Skip to main content

Proving God

"When one grows older, everything becomes so miserable. God in heaven has to sit and wait for the decision on his fate, whether he exists, and finally he comes into existence with the help of a few demonstrations; human beings have to put up with waiting for the matter to be decided... Youth understands immediately that there is a God."  

"There was a thinker who became a hero by his death; he said that he could demonstrate the existence of God with a single straw. Let the thinker keep his demonstration; give youth the straw-it cannot demonstrate. But why is demonstration necessary at all when one has the straw and-God! When one grows older, along comes the demonstration, and the demonstration is a prominent traveler whom all look upon with admiration."  

-Soren Kierkegaard in "Think about Your Creator" in Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses
Labels:

Comments

Darcie Dow said…
I am enjoying your short blogs. It's nice to see you writing again!
8/25/2005 01:18:00 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

watch my language?

i have to say, sometimes swearing is so ridiculous it's downright humorous. one is particularly aware of this as a Christian. countless times people have apologized to me for swearing in my presence, as though i'm so holy that i can't be in the presence of such talk or i'll melt. at the same time, this is usually a relief, because it's difficult to communicate when every other word contributes nothing to the conversation except to make me well aware that the person i'm talking to has a vocabulary less than that of a three-year-old. then there's the other side of the coin - people who swear around me purposefully because i'm a Christian. somehow, one of the guys on my highschool bus in Northern Ontario learned that i had never used profanity, and promptly felt called to dedicate his life to causing me to curse. "just once, come on," he'd say. i could do nothing but smile. there was absolutely no reason that i could think of why i would want ...
8 comments
Read more

smelly things

remember those scratch-and-sniff things? of course they still exist, but i haven't smelled one in a while. now all we have are those horrid cardboard car scents: those leaves of aesthetic tragedy. the one i'm thinking of has a strawberry scent. it might have been strawberry shortcake - that little red-headed girl with strawberries painted all over her ginormous hat, a hat ten times the size of her head. this reminds me of those markers you can buy that smell, too, often like berries of some sort. i can remember the blueberry ones the best. which scents do you remember?  when Jodi and i (and sometimes Justin, Dan, Kaia or some other participant) would take empty milk jugs and stealthily place them on Mark Vust's doorstep (our Resident Director), i would sometimes smell the rotting milk. it didn't smell good. i'll give you that. but it was certainly a powerful scent. smelling things reminds me of how much i love life. like when i'm in a forest ...
10 comments
Read more

one me at a time

"I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do something I can do." -Edward Everett Hale   "i am going to make a lasting difference with my life!" "what idiocy," frail keith scoffs. "who am i to change this world, a planet upon which there is nothing new under the sun?"  faithful keith timidly responds, "with men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible."  i know that frail keith will likely have the upper hand again soon. this is my tragic flaw, my achilles' heel: Frailty imprisons Faith and tosses him in a prison of apathy, scorning and taunting, "who do you think you are, to dream of living a life beyond you?" then, licking my wounds in my hypnosis of self-pity and hopeless abandonment, i hear a still, small voice whispering, "beloved Littlefaith, why do you doubt...
2 comments
Read more