Of Broken Crook and Flaccid Flail
From: I am an A-atheist (Because Atheism is an Unproveable Faith)
Ladies and gentlemen, I am an a-atheist.
This is not to say that I do not believe in the existence of people called atheists. Rather, I do not believe that there is such as thing as ‘God not existing’.
And now, I as a a-atheist place the burden of proof on the atheists… To prove to me that God does not exist.
Knock yourselves out.
Consider now this herdsman’s crook: It is ignorance. That ‘God not existing’ cannot be proven is his means of rule. As is rightly so! God’s existence or not lies beyond all earthly knowledge; it is the realm of human ignorance!
But this shepherd’s staff bears a crook on both ends for this very reason; that God cannot be proven as surely as he cannot be disproven! It is a crook as easily turned upon the herdsman as the herd. As such it is a crook that cannot rule, that cannot guide. It is a broken crook indeed.
And even as this broken crook is applied to a sheep of the herd it is followed by the flail, the argument, that the sheep should ‘prove to me that God does not exist,’ when under this herdsman’s crook this so obviously cannot be done. Were it so, the flail would cut the wheat of agreement and docile subservience from the chaff of the sheep’s ignorant hide, and as such our herdsman would be satisfied.
Yet so it is not, for this herdsman’s target is neither sheep nor shepherd, but Other. This Other that has been mistaken for docile cattle can see the double ended crook for what it is, and turning it upon the would-be-shepherd directs the flail also: A herdsman’s ignorance is not argument! It is the most contemptible of things!
The herdsman’s flail is a flail of shadow; for, although a shadow has height and breadth it lacks both depth and substance. In the hands of this shepherd, it is a flaccid flail indeed. Yet in the hands of this Other the flail becomes both deep and substantial, both sharp and vicious, and the wheat of health and vigor and delight is instead cut from the chaff of the herdsman’s pernicious hide.
The herdsman is cast to the ground to crawl in search of ignorant sheep.
The Other walks on.
Scott Thong said,
March 26, 2008 at 6:39 am
Bold and enthralling is the bard’s tale! How noble are his deeds! How inspiring is his valiant victory over the savage barbarism of his charlatan foe!
But wait… For verily, no such battle was fought – no such struggle was ever attempted. There was no stalwart overturning of ignorance. No attempt to refute the herdman’s sharp riddle. No blunting of his sharp edged flail, or toppling of his gospel-ready feet.
There was only the tale of it, the song sung of an epic never played out… The glad report of a battle never even begun.
But still, oh! What a glorious tale it is! Glorious, glorious, glorious I say!
And thus as the audience leaves the little inn with a spirit of indignance, the bard is left to sit alone… Alone, but for his dreams.
Warlock said,
March 26, 2008 at 7:29 am
Neither bard nor herdsman; for the bard’s song is little more than the herdsman’s crook. Here the singing was the doing of neither sheep nor shepherd but liberation from both; Other. Your flail is as flaccid as it ever was.
Crawl.