Not actually reading the Buechner book, just gave it to…

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Posted by: gallagherfrank Original: 6/17/2006 12:45 AM Views: 13 Comments: 6 eProps: 8 Read Comments Post a Comment Back to Your Xanga Site

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2 eProps from: malibujeremy joeldion amnsmyth Heshewethree

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Saturday, June 17, 2006

Currently Reading
On The Road With Archangel
By Frederick Buechner
see related

Not actually reading the Buechner book, just gave it to Mercy and she's reading it. How many Christian writers can actually surprise you as you read? Not many, this guy's maybe the best. A lovely, bizarre twist on a story from the Hebrew Apocrypha involving a girl whose first 7 husbands all die on their wedding night. Hmmm . . .

So it turns out there's a lot of art in Italy. Who knew? In fact, you can't walk down the street in Rome without tripping over some. "Damn pesky art. Shoo, go away." Keep a culture around for 3000 years and that happens I guess. It just starts to fill up the place. Check out the ancient Roman column and the Medieval ? frescoes in the tiny piazza that has absolutely nothing else in it but a dozen parking spaces.

When they started piping fresh water into the city in the aqueducts, they hadn't invented fire hydrants yet, so they piped it into communal fountains. They threw some statues around just for looks (I'm not making this up). Here's one, the Trevi.

Cool, huh? This kind of stuff is everywhere.

Then there's Florence. These pics all come from the central square.

The David is of course a copy, though the original stood here for centuries. The huge outdoor gallery has all originals, dating from ancient Rome through the Renaissance. The Rape of the Sabine is just one of the statues in that gallery, you can see it towards the right, along with the lion at the steps. Rhonda is shocked, shocked to discover that some of these statues are nudes.

You wonder what is must be like to live always surrounded by art like this, practically on every street corner (notice I haven't even started on museums yet). Do yo become blind to it? Does it just disappear when you see it every day, or see so much of it? Or are you enriched by it daily? Does it affect you in ways you never realize? Is your soul somehow different because you live immersed in the works of some of the most brilliant and talented chroniclers of humanity who ever lived?

Posted 6/17/2006 12:45 AM - 13 Views - 8 eProps - 6 comments

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6 Comments

looks like a great place, ive always wanted to visit that area. Along with Israel (the holy lands) and europe etc..

That explains where you have been lately too I guess! I would think living in a area like that it has to have an effect on you, maybe without knowing it, did you meet any of the locals and how did they seem to be? I would def think yea it has an effect on you, for the better.

Posted 6/18/2006 4:41 PM by malibujeremy - reply

clothes are so overrated.

the pic with rhonda is great...

you could answer your own question. you met the people there. you tell me. were they 'enriched' or 'blinded'?

Posted 6/25/2006 7:51 PM by joeldion - reply

As an extraneous response to your post, let me say that from my perspective, the reason Christians (or humans in general) disagree is that we have vastly varying subsets of the total amount of truth on any given subject. In effect, we can only see one side of a three-dimensional figure. Therefore sometimes we get it right (i.e. we see things as God sees them) because perhaps we're seeing the side that matters, but we're still just seeing one bit, and even if our conclusions are correct, we've probably arrived at them for the wrong reasons.

Having attacked your comment, I will now defend my post. I'm quite a jerk.

My post was intended to be a response to utilitarianism, which fundamentally rejects the notion that actions have intrinsic values of right or wrong. I base my argument on the observation that humans cannot judge right or wrong by considering all variables in the universe, because they cannot possibly know all those variables. That is my only point. It says nothing of comprehending moral objectivity -- that's its own mess. I'm just saying that utilitarianism as a philosophical argument is very simply debunked by noticing the fallacy of omniscience.

Thanks for your comment! It's refreshing to hear someone thinking.

Posted 8/7/2006 4:10 AM by amnsmyth - reply

I agree that we can learn something from all things -- and utilitarianism is included. So I don't intend to flippantly disregard an entire school of thought. My point is simply that in a strict debating sense, there is a logical hole in utilitarianism that weakens the strength of its support when used in individual arguments. While patches of utilitarian theory can be used here and there, it's not fail-safe.

This all came up only because some folks were using utilitarian arguments to defend a certain position I believed was wrong, so I felt the need to do a microstudy of utilitarianism and see if it holds up as something that should change my opinion or not. I don't believe it is, given its sturdiness by itself.

I'll let this be my last word & let you have the last say, unless you want more response. Thanks for chatting!

Posted 8/8/2006 5:15 PM by amnsmyth - reply