We’re all products of modernity, like it or not, and so our every impression and opinion is formed in the context of it. (This bugs me sometimes. Is my Christianity authentic? Or is it, well, reactive?) Thus, one of the advantages to having a group blog of reactionaries is that unsound opinions formed under the twin pressures of ignorance and environmental prejudice very quickly meet pronounced resistance and correction. This has probably happened to all of us at some point, and it’s a real blessing. But now it’s worth asking, what can we do to keep it from needing to happening? How can we reactionaries cultivate the siege mentality necessary to detach ourselves from the poisonous milieu of the modern age?
In practice, this seems extraordinarily hard to do. It requires nothing less than the direct and forceful reexamination of every habit of thought and article of belief, any of which may have been inculcated in us by a society gone mad.
Here are some suggestion on how to cultivate that kind of siege mentality; readers’ input is, as always, very much appreciated.
1. Trust no one. I try not to keep up with the news anymore. Part of this is because it just doesn’t interest me, but mainly it’s because even those mainstream journalists who aren’t evil consequentialist liars (all seven of ‘em) are some of the most grossly incompetent people you’ll ever encounter. This extends to every other institution largely dominated by leftists, including academic research in the social sciences. I go out of my way to avoid exposing myself to their filth, and when it can’t be avoided, I assume anything I come into contact with is a lie until I can find serious reason to believe otherwise. This extends to most religious figures, up to and including the Pope for us Catholics, except on those issues on which he has legitimate authority to command belief and does so clearly and unambiguously. Even then, whenever the Holy Father says anything that seems even remotely liberal, the assumption must be that you are misapprehending him. Given that every Pope since probably Pius XII has insisted on speaking in obscurantist Vaticanese, this is a reasonable assumption to make.
2. Critically examine any convergence of your personal beliefs with liberalism. Unless it pertains to tautologies or other obvious truths, you should be immediately alarmed any time you find yourself agreeing with a liberal person about anything cultural, social, political, or religious. Examine why you agree with them. Give it lots of thought; sleep on it, and if you can’t bring yourself to disagree with them, sleep on it again. Make sure your reasons for agreeing with liberals are sound: it may be enough to think that they’re right but for the wrong reasons. This ties into point one above: assume everything you’re told by anyone presently in authority is wrong. And it is especially true when it involves favored leftist buzzwords like “rights” and “justice.”This is triply true if you’re a very smart person, and if you read this blog, you probably are. One of our co-authors (I cannot now remember who, and it may not even have been at this blog) once remarked that the intellect exists to help facilitate conformity. The only thing left to conform to is liberalism. These two points should always be on your mind.
3. Reevaluate your relationships. You don’t need to be best friends with your colleague down the hallway with the sign on her door that says “This is a Gay-Safe Zone.” She is against you, even if she doesn’t realize it. Since you are for God (and you better be!), that person is against God. Forget them… but pray for them, too.
4. Don’t try to be a missionary. As I remarked once a while back, the world “has heard the Truth and rejected it.” On the rare occasion I involve myself in theological or moral disputes among others, it is only to prevent bystanders from being scandalized. The modern leftist is too ignorant, proud, and hard-hearted to repent, so any effort to intentionally induce them to such is what Christ was referring to when He warned us not to cast our pearls before swine. These are the people whose dust we must shake from our feet. This is in the inverse of point 3 above: pray for your enemies, then forget about them.
5. Don’t be afraid to go too far. It would be better to be overly cautious and need to backtrack than to be insufficiently cautious and need to reorient again. I would sooner avoid an orthodox priest who left a bad first impression than risk contaminating my mental and spiritual milieu with someone like this sad schmuck. There is no such thing as a fortress that’s too secure, except, perhaps, the one so apparently secure that it lulls you into complacency.
6. Don’t advertise yourself. Unless you’re tenured or are surrounded by like-minded (or open-minded) people, you don’t need to advertise your reactionary proclivities. “I’m Catholic,” you say. That’s enough; no need for a monologue on the deficiencies of the postconciliar Church. “I’m just fed up with both parties,” you say, explaining why you don’t vote. No need to mention your longing for a king. Don’t put yourself in situations where you might be tempted, out of comfort or disinhibition, to divulge too much. That means avoid heavy drinking (which, as a matter of both prudence and temperance, is just a good idea, anyway).
