Philosophy of Religion & Humor
Again, I apologize for all the posts that hit more like announcements than me offering thoughts in images and sentences and paragraphs. This one, however, is a little time sensitive because, if you wanted to show up and offer words (in a formal-ish kind of way), you’d need to hop to it today. Let me say that, from what I can discern of the announcement, it really is an open invitation. I detect no snobbery in this effort. Philosophy, after all, is a party to which everyone’s invited. Give this a look. And tell your friends.
While I have your attention, I’ll share a passage from a favorite philosopher, Baruch Spinoza, which, it seems to me, speaks to our news cycle…particularly in regard to a nervous autocrat who (with the able assistance of Patriarch Kirill) appears to be trying to shrink our beautiful world down to the size of his own fear. There are, of course, autocrats and aspiring autocrats in Tennessee as well. Here’s Spinoza:
The supreme mystery of despotism, its prop & stay, is to keep people in a state of deception, & with the specious title of religion to cloak the fear by which they must be held in check, so that they will fight for their servitude as if for salvation & count it no shame, but the highest honor, to spend their blood and their lives for the glorification of one man.
Here’s more on Spinoza (by way of Albert Einstein).
One human barnyard.