I’m all Christmased out so this is a quick post with a simple question for discussion.
Is something good because God commands it or does God command it because it is good?
Posted in A Cacophony of Posts | 71 Comments »Solstice comes from the Latin (sol, sun; sistit, stands) and is used to mark both the shortest day of the year and the longest day because the sun rises and sets in the same place, it appears to stand still in the sky. Hence Sol Sistit.
In the Northern Hemisphere we see the winter solstice but in the Southern Hemisphere it is the Summer Solstice. That is when the sun shines directly over the Tropic of Capricorn. Or rather when our axial tilt (23.5 degrees towards the plane of its rotation) aligns the surface of our planet with the sun. All these cosmological reference points are pretty arbitrary when you think about it.
The regularity of the seasons and key dates in the calendar are explained quite well by referring the the off centre tilt of the globe as it spins through space. The flat earthers don’t like it much but we’re lucky that there don’t seem to be many of those around any more. Even Ibn Baz says that the Earth is a sphere.
Clearly those people who mark the position of the sun, it’s rising and setting will note the longest and shortest days. Some will place significance on it of religious proportions. The Winter Solstice is traditionally a time of hope and feasting. Winter food reserves are being used and the remaining fresh food has to be finished before it spoils. Why not celebrate the shortest day with a feast and get rid of those supplies that have to go anyway.
Cultures the world over place significance on this date as a moment of rebirth and hope. There are many rituals to mark the day with circles or concentric spirals being prominent. It helps us to pass through the longest night and emerge to the new dawn as the days grow longer. It prepares us for the coming of spring, of new life in our world. People have built monuments to this day all over the world. I’ve visited Stonehenge and have wondered at the efforts involved to transport these giant stones and place them in position. True they mark the divisions of the year but what other significance must they have had for these ancient people?
Enjoy your Winter Solstice.
Posted in A Cacophony of Posts, Jason | 3 Comments »
Last week I wrote about being wrong and covered briefly some of the problems with admitting when we’re wrong and how much it can help us when we finally do. An important thing that goes hand in hand with this is the idea of asking questions, sometimes embarrassing ones. If I don’t understand something then there really is nothing wrong with asking a question about it.
Kids do it all the time. My kids are wonderful at asking the most annoying and stupid questions that leave me completely unable to provide a decent answer. Alexander will ask: “Why do we pay tax?” for example or “Why do children go to school?”
I know why I pay tax. It is because the government made a rule that says I have to. Why do I obey this rule, what right do they have to take my money? His “stupid question” got me thinking that I have a social contract with the state. I provide a percentage of my earnings to pay for certain communal things from a national health service (in the UK) to the war in Iraq, from social welfare plans to the road system. In return I get a voice in deciding how and where my money is spent.
I know why children go to school. They go to school to receive an education. Well a bit. Compulsory education was introduced following legislation on child workers. If children weren’t allowed to work then there was a fear that they would turn to crime. Educating them in publicly funded institutions was partly a step to head off a juvenile crime wave that the legislators feared was imminent.
I love stupid questions, not because they are stupid but because they sometimes make you think. A stupid question can highlight a deficiency in knowledge that can be rectified or can cut apart a whole series of assumptions and lets us revisit what we have come to understand. I pay tax because income tax is taken from my wages but thinking of it as a way of ensuring that we all pay for what we all use makes it easier to understand and appreciate. Knowing why kids go to school helps us to understand how our education system was defined and that helps us to change it is we see problems with it.
Sometimes a stupid question can just show us that we’ve been asking the wrong questions all along. If it is a good question and we don’t have an answer then maybe it is worth investigating. Sometimes the questions are more important than the answers.
Sometimes I ask stupid questions about religion. Sometimes I do this because I like to challenge someone to provide a decent answer (well, what I’d consider a decent answer) and sometimes I just want to be able to understand the course of the logic that someone took to get to faith. I can be like an annoying child who constantly asks “Why?” I love that question and I love that annoying way of asking why that children do so easily.
When my kids ask me “Why do some people believe in God?” or “Why do some people pray?” I don’t have a good answer. The best I have is half an answer: Belief in God helps them. They feel better believing in a God. Prayer helps them to order their thoughts and make sense of their experiences. I know that it’s half an answer so I always finish my explanations with “I don’t really know but it’s a good question”.
Are there any stupid questions that you’d like to ask?
Posted in A Cacophony of Posts, Jason | 6 Comments »