7. Have a safe space. Blessed are those who are Catholics with recourse to an FSSP chapel. The psychological toll of living this sort of double life has to be immense: you need somewhere where you can be yourself. If necessary, set up a small Marian shrine in your closet or something. Indulge in everything the left reviles as superstition. Pray the rosary three times a day. Scourge your back till it bleeds. Spend 30 minutes or more a day reading the Bible. Set up this kind of environment for your kids, too; if you can find no kindred spirits in the world, make your own, and form them accordingly!
Let me ask you something. What do you put first, your religion or your race?
My religion, obviously.
I don’t know, Proph. I used to have that knee-jerk reaction as well, but I have since reconsidered. While all does indeed spring from the Faith, we cannot be so careless as to ignore race and ethnicity. God has made us male and female, flesh and blood; to ignore this is to head in the direction of a “propositional” faith which logically ends at rationalistic modernity. I would invite you to read the blog Cambria will not Yield. While his writing may seem off-putting at first, if you read it poetically and symbolically it contains some valuable insights. It challenged my thinking for sure and whether it does yours or not, a discussion on race and traditional Christendom as well the the confluences of the two in modernity is much needed.
“Cambria will not Yield” is a good illustration of where race idolatry leads, for those tempted down that path.
I certainly don’t ignore it (as I think should be obvious from some of my earlier posts here). Race is simply a part of the sacred order of being, and it exists for a reason — as a way of structuring our duties, among other things. It’s just less criterial to me than is my faith.
I have heard many say that CWNY must be understood symbolically or artistically, but I’ve never understood what they mean by this. It seems to me that he simply says many off-kilter things very beautifully.
@bonald,
Are you sure that his worldview is race idolatry? What is the proof? After all, European peoples did established historical Christendom. If they are are dispossessed and eliminated, is there any basis for supposing that the ‘traditional Christianity’ expounded here at the Orthosphere will ever flourish again?
@buckyiny
It is meant that reading CWNY’s works must be done as if you are reading literature or poetry. Meaning, that literalism will not provide depth and will make the writings appear ‘off-kilter’, as you say.
He says that the white race, rather than the Church, is the bearer of Christ. He condemns the Church for regarding the Faith as independent of the white race, but rather trying to convert and save all men. He condemns the identification of the Faith with her doctrine, sacraments, and tradition, again in favor of racial continuity. He rejects Greek and scholastic philosophy and accuses Thomas Aquinas of Pelagianism. He abandoned the Church established by Christ because she does not embrace these wretched doctrines. Going through his bizarre writings (which I’ve now spent far more time doing than I ever want to again), one can’t help but think that the Christ CWNY calls us to is not the true, historical Jesus Christ (whose teachings are preserved by His Church), but a mere symbol of the white race itself.
I can imagine traditional Christianity flourishing in countries black or mestizo as easily as I can imagine it flourishing again here.
I can imagine traditional Christianity flourishing in countries black or mestizo as easily as I can imagine it flourishing again here.
That’s right–you have to imagine a flourishing of traditional Christianity in black or mestizo countries. In white countries it’s a historical fact.
@bonald
Even if your analysis of CWNY is foundationally true, that does not mean he is totally wrong and should be written off entirely. For instance, his insight on the animus toward white people held by modern political correctness and its exaltation of people of color is undeniable. Also, you mention ‘the church’. Where does ‘the church’ stand? If the is all people equally (who claim to be ‘christian’ or roman catholic) in a globalized world, then aren’t we conceding most of the program to modernity already? What is the point of the orthophere then (if not to preserve historical European Christendom)? Is such a propositional faith without roots in creation much different than secular liberal globalist pluralism? I wish I knew where I’m wrong here, but how can we have ‘traditional Christianity’ without a tradition? CWNY at least seems to represent in his writings a traditional, pre-modern view of the world: hierarchical, inegalitarian, and rooted. Color me loony, but I based on all of this I can see the Orthopshere eventually supporting global liberalism and transhumanism in the name of ‘the Church’ based on the presuppositions here.
Do we not stand for the Old Order? Most (probably all in some way or another) modern churches have surrendered to liberalism, including the Roman Catholic. Did not Christ speak of a Remnant? It appears that this Remnant would not be found in the modernist, compromised houses of worship.
@anymouse
I used to think just what you say here. But that was when I was an egalitarian, believing that all cultures and ethnicities are the same and interchangeable. Now, I’m not so sure. Check out an article on AlternativeRight.com entitled “The Rise of Anti-Western Christianity”.
