The
Fool's Dictionary Welcome to my dictionary. Its purpose is to give you a better understanding of my way of thinking and to expose me to your criticism so I may learn to understand this world better. As everything else in my life it is far from finished..... Beauty Change Curiosity Fear Life,
definition of Love Love is claimed by many to be the same as THE truth. I have so far found nothing to contradict that. I would not like to, either. Power Religion Often misused for personal gain, or as a means to be right. Fear of damnation or the promise of eternal rewards are the usual motivation for people to be religious, just as of elevating oneself over others and exerting power motivate many that preach it. Strict adherence to the words of the religion and diligent adoration of its deity/deities are often the central point of these preachings. The responsibility of understanding the religion is left to the teacher/preacher, everyone else simply follows the rules and goes to heaven. And doesn't it make you feel good to know that all the people you dislike are going to be forever damned? Sadly this is the way that this noble search is desecrated much too often. Consider this: Truth is all around us all the time. There are moments in life that it manifests itself in a way we can understand (see beauty) and even this glimpse gives us a feeling that is clear and overwhelming. We can put our conclusion into words, but we cannot share the experience of that moment of understanding/divine inspiration. There are many ways to go from there. Some people claim to have seen the whole truth and stop searching, some even go and found their own religion. Some collect these experiences and write them down (or have them written down) and then found or add to their own religion. I believe that all religious scriptures are inspired in that way. The people who read them often regard them as rules, and follow them to the letter, and oftentimes these practises bear very interesting fruit. The main result seems to be that these people have very little doubts on what is "right" and what is "wrong". Others see the scriptures as a challenge to experience these glimpses themselves. This is a road of doubt, insecurity and change, but those travelling it seem to find it rewarding. Truth,
THE Words Come to think about it, words are about as accurate as physics. Now you may say: "Hey, wait a minute. Physics describes reality by way of mathematics. You can't get any more accurate!" In a sense this is true. But every physicist knows that he is always calculating a model of reality under certain idealized circumstances. Both physics and language can relatively accurately describe facts in everyday life. That is because our models of everyday life are well understood and thus easily applied. Beyond the realm of everyday life those idealized conditions have to be adjusted or completely redefined. Likewise language gets blurred at the edges of constant application and even the most mainstream language is undergoing constant changes to accommodate our perception of reality. Words that mean one thing to us have a completely different meaning to our grandparents. Actually each of us is speaking their own language. To actually communicate about a subject, we must share similar experiences in that field and be able and willing to stretch our imagination to fill in the gaps. |