Quotables

"The heart of another is a dark forest, always, no matter how close it has been to one’s own."

Willa Cather

Huxley / Pascal / McDowell Quotes

"I had motives for not wanting the world to have a meaning; consequently (I) assumed that it had none, and was able without any difficulty to find satisfying reasons for this assumption. The philosopher who finds no meaning in the world is not concerned exclusively with a problem in pure metaphysics, he is also concerned to prove that there is no valid reason why he personally should not do as he wants to do, or why his friends should not seize political power and govern in the way that they find most advantageous to themselves... For myself, the philosophy of meaningless was essentially an instrument of liberation, sexual and political. - Aldous Huxley, 'Ends and Means', pp. 270 ff.

"The evidence of God's existence and His gift is more than compelling, but those who insist that they have no need of Him or it will always find ways to discount the offer." - Blaise Pascal

"It is the person who disbelieves in the face of strong evidence supporting Christianity who is really intolerant and closed-minded." - Josh McDowell, 'The New Evidence that Demands a Verdict', pg. xl

Myths and Legends vs. The Gospels - C.S. Lewis

"If he [the biblical critic] tells me that something in the Gospel is legend or romance, I want to know how many legends and romances he has read, how well his palate is trained in detecting them by the flavour; not how many years he has spent on that Gospel... I have been reading poems, romances, vision-literature, legends, myths all my life. I know that not one of them is like this."

- C.S. Lewis, Professor or Medieval and Renaissance Literature, Cambridge University; author of the Chronicles of Narnia.

"The God Who is There" - Francis A. Schaeffer - quote 2

Schaeffer talks about the concept of apologetics, which to him has a few different facets, but I liked a couple of related quotes.

"The proponents of any position who are alive to their own generation must give a sufficient answer for it when questions are raised about it." (emphasis, mine)

"Such answers are necessary in the first place for myself as a Christian if I am going to maintain my intellectual integrity, and if I am to keep united my personal devotional and intellectual life." (emphasis, mine)

- page 151

I thought that these two quotes were important for my own mind because of the way that I see how much my thinking has been affected by the 'leap of faith'/anti-faith mentality that pervades our culture. (see previous post). When I think of faith, I do not think of it in terms of a leap into the unknown, but as a place to step on facts to connect with God based upon reality. I think of the probability arguments advanced by Josh McDowell, the Lord, liar, lunatic argument put forth by C.S. Lewis, the reliability of the Bible as opposed to the reliability of any other book in history, as well as Schaeffer's own argument that non-personal sources could never create personal beings when I think of compelling reasons for faith in Christ.

I love the statements about having real reasons for faith so that you can 'be alive to (one's own) generation', and giving sufficient (not leap of faith) answers. I know that I fall short of this in many ways, but these are ideals for me to shoot for. I also think that I need to have a unity of mind that values loyalty to Christ above all other things - and that will produce an intellectual and spiritual (Schaeffer calls 'devotional') integrity. It is hard to keep your mind united around one thing/concept/Person, but it is something that I am feeling a greater call to.

"The God Who Is There" - Francis A Schaeffer - quote 1

I can't recommend pneumonia, but it certainly does give you time to read things that require thought and meditation. For me, this took the form of the significant, weighty book "The God Who Is There" by Francis Schaeffer. While it is nearly impossible to distill a 200 page book into any kind of helpful blog posting, I will list a few of the more significant quotes (for me).

Quote: "We of the West may not be brainwashed by our State, but we are brainwashed by our culture." - pg 141.

I think that I would have partially resisted this statement if I had not already read the previous 140 pages of the book. However, as I read, I became more and more aware that the various forms of culture that I enjoy are by in large part born out of a view that is ambivalent toward God, or outright anti-God. Now, while I might have affirmed that before I read this book, I had pretty much compartmentalized a lot of those cultural influences into categories of 'benign', 'insightful', or 'disturbing' rather than a source of brainwashing. The reason that this quote became more influential in my thinking was due to Schaeffer's expert explanation of Kierkegaard's "Leap of Faith". This 'approach' (for lack of a better word) to belief in God is now the reigning influence when it comes to any aspect of modern man's thinking and culture.  Kierkegaard essentially created modern man's view of faith by stating that there is no way for us to know that God is truly there, and if we are to live with any hope in this world, we must ignore what we know to be true about the world (that there is no supernatural realm, there is no meaning to life, in short - there is no God), and we must take a mental leap into the unknown to find any purpose or meaning (because the essence of God is that He is unknowable). As a result of this, Kierkegaard rails against the true meaning of faith and opens the door for others to redefine it as whatever they choose. It is not a faith based on a knowable God that has provided good and logical reasons for solid faith. It is a leap based on nothing except a desire for meaning and purpose. Even non-believers can not live without meaning and purpose, but they are creating a faith that has nothing to put their feet on, as opposed to historic Christianity which gives numerous reasons for God's existence. All of this to say that this is the mentality of modern man's culture today, and one that I have been influenced by, affected (infected?) by, and that I have in many ways enjoyed.

