Around Thanksgiving in a couple of years previous I’ve posted about the Tale of the Turkey - a philosophical puzzle first posed in this humorous form by Bertrand Russell. The posts are worth a read.
How to Learn From the Turkey
A Helping of Turkey Day
The two posts speak to our very human lustful inclination to prefer the expected and our all too often reactionary responses to the unexpected. The unexpected happens each and every day.
Yes. Belief in Our Expectation is a Sin
Why?
- Jesus clearly tells us our expectation based thinking is evil.
His words are good enough for me to take it seriously as much as the idea and its consequence truly does disturb me. I must recognize that it should disturb me.
Intentionally I won’t quote you chapter and verse here. Looking for His words will do you far more good. - Expectation centered thinking doesn’t work for us as individuals or members of society to accomplish anything of real significance or consequence. At best we may get by.
There is a built-in psychological death spiral of expectation and intention and accusation coupled to it.
Call it the Human Gravity
You are a humanist if you believe that Hope and Faith equate to Expectation and Intention. Humanists often struggle to recognize the difference. Doing so undermines the foundations of their self-made justification- their faith with a small “f”. The humanist is confined by definition to live in a philosophical Flatland. They must insist from their personalized perspective this very argument is about semantics and forms of relevance.
Tale of This Year’s Turkeys
Let’s put this a bit more simply and in the terms of current events. We never have to look far:
Gruber, Cosby, and Obama would like you to believe their intentions and words are more important than their actions.
Then the unexpected happens as it always does and will.
We should be thankful for that.
We can be assured in Faith that the unexpected will continue to happen and catch the self-righteous in their self-deception.
We can humbly pray in Hope this brings about mutual conviction, repentance, and restitution and not condemnation, judgment, and retribution.