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Is God a practical joker?

But love has pitched his mansion in
The place of excrement.—Yeats

The rose in the midst of the thorn and sex in the midst of the anus.--coberst

One might think of God as a great practical joker. S/he creates a species that considers it self to inhabit an area between god and animal. Humans then seek to repress the animal side of its nature and to inflate the imagined god like part of its nature; its aspect that is in various situations considered as soul, or consciousness, or mind, or…

Jonathan Swift is perhaps the most famous of authors to parody the human eccentric behavior in attempting to repress recognition of our animal body. If there is a God s/he must be a very witty practical joker. Can you imagine the delight s/he must enjoy while observing humans contending with the problems relating to the pitching of the love mansion among the eliminating portals of the human body?

Psychoanalysis is about the nature of repression; the essential characteristic of the human psyche.

There is a constant conflict between the conscious and the unconscious. Societies repress the individual and the individual represses the self.

Neurotic behavior, dreams, and various “Freudian slips” provide us with e-mails from the unconscious that elude the conscious repression mechanism. These behavior characteristics are meaningful because they manifest the purpose of the unconscious that remains hidden from consciousness.

The conscious mind strenuously disowns and resists the rumblings of the unconscious. The conscious self disowns and resists its human nature.

Neurosis is the label given to these human phenomena of conflict between the conscious and unconscious self. All of us are neurotic to one degree or another. When this neurosis interferes with “normal” human behavior then, and only then, does it require outside interference by society.

Universal neurosis is the analogy of “original sin” for theological doctrine.

“The most scandalous pieces of Swiftian scatology are three of his later poems—“The Lady’s Dressing Room”, “Strephon and Chloe”, “Cassinus and Peter”—which are variations on the theme:
Oh! Caelia, Caelia, Caelia, %&@*$
Aldous Huxley explicates, saying, “The monosyllabic verb, which the modesties of 1929 will not allow me to print, rhymes with ‘wits’ and ‘fits’.”

Swift’s metaphor for humans as Yahoo’s, which are excrementally filthy, is even more in tune with his overall parodying human eccentricities when it comes to recognizing the nature of the body.

It appears to me that logical positivism, more appropriately called logical empiricism, is philosophy’s attempt to separate completely the human mind from the human body. Logical empiricism travels on the back of a system of symbolic logic whereby a scientifically codified set of symbols is developed which permits ordinary human language to be converted into a system of symbols for the purpose of analyzing conscious thought for its truth value. Anything that does not fit into this ‘symbol system epistemology’ is rejected as meaningless.

As best that I can understand it logical positivism is a philosophy that attempts to define meaning as being confined to empirical observations modified somewhat by rational processes, which does deposit some characteristics to the observed data.

I am a retired electronics engineer and while working I took courses in Symbolic Logic from the philosophy dept of a local university. This was 35 years ago and my thoughts might be a bit foggy but this is as I remember it to be.

Symbolic logic was proposed as a means to readily analyze complex arguments for their validity. There were standard symbols available for application to phrases and sentences. Since this mode of truth telling (logical positivism) comprehended all meaning as being consciously constructed necessary and sufficient definitions, meaning was fairly easily discovered.

Then by manipulating these symbols in prescribed algorithms one could ascertain the validity of the very complex arguments. This made computer generated analysis a piece of cake.

coberstakaDutchuncle

Ah! Now this all explains why uncontained joy (see previous post) could be a problem for you. Have you ever wondered why the other peple are having fun, and you aren't? My favourite quote, attributed to John Lennon, is- " Life is what happens when you were making other plans". So true!

Wit is about many things but power may be its most important characteristic. I think that Jews and African Americans are successful wits in our society because wit provides them both an escape from the world’s discrimination and because it provides the witty with power that serves as a defense against the strong hate and discrimination that the world showers on Jews and Blacks.

The other day I listened to an interview on NPR with Jerry Seinfeld. The interview took place many years ago before Seinfeld had made his appearance on the “Jerry Seinfeld” show. Jerry said something that surprised and impressed me. Jerry made it clear that he considers wit to be a very powerful force when welded in the hands of the comic.