@ Ransom Culhane
After all, European peoples did established historical Christendom.
No, they didn’t. Semitic peoples established historical Christendom, passed it over to the Europeans, and then moved on to Islam.
@ The Continental Op
That’s right–you have to imagine a flourishing of traditional Christianity in black or mestizo countries. In white countries it’s a historical fact.
Latin America has been Christian for longer than the U.S. has even existed. And Ethiopia was evangelized soon after the beginning of Christianity.
I think religion requires you to put your religion before your race. Otherwise, your race would be your religion… and your “religion” a mere instrument. This is not to say that traditional religion is per se hostile to familial or tribal loyalties, nor to wider national cultures, which were themselves formed or incubated under a dominant religion.
So while there may in fact be a degree overlap between the spheres, religion and race are obviously not coterminous. And support of one’s religion, rightly understood, trumps all particular loyalties. “Anyone who doesn’t hate is father…”
Yes. If your religion doesn’t trump everything else, then you don’t have religion in the first place.
“That means avoid heavy drinking (which, as a matter of both prudence and temperance, is just a good idea, anyway).”
It depends on the person. Why I have drank a lot I tend not to care as much about social issue and politics. I remember remarking to a classmate that they are about to fully legalize gay marriage in Maryland, and she said “good”. I just ignored that, and kept on enjoying the night. I believe without the alcohol I could have conceivably launched into professor mode.
Despite not being a professor.
Let me qualify: Avoid heavy drinking if (like me) you’re a gregarious drunk!
“Reevaluate your relationships”
What relationships? I thought that isolation and alienation are the common traits of the modern reactionary. This is more true in large urban centers, where we are surrounded by an atomized, yet hostile, multitude.
In the spirit of skepticism you here so usefully advocate:
“the intellect exists to help facilitate conformity.”
Really? How post-modern!
How about, “the intellect exists to help facilitate conformity of the rational will to the truth.” Then we may attribute conformity of the rational will to an errant and wicked society – which is what you are warning us about – to a defect of intellection.
Since the subject of CWNY came up, and the post touches on the Catholic’s relationship to the office of the Pope, and I sense that there are many faithful Catholics who participate in the discussion here, I wonder what the response is to the following quote, lifted from CWNY’s most recent post (I say lifted because his subject was not actually papal infallibility or the Catholic Church, but the quote serves as a useful paradigm of his sentiment toward the Catholic Church and the Pope). CWNY writes:
It’s the old infallibility debate. During John Paul II’s reign of terror, the papolators squelched all opposition to John Paul II’s liberalism by playing the Pope card, just as the mad-dog liberals trump all opposition by playing the race card in defense of Obama.
As a Catholic, I have a little difficulty seeing past what appears to me as merely vitriol in his comment here. But then, it also does appear to me that much damage has been done, especially to Catholics and their understanding of the Catholic faith, by the use in the Catholic mind of something like a rubber stamp on whatever the Pope writes or speaks. I’m not necessarily even speaking about the charism of infallibility. Shouldn’t a Catholic give special deference to the Pope’s teaching? Yet it seems like so many have been led astray, or been confirmed in the liberal path by heeding to the thought of recent Popes, specifically John Paul II.
The Pope’s teachings are authoritative even when not protected from error, but this does not mean reasonable people cannot disagree with him. Avery Card. Dulles made this case, for instance, on the death penalty, noting that JPII’s stance on it was prudential, not doctrinal, and so not binding.
I don’t think it’s fair to say that JPII himself misled anyone. He was just, perhaps, insensible to his own obscurantism. The limits of infallibility are pretty strict: I can’t point to anything JPII said that was technically erroneous, but I can point to lots of things he said that were stupid, unintelligible, ill-advised, pointless, or otherwise not expressed the best way possible. Infallibility guarantees the Church will never teach falsehood. It does not guarantee that they will possess the fullness of truth at any given time, or that what truths they teach, they will teach in the best or clearest way. If one wants to argue that infallibility extends beyond this, they’re left in the weird position of defending the Vatican’s handling of its finances or its internal governance.
Fascinating post, Proph. This is something I think about fairly often. Wouldn’t it be nice to just cocoon myself off from modernity and and dwell, almost psychotic-like, in a semi-dream world of my own imagination?
But in fact as Christians I don’t think we’re allowed to, and some of the things you’re advocating here strike me as “pretty lies”, or evil temptations that, like all the best temptations, contain just enough truth in them to make you almost believe they’re worthwhile and not poison.
