what each choice can earn you.

Destinational Living means outsourcing our decision-making. What is impressive, what is ­valuable, is defined not by what matters to us personally but, rather, by what matters to others. In effect, we’re “life plagiarising”. It’s asking, “what did that person do to achieve such success?” and then turning around and saying, “OK, got it. Copy, paste”.

What most UFOAs eventually learn the hard way is that being, or appearing, successful (becoming a CEO, parent, spouse, homeowner) is a different experience from being fulfilled. Fulfilment is a deep sense of belonging to yourself.

№ 773. While We Were Sleeping

2. The Broken World and the Functional Person

In line with his preference for concrete philosophy that speaks in ordinary language, Marcel begins many of his philosophical essays with an observation about life. One of his central observations about life and experience, from which he is able to derive many of the philosophical distinctions that follow, is that we live in a “broken world.” A world in which “ontological exigence”—if it is acknowledged at all—is silenced by an unconscious relativism or by a monism that discounts the personal, “ignores the tragic and denies the transcendent” (Marcel 1995, p. 15). The characterization of the world as broken does not necessarily imply that there was a time when the world was intact. It would be more correct to emphasize that the world we live in is essentially broken, broken in essence, in addition to having been further fractured by events in history. The observation is intended to point out that we find ourselves hic et nunc in a world that is broken. This situation is characterized by a refusal (or inability) to reflect, a refusal to imagine and a denial of the transcendent (Marcel 1951a, pp. 36–37). Although many things contribute to the “brokenness” of the world, the hallmark of its modern manifestation is “the misplacement of the idea of function” (Marcel 1995, p. 11).

“I should like to start,” Marcel says, “with a sort of global and intuitive characterization of the man in whom the sense of the ontological—the sense of being, is lacking, or, to speak more correctly, the man who has lost awareness of this sense” (Marcel 1995, p. 9). This person, the one who has lost awareness of the sense of the ontological, the one whose capacity to wonder has atrophied to the extent of becoming a vestigial trait, is an example of the influence of the misapplication of the idea of function. 

Pinterest

№ 768. What is Sexism in Language?

 

Gender-Fair Language

№ 767. The Salt Doll

Screenrant

A salt doll journeyed for thousands of miles over land until it finally came to the sea. 

It was fascinated by this strange, moving mass quite unlike anything it had ever seen before. 

‘Who are you?’ the Salt Doll asked the sea. 

The sea smilingly replied, ‘Come in and see.’ 

So the doll waded in. The farther it walked into the sea, the more it dissolved until there was only very little of it left.

Before that last bit dissolved, the doll exclaimed in wonder, ‘Now I know what I am!’”

№ 766. Anomie

Quora

№ 758. Worth of Human Life

In many studies the value also includes the quality of life,

the expected life time remaining, as well as the earning potential

of a given person especially for an after-the-fact payment

in a wrongful death claim lawsuit.

№ 755. If It Ain't Broke....

 

№ 752. Red

 

 

№ 750. Bill Watterson's Speech

SOME THOUGHTS ON THE REAL WORLD BY ONE WHO GLIMPSED IT AND FLED

Bill Watterson
Kenyon College Commencement
May 20, 1990

№ 749. Meaning v. Happiness

Meaning

Yet another relatively uncontroversial element of the concept of meaningfulness in respect of individual persons is that it is logically distinct from happiness or rightness (emphasized in Wolf 2010, 2016). First, to ask whether someone’s life is meaningful is not one and the same as asking whether her life is pleasant or she is subjectively well off. A life in an experience machine or virtual reality device would surely be a happy one, but very few take it to be a prima facie candidate for meaningfulness (Nozick 1974: 42–45). Indeed, a number would say that one’s life logically could become meaningful precisely by sacrificing one’s well-being, e.g., by helping others at the expense of one’s self-interest. Second, asking whether a person’s existence over time is meaningful is not identical to considering whether she has been morally upright; there are intuitively ways to enhance meaning that have nothing to do with right action or moral virtue, such as making a scientific discovery or becoming an excellent dancer. Now, one might argue that a life would be meaningless if, or even because, it were unhappy or immoral, but that would be to posit a synthetic, substantive relationship between the concepts, far from indicating that speaking of “meaningfulness” is analytically a matter of connoting ideas regarding happiness or rightness. The question of what (if anything) makes a person’s life meaningful is conceptually distinct from the questions of what makes a life happy or moral, although it could turn out that the best answer to the former question appeals to an answer to one of the latter questions.

№ 747. Carl Sagan & Science

“Science is more than a body of knowledge.

 

It is a way of thinking; a way of skeptically interrogating the universe with a fine understanding of human fallibility. If we are not able to ask skeptical questions, to interrogate those who tell us that something is true, to be skeptical of those in authority, then, we are up for grabs for the next charlatan (political or religious) who comes rambling along.” 

― Carl Sagan

Note Bene:

"Science is looking for a conclusion for explain their evidence, and religion is looking for evidence to support their conclusion." --- a misguided fool.

I think about them, therefore, they exist.