(All pages are from the collected works edition, Volume 1).

Good words to end one year and start the next

“Behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me, to render to every man according to what he has done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.” - Jesus

Revelation 22:12-13

Recent Reads

I haven't updated my blog in way too long... we'll start with some books from the last few months, and an extended quote from one of the books...

Shakespeare reads:
-   The Comedy of Errors
-   Titus Andronicus
-   The Taming of the Shrew

Michael Connelly - The Black Box
Agatha Christie - Five Little Pigs

"...It seemed to Hercule Poirot almost certain that she had lived with that disability so long that she was now completely unconscious of it. And it occurred to him that of the five people in whom he had become interested as a result of the investigations, those who might have been said to start with the fullest advantages were not those who had actually wrested the most success and happiness from life.
     Elsa, who might have been said to have started with all advantages - youth, beauty, riches - had done worst. She was like a flower overtaken by untimely frost - still in bud but without life. Cecilia Williams, to outward appearances, had no assets of which to boast. Nevertheless, to Poirot's eye, there was no despondency there and no sense of failure. Miss Williams' life had been interesting to her - she was still interested in people and events. She had that enormous mental and moral advantage of a strict Victorian upbringing, denied to us in these days - she had done her duty in that station of life to which it had pleased God to call her, and that assurance encased her in an armor impregnable to the slings and darts of envy, discontent and regret. She had her memories, her small pleasures, made possible by stringent economies, and sufficient health and vigor to enable her still to be interested in life.
    Now, in Angela Warren - that young creature handicapped by disfigurement and its consequent humiliations - Poirot believed he saw a spirit strengthened by its necessary fight for confidence and assurance. The undisciplined schoolgirl had given place to a vital and forceful woman, a woman of considerable mental power and gifted with abundant energy to accomplish ambitious purposes. She was a woman, Poirot felt sure, both happy and successful. Her life was full and vivid and eminently enjoyable.
    She was not, incidentally, the type of woman that Poirot really liked..."

(Five Little Pigs by Agatha Christie; pg 129-131)

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Quote

“Every man has his secret sorrows which the world knows not; and often times we call a man cold when he is only sad.”  ― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Some sharp one-liners...

'I never forget a face, but in your case I’d be glad to make an exception.' - Groucho Marx

'Life is full of misery, loneliness, and suffering - and it's all over much too soon.' - Woody Allen

'My definition of an intellectual is someone who can listen to the William Tell Overture without thinking of the Lone Ranger.' - Billy Connolly

'Start every day off with a smile and get it over with.' - W.C Fields

'My wife sent her photograph to the Lonely Hearts Club. They sent it back saying they weren't that lonely.' - Les Dawson

'Chopsticks are one of the reasons the Chinese never invented custard.' - Spike Milligan

'I don't like country music, but I don't mean to denigrate those who do. And for the people who like country music, denigrate means 'put down'. - Bob Newhart

'I saw that show, 50 Things To Do Before You Die. I would have thought the obvious one was "Shout For Help". ' - Jimmy Carr

'I have kleptomania. But when it gets bad, I take something for it.' - Ken Dodd

'Never trust a man with short legs… his brain’s too near his bottom.' - Noel Coward

'The English country gentleman galloping after a fox is the unspeakable in full pursuit of the uneatable.' - Oscar Wilde

'Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter.' - Mark Twain

"I remember my staff asking me when I was going to retire. I said when I could no longer hear the sound of laughter. He said: "That never stopped you before". - Bob Hope

'Always end the name of your child with a vowel, so that when you yell the name will carry.' - Bill Cosby

'I used to be Snow White, but I drifted.' - Mae West

'Politics is just show business for ugly people.' - Jay Leno

'I wonder if illiterate people get the full effect of alphabet soup.' - Jerry Seinfeld

An alternative to 'I told you so'...

"Love imagines a sorrowful yet peaceful alternative to 'I told you so', before it happens." - John Piper

Words to live by...

"Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than speak and remove all doubt."

- either Abraham Lincoln, Mark Twain, or Samuel Johnson drawing on the Bible