It’s really common for creative types (musicians, writers, artists, filmmakers, etc) to get into a serious funk, especially come Autumn season. Whether it’s the chilly weather, the shorter periods of daylight, the pre-holiday blitz, or whatever else…plenty of us hit up against FUNK.
I’m not talking about catchy music (Funk as in…Soul music with a greater emphasis on beats, influences from rhythm and blues, jazz and psychedelic rock). No, I’m talking about the feeling that something is wrong in the universe.
I was all up in a funk when I read an article from Tim Ferriss. If this successful Mr Moneybags type who’s arguably America’s favorite life hacker gets hit up with a phase of Funk, why should I think it’s strange for me to splash into one. I started listening and looking around, and it turns out it’s “a thing”.
Perhaps it comes out as cynicism, annoyance, restlessness, or ennui.
en·nui
[ahn-wee, ahn-wee; French ahn-nwee]
noun
a feeling of utter weariness and discontent
resulting from satiety or lack of interest;
boredom:
The endless lecture produced an unbearable ennui.
(ennui isn’t mere boredom though, the connotation is really more of a life-weariness…a “funk”)
Maybe it’s just low-grade blah or maybe it’s full-blown depressive feelings.
Whatever it is, it’s common. You are not alone.
We have to push through. Yes, Winter will be long, but we can use the time to germinate our ideas and bloom in a few months.
If you’re feeling the onslaught of FALL FUNK let me know!
I look around at the wars of words, the polarizing gridlock that has shutdown the Federal government (as if that could truly happen) and listen to talking heads both liberal and non liberal spew illogical nonsense. But then I realize! Most of what I hear is illogical and most arguments are irrational.
Let me explain.
Most things people say are opinions and are therefore unreasonable (in the true sense of the word: “lacking reason”). Because opinions tend to be based on emotions or other arbitrary factors they lack logic. In two to four seconds on any cable news station you’ll hear it.
This situation becomes even more apparent as you learn Critical Thinking formally.
When I learned about critical thinking and logical fallacies in depth in graduate school, I thought, why didn’t they teach us how to think in high school or at least in liberal arts university? (I mean isn’t the whole point of education to help you to think better? Apparently not…Silly me.)
So, yes. We literally are not taught to think well. Usefully. Thoughtfully.
That’s because it turns out that teaching people how to think independently is wildly dangerous and threatening. (Crazy, right?!)
It can upset the balance of power. That means it’s considered far better to cultivate “sheep” that follow the herd directed by the powerful instead of helping people think well using critical methods. So, we have the predicament best epitomized on cable news. Screaming and hysteria and irrational arguments aplenty! The crazies are running everything it seems.
When we stop simply believing what we are told and follow a true logical format to discover main arguments or separate opinion from facts, it can cause…wait for it…thoughtful questioning. Empires have fallen for less than that!
Critical thinking is rare and utilizing it may necessitate that answers involve reason. Serious repercussions indeed!
Why would a school (or any group exerting power) purposefully put itself in a position to be knocked off its pins by newly rational thinkers? Well, they avoid that very thing. The point is to engender obedience and conformity: Teach people in a (factory-style) system that gets them to think how we want them to and agree with us, otherwise it’s anarchy, and we can’t have that!
(See why thinking well is so rare?)
Imagine: What if you think something out of sync with your club, church, political party, or social sphere? Look out. A bumper crop of fallacies will likely be lobed at you like poop grenades! You are SUPPOSED to keep in line. Gosh, duh…you are not accepted for your ability to think outside the expectations and presuppositions of your group. So, remember, if you plan to use critical thinking be prepared to be demonized.
The worst threat of all for anyone in power is to encourage independent thinking, let alone teach it. Learning logical fallacies can lead to innovation and change and much apple cart upsetting. It’s a threat to media outlets, propagandists, governments, authorities, parents, policemen, and nearly every institution.
Below is the first poster I designed to teach (critical) thinking. Stayed tuned for more coming in the next few days.
If you’d like more people to learn how to think better, pass it along.
On the recent topic of Heaven (and soon, Hell) here at the old blog, I must bring up the baffling and sappy rendering of the heaven that we hear about quite a bit in conservative North American Protestantism.
If a boy nearly dies, and then tells you details about heaven exactly as you have taught him, what’s next? I’ll tell you what, a best seller (for people who need a spiritual vitamin B12 shot for their excruciatingly literal translations of biblical passages, and who pay no mind to historical context, linguistic idioms, let alone Hebrew and Greek).
Now, I realize young children tell silly stories. That’s part of their job. The trouble comes when the stories get massaged and coupled with a near-death tragedy to elicit a faith response from the more gullible among us. I do want to think the Burpos are on the up-and-up, but something stinks.
