* Joseph Smith created the first and only christian theism. until then it was merely theism, where Jesus makes zero difference. reading, or listening to a rendition, of the King Follet Discourse one can still feel the electricity. it's hard to imagine how electrifying the real event must have been. one can sense the urgency as well. he surely knew he was going to be killed soon. everything about it is mythical. even the name of the person which gives the discourse its title, Follet meaning roughly Mad or Fool. if classical theists, with their obsession with hellenic thought, want to have a monopoly on the word theism, i am more than happy to describe myself as a godist. i find traditional metaphysics completely incoherent, because if taken seriously there is no purpose or meaning to this life at all. since i can see even with my eyes that there is a lot of purpose and meaning, and i want to live, to adhere to trad metaphysics would be a performative contradiction. no one really acts as if they believed traditional metaphysics, because to act already presupposes what that view ultimately denies. one thing is absolutely certain from the records we have: Jesus did not see God, His Father, this way at all. and we either take him or the abstractions of philosophers seriously. or we take both and embrace incoherence, which is what most theologians have done across the centuries. i don't see the need. classical theology wants us to believe that man is made in the image of God except in the most direct sense. obviously it has to mean everything but that. similarly, 'Our Father' means absolutely everything except our father. people who believe this are usually so fond of calling others gnostics, when they have the exact hatred of the human form that they ascribe to the original ones. 'but don't you see Laeth, Jesus was talking to the dumb people. in secret he only taught strict neoplatonism'. sometimes i think i should print some cards saying 'Exodus 32:11-14' to hand out whenever christians spout theological abstractions at me. but they would say it means everything except what is said. i know it is a hard disease to cure, because so much pride is involved and i used to have it, and it was hard to overcome. i really believed i understood what it meant. the truth is, those abstractions mean nothing and i'm glad i let them go. from now on i'm calling it the nicene screed i'd rather stand on the shoulders of hobbits. an aphorism should be clear on the surface, and muddy deep down. i am committed to heaven, but i don't want to be committed in it. i am naive and also cynical. i'm so glad i've stopped writing essays and started writing stories. i get bored just thinking about the former. more than bored, embarrassed even. my beliefs are much more accurately expressed in narrative form, or alternatively in aphorisms. like the bible. the invention of the mechanical clock was the end of time, the imprisonment of all cycles, which contrary to common meaning always move forward, as etymology testifies, into a circle of futile repetition. the clock has no sabbath. only a demented and diabolical narcissist would want eternal praise and contemplation from anyone at all, and how much more so from his own children. yet, this is what classical theology believes about the highest god. i hate ultimatums, but i hate highways more, so your way it is. it is impossible to hide behind humor, because it is so thinly veiled one must choose a side or else put up a front man is to god as an acorn is to an oak. i'm just a writer. meant to be read, not read into.
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As always, I loved this collection of aphorisms.
“obviously it has to mean everything but that. similarly, 'Our Father' means absolutely everything except our father.”
I don’t really want to argue about this but how do you know the boot isn’t on the other leg, and that our fathers mean nothing except vis-à-vis our Father? You wrote an acorn is to an oak as Man is to God. Agreed. But you will also agree that this is a metaphor. What if the acorn represents our existence as we ordinarily conceive of it and the oak, rising into the heavens, represents the transformation and transfiguration of our ordinary existence into a divine one? The acorn doesn’t become an oak merely by becoming a better acorn.