Words Fail

By necessity, this will be a short, simple post. My eyes are strained again. I love words. I enjoy the magic of conjuring images and telling tales with words. But, still, they are often woefully inadequate.

When it comes to speaking of matters of the heart, words cannot describe the feelings, the joy and the angst of falling in love, nor can the fully explain how, over years, those feeling morph from a rafing fire to a wonderfully warm glow.

In the sciences, physicists will tell you, when being honest, that we cannot conceive of what is going on at the quantum levels, even using our most abstract and precise language, mathematics. Biologists have no words to explain consciousness.

In theology, the matter is worse. Countless volumes have been written trying to descrine the Divine and our relation to our Creator and everyone has failed miserably. There are things that cannot be put into words and, as much as I love writing, I am learning to shut off the words and just enjoy the feelings.

God Does Play Dice With The Universe

Albert Einstein insisted, when talking to his friend Niels Bohr, that "God does not play dice with the Universe." This was during their discussions of quantum theory, when the Uncertainty Principal was well on its way to becoming certain. Bohr replied, "Albert, you have to stop telling God what he can and cannot do."

Well, much time has passed and Bohr was right, not just about quantum theory, but about everything. Humans are often an arrogant lot and many, scientists, philosophers and theologians, have made careers out of insisting that they have the answers. Since they all have different answers, it would seem that they might be well served by showing a little humility and backing off from absolute statements, but, no.

Instead we have physicists insisting that all theories must be 'elegant,' in that they are balanced and display a unity. We have no real reason to assume that things really work that way, but it seems that it just makes them happy.

We have theologians, from academics to street preachers, who swear that they have all the answers, having consulted their favorite source, be it the Bible, the Upanishads, the Diamond Sutra or the Book of the Tao. Now, each of them say that they have the truth and we should follow them but, when asked for a good reason why, they invariably reply that you must believe them because their particular book is the correct one. This is, I believe, in logic, called a tautology. A is true because A is true. This is fallacious reasoning but, they will then tell you that you only say that because you are human. I guess they believe that God is irrational; I don't.

WE need to back off and admit that we don't really know much. When you admit ignorance, wisdom may enter.