Wit allows the comic to manipulate the audience into becoming completely in the control of the comic. The successful comic quickly grabs the audience and makes them her captive, which s/he can lead in whatever direction desired.

Freud wrote “Wit and the Unconscious” early in his career. This book is considered to be Freud’s most significant contribution to the theory of wit, which is, by extension, the theory of art.

In this book Freud “affirms the connection between art and the pleasure-principle…he also affirms the connection between art and childishness; however childishness is not a reproach, but the ideal kingdom of pleasure which art knows how to recover…with scant effort…Play on words—the technique of wit—is recovered when thought is allowed to sink into the unconscious…Freud’s analysis of wit invites extension to the whole domain of art.”

Psychoanalysis is about the nature of repression; the essential characteristic of the human psyche.

There is a constant conflict between the conscious and the unconscious. Societies repress the individual and the individual represses the self.

Neurotic behavior, dreams, and various “Freudian slips” provide us with e-mails from the unconscious that elude the conscious repression mechanism. These behavior characteristics are meaningful because they manifest the purpose of the unconscious that remains hidden from consciousness.

The conscious mind strenuously disowns and resists the rumblings of the unconscious. The conscious self disowns and resists its human nature.

Neurosis is the label given to these human phenomena of conflict between the conscious and unconscious self. All of us are neurotic to one degree or another. When this neurosis interferes with ‘normal’ human behavior then, and only then, does it require outside interference by society.

Universal neurosis is the analogy of “original sin” for theological doctrine.

In “Life against Death” Norman Brown develops, with the help of Freudian theory, a theory of art. There are no paradigms in art; the psychoanalytic themes in art offer a perspective in the doctrine of “there is no single meaning to any work of art”.

Kenn Dodd (British Comedian)

God is not a joker,but we , his creations are a joker in his hands.he moves the strings and we move ahead in our lives
Eliza

Can God be atheist, governed by scientific laws?
Of course.
Why?
Because if God exists, he would necessarily to work
in an Absolute Reference Frame and have set of physical
and mathematical laws to create everything in the Universe.
And if we can find and understand this Absolute God’s House
then we can find and understand these Cod’s Laws.
============= . .

By this reasoning if we were able to understand God's laws then we ourselves would be as gods, able to spin galaxies in space and still note a sparrow's death.

I totally reject that we puny humans will ever be able to do that! In fact Socratus, your argument is one which probably helps most towards the 'no' case.

If god exists, then why is he so elusive? Why does he not manifest himself in no uncertain terms each day. Why do the clods not parteth ande he with the greyest of beards say "Hi people wot I did createth, How you all getting on down there?" or something like that.

Humans being expected to believe in something which they have absolutely no evidence of is absoluteley unfair.
Sending us to hell for not believing in it is sadistic.

Thanks Andist,

Very good points!

You gave me my chuckle for the day!

Andist wrote;
Sending us to hell for not believing in it is sadistic.

It would only be sadistic if you believed in Hell, otherwise you would just continue with your usual behaviour with a shrug of the shoulders!

It is perfectly possible to believe in something of which you have no evidence. We do it every day in countless ways, indeed believing in a god would be a doddle after some of the things I have believed in because I desperately wanted them to be true!

Good one, Ellis!

Because God is not a "He" and does not live within certain terms, only Humans do in their beliefs (or disbeliefs), which is why they see what they want to see and don't see what they can't see.Same reason the boogerman don't make peace with you when you believe he lives under your bed. The context of that type of thinking is twisted in illusions.

Not really... Living in a hole because you don't believe there is anything better than the hole you live in is not sadistic, it's just plain ignorance. Hell is not something that comes after death, it is what comes from not knowing Truth and living in beliefs such as having a god that lives in the sky and living your life according to superstition and ignorance. Defining happiness by nebulous dictates of an unseen creator that has somehow created you in sin forcing you to live your life for fear of reprisal, is hell.
All suffering is self created.

That's true, Ellis