For instance:
I try not to keep up with the news anymore.
I would *like* to whole-heartedly adopt this strategy, and in fact I do consume a great deal less news than I used to, for the same reasons as you describe. But don’t we owe it to our children to try and keep abreast of what’s going on so we can fight it?
Reevaluate your relationships. You don’t need to be best friends with your colleague down the hallway with the sign on her door that says “This is a Gay-Safe Zone.”
This one is so counter-intuitive and contrary to what we’re always taught about how “the best way to reach people is to be FRIENDS with them!” that I can’t figure out whether it’s a shocking piece of wisdom, or a seductive lie from Satan.
The Bunker Mentality is defeat. “They’re closing in on us!” The best is to try to carve out a swath with the sword of truth, laughing and shouting.
I don’t see it as defeat because I don’t see liberal modernity’s victory as permanent. It’s suicidal. It’s going to die, though not in the lifetime of anyone presently living. The question is, how do we keep our inheritance alive long enough to see it through the convulsions?
Proph must be getting old. All the young men, go forth, for battle for the cause is glorious.
We need to be careful in our friends not because we are too good for them but because we are not good enough.
A sufficiently good person is immune to all poisons and temptations and has love enough to deal creatively with all evil. But we are not good enough and so we should avoid temptations that we can not handle.
NOTE: I’m terribly sorry, this is far too long and far too chaotic. I just wrote things as they popped into my head and could have kept going but I didn’t want it to seem like I’m just here to criticize. I’ve just been thinking about this issue for quite some time.
Hello all, this is my first post here, but I’ve posted several times on Bruce Charlton’s blog and have been reading this blog for a few months now.
I do not wish to cause unnecessary disputes, and I hate to have my first post here discuss such a sensitive issue, but I’ve seen this race issue come up several times before on other sites, and it keeps bothering me. I would like to discuss this more in depth when I get my thoughts organized, but as of right now, I’m so confused I don’t even know where to start.
Is the claim that religious beliefs are passed down via genetic material? Similar to alcoholism?
I don’t have problems with the idea that certain weaknesses to certain sins (also remembering that all people have free will, and weaknesses are just that, nothing more) can be genetically passed down. I can also understand how the strength of certain traits (physical strength, intelligence, etc.) can be genetically passed down.
- but how does one figure this into a coherent idea of racially protected religion?
It’s not even simply an reaction to any PC mindset ingrained in me. I can’t even understand what the issue is. First, I wonder what race is- a similar group of genetics? It seems race nowadays is often connected with the phenotype- what is visible- and not the genes. You have black and white in the United States. Everyone else is regarded by nationality, irregardless of genetic type (Copts and Muslims in Egypt have different genetic origins, but are both referred to as Egyptians). Are the British and the French the same race? If not, then what is meant by white people? Are the British and the Greeks different races? If not, how does one account for their different cultures on one hand yet claim that race is what causes the difference in culture on the other? And if they are different races, then how can one claim that “white people” are the inheritors of Christendom when there are races within the “white people race” that are not the same? Or are they close enough?
Also, isn’t it true that if Christianity depends on white people, then white persons have nothing to worry about? Since God has promised that the gates of hell would never prevail against the Church, which is apparently dependent on white people.
And I don’t know what to make of this claim that race is ordained by God. If one takes the literal Biblical view, you have Adam and Eve as the creation of God, and their offspring as their creation, through the potential that God created. In a sense, I say that God created me, but I don’t say God created me such-and-such race as if God creates races by one day deciding that an Asian would be born to black African, white skin squinted eyes and all.
If a white person and a black person have a child, has God created a new race? If a group of people and their descendants stay in isolation in the same position for centuries, marrying within each other, won’t they eventually become a race, even if they didn’t originally start from a position of having similar appearances and genetics? Are the Japanese and the Chinese the same race?
Also, how does a race get destroyed? When intermarriage with a group of people with a dominant genetic feature that is visible from the outside overwhelms the people with the recessive trait (by overwhelm, I mean have continually agree to have sexual relations with). Can one race destroy another without altering appearances? Say one day, a group of well-dressed, suave, and deviant Frenchmen descend upon the innocent daughters of a rural city in Kansas- will their French genes “infect” offspring from Kansas, and now white people in Kansas all of a sudden are creating a different culture?
