Was down by the pool, reading and waiting for the laundry to finish in the wash so I could put it in the dryer. Your brother came home from basket ball, his t-shirt smattered with the asphalt carried up from the ground by the basket ball. Sounded like he had a good time, despite him, Alexi and Josh getting schooled by middle schoolers. After your brother went upstairs, I passed out in the shade of the umbrella, beside the pool, my book across my chest, my sock-covered feet peeking out of the shade and into the sun. When I woke up I read an essay out of the book of collected writings by Einstein. And in that state, having just woke up, but completely and utterly relaxed in the afternoon sun, my mind was clear and open, and the essay I read sank in quickly and lucidly, until it reached a soft, piercingly deep point, which I resolved to translate to you somehow because I was so impressed by the beauty of it.
Extracted from the essay that helps prepare and defend it, the idea was this, "How can cosmic religious feeling be communicated from one person to another, if it can give rise to no definite notion of a God and no theology? In my view, it is the most important function of art and science to awaken this feeling and keep it alive in those who are receptive to it."
Ok, I'm realizing that without the essay, the point, in abstraction, really has no effect, so I've copied the first half of the essay below so you can read through it, but I'll try my best to sum up what I realized when I read this.
The thought was that "cosmic religious feeling", (or the unity of the nature of things in the universe- be it through scientific laws or through shared human impressions), was available to everyone and was above any cultural, social or moral distinctions. At one point or another a lifetime, everyone is impressed or awed by something in nature, something that exists independent of human cause or reason, but which presents a structure so complex, or an orchestration so unfathomable so as to make us feel smaller and in turn makes us consider ourselves merely a component of the infinite movement of everything around us- from the smallest particle inside us to the largest stars in the universe. In all human activity, there are none seemingly more opposed than art and science. Art is dedicated to momentary subjective affects, with seemingly defiant disregard to practicality; Science strives for eternal objective truths with a religious dedication to recycling its discoveries into practical applications.
But in Einstein's phrase, the two are paired as perhaps polarized ends of the same endeavor- an attempt to understand the enormity of everything that surrounds us, and share that understanding with others around us. To celebrate it!! And instantly to me it seemed that everything else- all the busy work, our efforts to maintain health, home and safety, to collect money to be able to function within the societies in which we live- all of it paled in comparison to the moments of art and of understanding (science) when the world reveals itself, unravels slightly in front of us, and we feel a part of it, a part of something beyond ourselves, a part of something large, overwhelming, awe inspiring, and beautiful.
oop, you just sent me a text!
Oh shoot!!!! I love you like crazy missy.
perhaps love, too, is like this, but rather than the world revealing itself, it is simply two people, shedding the layers between each other, and suddenly those two people are revealed to each other, immaculately, and in every case with my missy, beautifully. Maybe that's why I light up so much when ever I come home for lunch?
yeah, definitely : )
Was gonna attach some pictures, as examples of my momentary snaps of art, when the right lighting conditions, the right subject, and a quiet moment from the daily grind, give rise to sneak peeks at the world making beautiful arrangements and presentations that exist independent of me.
Think I'll do just that!
Love you missy. Below is the essay!
mmmmmmmmmmmmuah!
-mister
Albert Einstein:
"Everything that the human race has done and thought is concerned with the satisfaction of deeply felt needs and the assuagement of pain. One has to keep this constantly in mind if one wishes to understand spiritual movements and their development. Feeling and longing are the motive force behind all human endeavor and human creation, in however exalted a guise the latter may present themselves to us. Now what are the feelings and needs that have led men to religious thought and belief in the widest sense of the words? A little consideration will suffice to show us that the most varying emotions preside over the birth of religious thought and experience. With primitive man it is above all fear that evokes religious notions - fear of hunger, wild beasts, sickness, death. Since at this stage of existence understanding of causal connections is usually poorly developed, the human mind creates illusory beings more or less analogous to itself on whose wills and actions these fearful happenings depend. Thus one tries to secure the favor of these beings by carrying out actions and offering sacrifices which, according to the tradition handed down from generation to generation, propitiate them or make them well disposed toward a mortal. In this sense I am speaking of a religion of fear. This, though not created, is in an important degree stabilized by the formation of a special priestly caste which sets itself up as a mediator between the people and the beings they fear, and erects a hegemony on this basis. In many cases a leader or ruler or a privileged class whose position rests on other factors combines priestly functions with its secular authority in order to make the latter more secure; or the political rulers and the priestly caste make common cause in their own interests.
The social impulses are another source of the crystallization of religion. Fathers and mothers and the leaders of larger human communities are mortal and fallible. The desire for guidance, love, and support prompts men to form the social or moral conception of God. This is the God of Providence, who protects, disposes, rewards, and punishes; the God who, according to the limits of the believer's outlook, loves and cherishes the life of the tribe or of the human race, or even or life itself; the comforter in sorrow and unsatisfied longing; he who preserves the souls of the dead. This is the social or moral conception of God.
The Jewish scriptures admirably illustrate the development from the religion of fear to moral religion, a development continued in the New Testament. The religions of all civilized peoples, especially the peoples of the Orient, are primarily moral religions. The development from a religion of fear to moral religion is a great step in peoples' lives. And yet, that primitive religions are based entirely on fear and the religions of civilized peoples purely on morality is a prejudice against which we must be on our guard. The truth is that all religions are a varying blend of both types, with this differentiation: that on the higher levels of social life the religion of morality predominates.
Common to all these types is the anthropomorphic character of their conception of God. In general, only individuals of exceptional endowments, and exceptionally high-minded communities, rise to any considerable extent above this level. But there is a third stage of religious experience which belongs to all of them, even though it is rarely found in a pure form: I shall call it cosmic religious feeling. It is very difficult to elucidate this feeling to anyone who is entirely without it, especially as there is no anthropomorphic conception of God corresponding to it.
The individual feels the futility of human desires and aims and the sublimity and marvelous order which reveal themselves both in nature and in the world of thought. Individual existence impresses him as a sort of prison and he wants to experience the universe as a single significant whole. The beginnings of cosmic religious feeling already appear at an early stage of development, e.g., in many of the Psalms of David and in some of the Prophets. Buddhism, as we have learned especially from the wonderful writings of Schopenhauer, contains a much stronger element of this.
The religious geniuses of all ages have been distinguished by this kind of religious feeling, which knows no dogma and no God conceived in man's image; so that there can be no church whose central teachings are based on it. Hence it is precisely among the heretics of every age that we find men who were filled with this highest kind of religious feeling and were in many cases regarded by their contemporaries as atheists, sometimes also as saints. Looked at in this light, men like Democritus, Francis of Assisi, and Spinoza are closely akin to one another.
How can cosmic religious feeling be communicated from one person to another, if it can give rise to no definite notion of a God and no theology? In my view, it is the most important function of art and science to awaken this feeling and keep it alive in those who are receptive to it."
