The title means almost nothing, and I’m sorry about this image:
It’s a pic from an ad pretending to hold another pic from another ad. For further viewing, its backside is featured in my entry from last afternoon — it’s the one on the right.
Dearest diary,
I wish I had been able to write to you when younger, like during my teen years and into my twenties. Those were the days when I was having my greatest thots. But I didn’t know how to write, back then — if I ever tried to write down the high-quality imaginations, they’d get garbled in transmission, cuz language scared me: I was too reverential to the concept of…
Anyway, then I learned how to write. Not necessarily well, but I can make many words fill the scroll. This was when I was about thirty. Durkheim’s suicide book says that that’s the age when, statistically speaking (provided of course that I remember right what I recently read, which is a fat chance) most people decide to do themselves in. So this is another good instance of me missing the boat. Instead of contributing to society, I decided to start writing. (Incidentally, “fat chance” and “slim chance” share the same meaning: that one considers X unlikely to happen. Lexicographers explain this seeming contradiction by calling the former phrase figurative and the latter literal; this is yet another reason I love my native tongue.) My point is that when my thots were interesting, I couldn’t transfer them, yet now that my thots have grown humdrum and repetitive, I’m an avid journalist. For “if thou art rich, thou’rt poor…” as the Duke always sez in the play Measure for Measure.
. . . Thou hast nor youth nor age,
But as it were an after-dinner’s sleep,
Dreaming on both: for all thy blessed youth
Becomes as aged, and doth beg the alms
Of palsied eld; and when thou art old and rich,
Thou hast neither heat, affection, limb, nor beauty,
To make thy riches pleasant.
Ain’t that the truth. This is one of my favorite philosophies in all the world. The rest of the speech recommends casting your vote for death rather than for life, and then the Duke gives a thrillion reasons why death is superior.
Speaking of matters of importance, I want to quote at length again from the aforesaid book by Durkheim (On Suicide), because I keep encountering passages that are brilliant. But, before I do that, I must admit something. (It is necessary to make a sincere confession, so as to approach Durkeim’s scripture with a pure heart.) My sin is that I let my curiosity get the better of me, and I checked out, at the same time as Durkheim’s masterwork, an additional library book: The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan, by Ellen G. White.
White’s writings are considered the foundation of the United Statesian religion “Seventh Day Adventism”, which I wrote about briefly in an entry that I posted about a week before the anniversary of the assassination of Julius Caesar, a day known as the Ides of March, “notable for the Romans as a deadline for settling debts.” (That’s a quote from the encyclopedia; and here’s one more: “The day was enthusiastically celebrated among the common people with picnics, drinking, and revelry.” Speaking for myself alone, I wish that we common folk of the Post-Roman Empire could enjoy a grand festival celebrating DEBT FORGIVENESS with picnics, drinking, & revelry; but, instead, all modern citizens dutifully bow to the Holy Creditor Class by honoring warfare.) One thing that Ms. White rammed home for me is the idea that these so-called cults (every religion is a cult, but when one gets big enough, like Christianity, it becomes referred to as an “organized religion”; the same way that mobsters become legitimized as aboveboard businessmen, once enough members of the legislature have been sufficiently bribed), I say, Ms. White rammed home for me the idea that these United Statesian cults like 7th Day Adventism, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Christian Science, Mormonism (etc.) are all simply offshoots of regular boring Protestantism; cuz they’re just churches built upon the writings of some man who built his own writings upon the Bible.
To oversimplify so as to bring more truth than could be attained by remaining accurate, I could say that the ancient Hebrews wrote holy scriptures, and then Saul of Tarsus (“Saint Paul”) gave his opinion on what those ancient Hebrew Scriptures REALLY MEANT (in other words, Paul hitched his wagon to the star of his own generation’s classic literature), after which various United Statesians, such as Ellen G. White (or any of the other geniuses who created any of the other cults listed above) wrote down HER opinion on what PAUL’s opinion on the Hebrew Scriptures REALLY MEANT. And you’re correct if you’ve guessed that the Hebrew Scriptures themselves are the result of various geniuses giving their own reaction to (or retelling of) previous or contemporary beliefs and literature. So the question arises:
Why is one scripture saved by posterity while another is allowed to sink into oblivion?
I’d like to answer that a poetic tale or misinterpretation thereof is saved on account of its aesthetic dignity, always and forever; but I think the truth is that there’s a LOT of sordid politics involved. So all we can conclude is “Nobody knows.”
[& just for the record, in place of that last assertion “Nobody knows,” I really wanted to substitute “Curse God and die.” But I’m trying to keep it barbaric here, for good listeners.]
Alright, I don’t remember where I was going with all this claptrap; so let me give a quotation from Ms. White’s scripture. This is just to afford us an idea of how tame her mind is. (I believe that this is the reason that people like her.) (NOTE: people don’t like me, Bryan Ray.)