When the culture shifts? What is meant by culture- is it the food, the greeting style (shake hands or bow head?), the amount and context of the white lies you tell, or how close people sit next to you on public benches? Does the culture shift solely from a racial shift? Or is it moral issues such as murder, theft, homosexuality and the like? If race can determine all of these actions, what role does religion have to play? If Christ came for the sinners the same as doctor goes to the sick, shouldn’t the last people to have Christianity be those who are naturally determined to do good and shun evil?
And I am bothered by how this idea goes against many clear verses in the Holy Bible. But this is getting too long as it is, I don’t want to weary you all with my random curiosities. If we continue discussing this, then I will post them. Thank you for your patience.
Oh, and I had a few beers with my dinner. I didn’t accidentally ought myself as a liberal or anything, did I?
It is not the race but one’s City (i.e. nation or culture in the modern sense) that is important.
The City carries your traditions, history, laws etc.
Race carries nothing
Race carries nothing
Genetics carries nothing? Nothing at all?? You are wrong.
The Christian worldview excludes any emphasis given to race. We are all sons of Adam and Eve.
Thanks for the reply vishmehr24.
To the Continental Op, I cannot speak for vishmehr24, but I would not say genetics carries nothing, but the question is “what does it carry that is relevant to Christianity?”
The issue is whether or not someone’s race will actually inhibit him from being a Christian (I also find the opposite quite disturbing as well, whether or not someone could just be compelled through his inherited genes into being a Christian).
First, I wonder what race is- a similar group of genetics?
I guess I’ll play along for a while. A race is, in Steve Sailer’s definition, a partially inbred extended family. So, your definition is pretty good. Race is a group of people who have similar genetics because of common descent and inbreeding.
It seems race nowadays is often connected with the phenotype- what is visible- and not the genes
Right, and cars stop running because their gas tanks are empty, not because their gas gauges read empty. Therefore, what? Back in the 1970s, pop intellectuals were infatuated with saying “don’t mistake the map for the territory.” This makes maps useless, right?
Are the British and the French the same race? If not, then what is meant by white people?
Are mahogany and mauve the same color? If not, what is meant by red?
Race is relative and continuous. Human brains like to think in categories and absolutes. Is a 1.9 meter tall man short? He is in the NBA.
Relative and continuous does not mean irrelevant and arbitrary.
So the meaning of “white” differs according to context and speaker. Sometimes is means all Caucasoids. Sometimes it means only Europeans. Sometimes it means Northern Europeans.
If a white person and a black person have a child, has God created a new race?
No, but if one million white people and one million black people have children and then the children go off by themselves and inbreed, then He has. See India (though it was whites, abos, and mongoloids there).
It’s not even simply an reaction to any PC mindset ingrained in me.
Um, yes it is. I believe that you don’t think it is, but that does not change anything. The things you said are not arguments. They are not problems for the race concept. Rather, they are some of the endlessly repeated defense mechanisms implanted by PC in your brain. We can tell, because you all talk this way. You all have the same stereotypical “questions” and “criticisms” which end up being neither.
We can also tell because race exists and because this fact is obvious, like “the sky is blue” or “grass is green.” When a sighted person has “questions” about the blueness of the sky, the problem is in their brain. It’s a testimony to the power of propaganda that people go around claiming to believe that the sky is pink.
It’s not your fault, of course. You’ve been lied to by people you trusted.
but I don’t say God created me such-and-such race as if God creates races by one day deciding that an Asian would be born to black African, white skin squinted eyes and all.
Asians don’t have white skin. Both whites and Asians lost their blackness via genetic changes. But it was two different genetic changes in the two cases. Thus, the phenotypes are not quite the same.
Oh, and the argument you are trying to make is the digital/analogue thing again. Thomas Sowell once satirized this kind of thinking by saying “Adolf Hitler and Abraham Lincoln were both imperfect human beings.”
To the larger question, I don’t think I have an opinion on how big a deal it is that Christianity has been largely a white thing. But race denial certainly is not a part of answering that question.
Bill, thank you for your reply.
I do not deny race, in the sense that there are distinct groups that through years of interbreeding share similar characteristics. Like you said, this is obvious.
My questions aimed to show what I thought race was, as well as gauge what others thought it was, not deny its existence. I fail to see how we disagree.
You state that you don’t have much of an opinion of how race factors into the issue of Christianity, and this is the issue that conflicts me the most.
Oh, and just so you don’t think I deceived you later or anything, I am not white, I am Egyptian in ethnicity, and born and raised in the United States. And a Coptic Orthodox Christian.