I heard Pastor Burpo and his little boy on a television program. What a cute kid. Some of the story seemed amazing, if not miraculous, but I got a bad whiff of something when Colton (really his dad) detailed heaven as, well, super lame.
People get around on their huge wings. Okay, I hope that’s not how it works. Boobs have been bad enough. The proverbial pearly gates make an appearance. The word “wicked trite” comes to mind, but maybe I’m just too cynical. A blue-eyed Jesus wears a purple sash over his white robe, and rides a giantic rainbow colored horse. Okay, bad wardrobe, and how could the genuine biblical Jesus from the ancient Semitic region possibly possess a double recessive gene for blue eyes? (And don’t say, because both Mary and the Holy Spirit had blue eyes, ’cause I’m not buying it.)
I don’t think Jesus rolls like that. But, I give the kid credit: An elephantine rainbow horse is pretty cool. Of course, I would have to know if it pooped rainbow too. That’s awfully critical info. God (the Father) has a body and sits on the throne, with Gabriel serving as a kind of right hand angel man on his left side, in a smaller throne…as we might expect, right? It all sounds like a bad Star Trek episode. Well, sort of.
Reader reviews often complain that only 3 pages of the book speaks of heaven in any details. But the book has done well. Very well. It spent 52 weeks on the bestseller list, and the family has since produced a children’s picture book, and you guessed it, and movie rights have been purchased by Sony. Pretty sweet deal!
Possible movie title: “Heaven is for Reel: One Boy’s Near-death experience as re-told by his literalistic dad”
When the parents are asked about authenticity, their answers center on referring to the hope the story brings. This begs the question, is the point of the book to create hope in a plenty of people already know what they want heaven to be, instead of a faithful depiction of God (who, by the way, is non corporeal) and the Bible? (Which would be far more confusing.) Both can’t be true.
If you want to read a copy for yourself, and decide, here it is.
But, I offer you some thoughtful reflection on the the topic from arguably the foremost New Testament scholar alive today.
Loud and sustained sounds used to send me into shutters with shivers up my spine. Once in a while they still do, especially if they resemble a brass instrument. Since I live near a firehouse, my overall sensitivity has decreased. How odd…Why the fright, you may ask?
Two words:
Trumpet Blasts
(signaling the Rapture)
The 1980s Mark IV series of fundamentalist apocalypse films are to blame.
The titles are as follows:
1. A Thief in the Night
2. A Distant Thunder
3. Image of the Beast
4. Prodigal Planet
Have you seen any of them? $99 will buy you all 4 here. Horrible stuff.
In more recent times, the Christian mega hit book series by Tim LaHaye, and subsequent movie trilogy based on his books Left Behind, claims to portray the Biblical predicts in the so-called Last Times.
All three movies will cost you just under $20 here. The extra bonus, if you grew up in the 1980s, is seeing teen heartthrob Kirk Cameron acting again.
(I really thought I’d married him one day. In middle school, I wrote him 2 fan letters and everything. Pffft, his LOSS!)
Here’s the real problem:
What many, if not most, of us don’t realize is how recent and uniquely North American this pseudo-theology is. It’s popular just in North Amercia, and hardly heard of nor accepted elsewhere in Christianity, globally, let alone historically.
Here is a quick rundown of it. It’s recent doctrinal misappropriation: The Rapture and Second Coming stuff. (Spoiler Alert: It started “coming to life” rather recently…in the 1700s).
I deeply appreciate NT Wright’s comments called Farewell to the Rapture. It’s a short read.
He shows how Paul’s language colorfully used social, religious, and political metaphors of the particular time. Rapture advocates have wildly attributed his intriguing language to extremely specific and literal occurrences and world events–present and future.
Regarding eschatology (the study of end times), Wright says,
“Understanding what will happen [in the future] requires a far more sophisticated cosmology than the one in which “heaven” is somewhere up there in our universe, rather than in a different dimension, a different space-time, altogether.”
Basically, this invention which is American-flavored End-Times theological subverts God’s current work of redemption in us. It obscures God’s nature, as well, and what God is “up to.”
The Harold Camping rapture nonsense brings this misunderstanding into glaring and ghastly light. How were his followers helped by his understanding of God? What will they do now that they haven’t raptured? Sad.
Even the attempts to map out the book of Revelation on any sort of timeline are terribly misguided. The book reads like an acid trip. Revelation barely made it into the Biblical canon. Martin Luther, who wanted the Bible in the hands of all Christian laity, said it should be included in the canon, but only if it was never used as teaching material.
Nevertheless, I’m quite fond of the Revelation 22:17. It sums it all up for me! For more encouragement, try my friend Ed’s related post here.
How do you view the Book of Revelation?
The prime focus for believers should be the event and meaning of the cross, then and forever. It should be about how this truth of God’s work and grace becomes incarnational reality in our everyday lives. Let it never be degraded to who will get sucked into the sky one day, and when.