Before the entrance of evil, there was peace and joy throughout the universe. All was in perfect harmony with the Creator’s will. Love for God was supreme, love for one another impartial. Christ the Word, the only begotten of God, was one with the eternal Father,—one in nature, in character, and in purpose,—the only being in all the universe that could enter into all the counsels and purposes of God. By Christ, the Father wrought in the creation of all heavenly beings. “By Him were all things created, that are in heaven, ...whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers;” (Col. 1:16) and to Christ, equally with the Father, all heaven gave allegiance.
That’s a full, neat paragraph from Ellen G. White. It’s from her twenty-ninth chapter: “The Origin of Evil”. I just wanted to give one block of her writing intact, so that you could understand her natural style, and see that she quotes from previous scripture like any literary critic. The ellipsis in the citation from Saint Paul’s letter to the Colossians is in Ms. White’s original; just as Paul’s own epistles frequently cite the Hebrew Bible, albeit less honestly.
But another reason that I wanted to copy at least one of Ms. White’s passages pristine is that I’d like also to tear a 2nd passage in tatters. The paragraph immediately preceding the afore-quoted text consists of a number of sentences, each of which I’ll now share and then immediately negate; not because I believe or disbelieve either Ms. White or myself more than any trash collector — I just think it’s an amusing thot-experiment. OK, so...
Ms. White sez:
It is impossible to explain the origin of sin so as to give a reason for its existence.
The Devil replies:
It is quite possible to explain the origin of sin. Sin is what occurs when unity splits into diversity: the acts of each individual that displease another individual are labeled “sin” by the offended individual. It’s the natural result of oneness becoming the world; a side-effect of indivisible eternity entering the divided chaos of clocktime: the pleroma (fullness) taking on the kenoma (emptiness). The reason for sin’s existence is the same as the reason of the existence of the seam between the pieces of a puzzle: it’s inevitable but ideally should be minimized.
Ms. White sez:
Yet enough may be understood concerning both the origin and the final disposition of sin, to make fully manifest the justice and benevolence of God in all his dealings with evil.
The Devil replies:
Ditto. Also, “God only Acts & Is, in existing beings or Men” and (both of these quotes are from William Blake’s Marriage of Heaven and Hell) “The worship of God is: Honouring his gifts in other men, each according to his genius; and loving the greatest men best: those who envy or calumniate great men hate God, for there is no other God.”
Ms. White sez:
Nothing is more plainly taught in Scripture than that God was in no wise responsible for the entrance of sin; that there was no arbitrary withdrawal of divine grace, no deficiency in the divine government, that gave occasion for the uprising of rebellion. Sin is an intruder, for whose presence no reason can be given. It is mysterious, unaccountable; to excuse it, is to defend it. Could excuse for it be found, or cause be shown for its existence, it would cease to be sin.
The Devil replies:
You say “Nothing is more plainly taught in Scripture than that God was in no wise responsible for the entrance of sin?” Um, I guess that’s passable. But only because sin is “the evidence that life is in existence”, for the only way to eradicate sin is to exterminate the world, and God is existence itself; that is, God is flux; and, as the most gorgeous liar, God shirks responsibility for birthing herself. So I think we’re in agreement. Now you continue: “[Scripture teaches plainly that] there was no arbitrary withdrawal of divine grace, no deficiency in the divine government, that gave occasion for the uprising of rebellion.” Yes, but you could just as truly utter the polar opposite: Scripture teaches nothing more plainly than that the withdrawal of divine grace was WHOLLY ARBITRARY, & that divine government is MANIFESTLY DEFICIENT — it is pragmatically synonymous with the English word LACK — thus this arbitrary withdrawal of grace, itself a proof of the divine government’s deficiency, not only occasioned but GUARANTEED (it was tantamount to begging for) the uprising of rebellion. Finally, you say “Sin is an intruder, for whose presence no reason can be given. It is mysterious, unaccountable; to excuse it, is to defend it. Could excuse for it be found, or cause be shown for its existence, it would cease to be sin.” Again, I’m happy to admit that we’re back in agreement. Sin HAS ceased to be sin, on account of forgiveness.
Ms. White sez:
Our only definition of sin is that given in the word of God; it is “the transgression of the law.”
The Devil replies:
“Jesus said: ‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God (who only acts and IS in existing beings and men) with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind; and love thy neighbour as thyself’. THIS commandment sums the ENTIRE LAW.” (Matthew 22:37-40)
Ms. White sez:
Sin is the outworking of a principle at war with the great law of love which is the foundation of the divine government.
The Devil replies:
If you’re saying that sin is the natural discord that comes from mere existence, and that LOVE, being a word that encompasses the notion of forgiveness, is the best way to transmute sin’s discord into harmony, then you’ve got yourself a deal. Let’s shake on it; I’m a convert. Henceforth let it be known that The Devil officially endorses Seventh Day Adventism.
P.S.
I’ve run out of time this morning, so I’ll have to save my quotes of Durkheim for next entry. If that entry comes and goes and I’ve still neglected to share the promised quotes, just round up your posse and send them to me: direct them to hunt me down and, once they find me, to concernedly administer the smelling salts.
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