Oh, I think I noticed a point a confusion. Sorry, but I am always confused and my mind is always in a constant state of chaos, but when I brought these issues up, what I wanted to show was exactly what you said- race is not arbitrary. That’s why I brought up the example of God having an asian baby born to an african.
It is a somewhat chaotic process that involves millions of individuals making decisions on their own that creates the racial groups. If we take free-will to be a fact, then race is created by, like you said, a sort of extended inbreeding. Not a declaration from the Heavens.
Yes, race arises endogenously from natural processes. But that is not opposed to God creating it. God created it through natural processes. For whatever reason, God mostly does His creating through natural processes—we call those rare exceptions “miracles” because they are rare and exceptional.
Thank you again for your comment.
The christ-like thing to do would be confront the modern pharisees with their own evil even if they arrange for your crucifixion.
Just curious, but for how many of *your* coworkers, colleagues, students, etc., do you do this?
None. I am not a Christian. I refrain from openly attacking moderns and liberals because I am selfish and don’t want risk my career prospects.
I also know that is preciously what Jesus asked his followers to do, to preach the gospel even unto martyrdom, as he did. Treating Christianity like it is some kind of mystery religion that must be kept secret from the unholy lest you draw their wrath would likely be among the most abhorrent things imaginable to Jesus.
Among other errors you’ve rejected the great commission and taken on the spirit of the Pharisees. I cant give a better response than this….
http://terrybreathinggrace.wordpress.com/2012/07/09/have-we-renounced-our-citizenship/
The Great Commission was given to the institutional Church, not to every last schmuck. Even it was qualified: Christ made clear they were not to waste time preaching to those who would not hear it, but were to shake the dust from their feet and move on. “Cast not your pearls before swine.” Etc.
Its too bad discussion has so far been strictly about race which seems to be beside the point. I cant imagine a post that could fail to reflect the grace of Christ more than this one.
I think you have to know who to trust and not to trust, rather than doubt everything, the folly of the skeptic. Yes, question all authority, but also accept that you should not make yourself the pope either. The wisdom of the popes does not come only when speaking ex cathedra. If one is inclined to doubt the magisterium on pronouncements, one should think deeply if one has legitimate objective reasons to do so. More so than not, the Magisterium will be correct. I do not think one should trust any other authority as fully, but we should not be too quick to dismiss legitimate authority. Due to so much falsehood being spread everywhere, it is easy to dismiss everything, but sometimes it is wise to doubt our own discernment.
I’m sick of being a morose reactionary. I want to be fun about it. How do we laugh amid the tears and the anxiety?
Find something to laugh about.
I second that.
How about… orthosphere haikus!
athiest seeks God
google and facebook no luck
search complete smiles pleased
sign says “gay-safe zone”
can’t avoid colleage down hall
make up allergies
How about… orthosphere haikus!
Ha, ha… you did make me laugh.
To be serious, it’s a good question, and struggling with it was one of the things that drove me online. There’s no easy answer, but a big part of it involves trusting that things will work out in the end (the real End, I mean), surrounding yourself with people you love, and learning to tune out or laugh at (instead of fear) the absurdities of our time.
In the meantime, haikus!
Amanda Marcotte
contraception poster-child
will not reproduce
Okay, that was more factual than witty. Let’s try again:
There once was a lib from Nantucket
If it had a dick she would fuck it.
Her soul was so dead
that “I’ll end it!” she said
And her blood dripped away in a bucket.
Someone stop me.
Heh, the limerick is a bit extreme for my tastes, but alright. I’m very glad I made you laugh. On how to stay happy, I think another another part is also forgiving people’s ignorance. If you got angry every time someone in the world said something that was some PC foolishness, it would be very difficult to be happy.
aaand, just one more:
A poof! and a unicorn appears
The shook athiest howled “oh dear!”
“But I know the truth!
Not God! ‘Twas the poof!
With science you got nothin to fear!”
Limericks good for laughter and cheer
But what of those who seek God out with tears?
Poems bitter and tart
No wit can mend hearts
Listen to Job, who died old and full of years…
i remember P.J. O’Rourke’s short piece, “A serious problem” which I haven’t read in years, but I remember his comment about the 300 Spartans at Themopylae and how the Persians were astonished to discover that on the morning of the battle, the Spartans were dressing their hair. That is to say, gallantry is the proper bearing for the doomed.
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