Posts in Life
Words Worth Noting - November 5, 2023

“Kierkegaard talks about the idea of being a knight of faith, and he is classed with the Christian existentialists as a consequence of the practicalities of his view. He basically puts forward a proposition that I think is akin to the proposition that undergirds marriage, which is: You cannot find out whether creation is good or evil without being all in on your bet, just like you cannot be married without saying, ‘I am shackling myself to you and I am not going to run away no matter what, so we better get to know each other and get along because this is how it is going to be.’ Without that, you cannot be deeply committed enough to the marriage to make it work. So it seems to me on the forefront of faith, you have to act in the world with courageous trust – not naïve trust, but courageous trust – in the potential goodness of being in order to actually discover whether or not that faith is justified. And that is partly why it is faith; you have to put the cart before the horse. You cannot wait around.”

Jordan Peterson “Mondays of Meaning – March 20th 2023”

Words Worth Noting - October 29, 2023

“can the view that all religions are equivalent really be taken seriously? If such is the case, how should one explain that, on their occasion of the rebuilding of the main Aztec temple in 1487, more than 20,000 people were bled to death over four days on the altars of Tenochtitlan, in the upper Mexico valley, as human sacrifices to the sun god?”

Richard Bastien in Convivium Vol. 2 #7 (April-May 2013)

Words Worth Noting - October 27, 2023

“‘Hermit hoar, in solemn cell,/ Wearing out life’s evening grey:/ Smite thy bosom, sage, and tell,/ What is bliss? and which the way?/ Thus I spoke; and speaking sigh’d;/ – scarce repressed the starting tear; – When the smiling sage reply’d – Come, my lad, and drink some beer.’”

Samuel Johnson, cited in D.J. Enright’s introduction to Johnson The History of Rasselas