Braino for the Clogged Brain

While some of the readings in my Religious Studies class had my brain clogged with unfamiliar lexicons and philosophical banters in a myriad of loquacious meanderings around a point that was not poignant, I am finally finding some relief.

Much like the previous run-on sentence, my brain has clicked into a flow of consciousness that incorporates a modicum of tangible processing and a deeper understanding of the questions wherein.

I'd like to attribute that to the Freud reading but I don't think Freud is the culprit.

I blame the wily instructor and the continuous offerings of sacred fruit as nourishment to my starved brain. I particularly enjoy the fresh fruit. The old fruit started out as grapes but now, these grapes have become raisins—Otto, Hume, Smith (J.Z., not Husten, I love that guy, he's still a grape), Tylor, he’s functional as a grape but his fruit is sooo primitive.

While the raisins loosened everything up, the fresh grapes are really getting things moving in this near-grape brain of mine!

My new favorite fruits;

• Immanuel Kant—this guy is old enough to be a raisin, but sheesh, he’s phenomenal!
• Freud—old too, but still as fresh as an unripe banana, preserved by his own Victorian father.
• Wendy Doniger—Now that gal is sexy! She may not be a strict vegetarian and she sure can piss off a cow, but I like her sense of exploration and I am now creating a myth around her existence.
• Weber—Meh, he’s okay in an economic pinch, but I’m a little disenchanted with him.

Still life Painting Fruit (’The Autumn Gift’) was painted by George Lance in 1834.

What is Religion? What is God? Who are the Followers?

http://artbyleakelley.wordpress.com/2011/06/11/followers/

My smart group member, Olivia, requested a definition of Religion from the other group members.
This is really stretching it for me. I started out with all those philosopher definitions that we have been reading about, but that's not working for me.
So here's what I'm working on—hopefully I can narrow it down...

God.
A collective agreement.
An existential personification created by the need to perceive beyond the knowable.
A motivation to aspire from the mundane existence of the organism.
God.
Love.
God.
Terror.
God.
The evolution of cells, incorporating consciousness through tangible experience.
Subjective, metaphoric, and sometimes physical interpretation of neurological stimuli.
God.
The top of Mazlow’s pyramid.
The ultimate revelation.
Ecstasy.
Intermittent comprehension outside the limits of the corporeal.
God.
The most remote dimension of Flatland.
Kether.
YHVH
Elohim.
Jehovah.
Allah.
Zeus.
The Nameless One.
One.
A conspiracy of manipulation to modulate behavior of the masses.
Control of primal instincts through adherence to civilized laws and puritanical concepts. 
The funneling of deemed inadequacies into marketable forgiveness.
The simultaneous creation and alleviation of shame.
The annihilation of spirit.
God.
A mystery.
A legend.
A myth.
The truest story ever told.
The most insidious of deceits.
The most profound recognition.
Source of life.
Denial of death.
Authenticity.
Love.
The secret of the great void.
The artist’s hand.
Sherpa to the Universe.
Oracle of truth.
Every molecule in existence.

Group Think

I was born in the fifties.
Maybe that contributes to my need for defined structures and social order—or what I deem to be social "order".
I am being confronted with some of my obsolete ways of thinking in my religious studies class and it's a little uncomfortable but very exciting.
My group (Knosis) finally seems to be structured in a way in which I can interact, but my previous notions of what I need in a group interaction is creaking like a door in a haunted house.
The Group:

• Olivia: She is the Knower of Things. I absolutely respect this young woman's ability to retain and draw upon information at lightning speed but I can get lost on her road to comprehension and respond defensively when I can't follow. I really need to trust that she will come back from Deuteronomy to Taoism  and meet me—or maybe I need to let go of the need to be met in the middle and just listen and learn from her 

• Ken: He is "The Speaker of Things. Ken is very articulate man who is a good candidate for commercial voiceover work. He is supportive to the group in reiterating a point in an eloquent manner.

• Heather: She is The Seeker of Things. She expresses a genuine interest in learning, not only about why a grandfather may not eat meat on Fridays, but about the subject matter and the perspective of others.

• Phouthavady: She is The Watcher of Things. She quietly observes and then surprises a person with a verbal to-the-point punctuation of the interaction

• Kim: She is The Juggler of Things. Kim may present at times as overwhelmed by maneuvering through the information while maintaining many other factors in her life, but she has a razor sharp insight that is a delight to hear.

Then there's me. 

Here I am trying to be The Learner of Things.

Well, the first thing I am learning is there are many ways to learn things.

I am accustomed to figuring things out and assimilating information in an solitary manner where I have control over the information and method of assimilation.

Group Think is new to me. I am learning to learn in a social manner that I don't need to control anything to learn something. 

And I think there may be a wily plan to demonstrate that learning does not need to be broken down into categories once one grasps the big picture, but I still needed to break the group into segments before I become one with them in a unified view of religious studies.

The painting below is titled The Thirteenth Observer 

The capacity to observe life and Humanity, objectively, from a perspective outside the Self or one’s participation in environment and tribe is truly a challenge.Some believe it is impossible because we are subjective beings.Some believe we are limited to our physical experience in our observations and therefore can never truly experience objective truth about our existence.Perhaps consciousness consists of etheric optic nerves which are invisible to us through our limited vision.Perhaps these nerves are extending outward in each of us, reaching toward one another to create a unified view while the larger part of ourselves oversees the process?

The AHA! Moment; Hume is the Root Origin of Humor

This morning I had a tiny AHA! moment—not quite a religious experience, but at least a lower case aha.
Yesterday I spoke with our wily instructor about how overwhelmed I felt at not really "getting the point" and how I was feeling a little fractured and disjointed about the religious studies structure.

She told me more about Hume as a person after I queried about his actual convictions, which I could not glean from his writings. He seemed to negate every religion and ism equally without ever telling us what he thought was a good thing.

Well, after understanding that Hume was quite the "character" on the Broadway of Religious Studies, I had a domino-effect realization (You know, where one thought topples another until you have a patterned row).

I will not speak of all the individual thoughts but the final row of dominoes looks something like this;

• I now associate the name, Hume with Hume-or and Hume-anity.
• Studying religion is a lot like abstract painting
• There is no structure, we bring structure to it—Joseph Campbell said "There is no meaning, we bring meaning to it" 
• Authors like Hume, Gill, Smith, and even Rodriguez get paid per word so that is probably why they use so many
• I will probably never be an academic writer (but we'll see after I take English 1A)
• I want to research a religion that is funny and does not take itself so seriously
• I am a bit intimidated by scholars
• Philosophers and Scholars also must appease their own Medici patrons
• Some of my dominoes are buried under other dominoes