Thread: The Flood

THE FLOOD

'Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.' As I make my first sortie into hermeneutics pertaining to this Biblical passage, I launch from the premise that taking God's name in vain in any immoral or noxious sense has to be a greater transgression than colloquially uttering 'Oh, for God's sake!' or something like it out of harmless habit and to no effect. The immoral or sinful transgression, then, must be the claim that one believes in the ideals the word 'God' represents or inspires whilst acting in contradiction—which would entail being a wolf in sheep's clothing, vainly averring lordliness or professing to be doing the Lord's work and lording it over others.

Whichever flavour it takes, in the name of God or on God's behalf, it always involves falsehoods and one of the simplest examples is to lie under oath—a direct violation of the Logos, a mode of persuasion which deals in factual information and truisms; to claim that something true and important is meaningless could also be construed as a way of taking God's name in vain. It would be criminal to burden people with fruitless responsibility or make them bear the proverbial cross to no avail or nefarious ends. One can deceive an entire population into believing that something is absolutely necessary for a positive outcome and a prosperous future in the knowledge that said plan is likely to beget disarray and chaos. Such human catalyst is the epitome of a false prophet, and from the pulpit he or she is sure to lead societies into disrepute.

Eventually, the accumulation of corruption in a city threatens the established order and creates a disorder which begins to drown its citizens, so to speak, like a destructive flood consuming the rules and the game itself which emerged long ago out of the primordial chaos due to an organising principle and the purpose towards order. Any path which is not aiming at what is absolutely ideal (as metaphorically prescribed by the Sermon on the Mount) risks the proverbial flood to the detriment of what is morally virtuous. To paraphrase Milton, you're in hell to the degree that you're distant from the good. Walk with God as Noah—who represents an ideal mode of being during a crisis, as a tender of the garden and shepherd of all things—did during the flood, and you are more likely to find yourself in the proverbial ark, kept afloat and searching for a solution. Destroy your ideals as the Biblical Cain did in the form of Abel (whom God favoured) and you have succumbed to perdition, where the only road is a downward spiral.

Lost, denying reality and opposing what is true is adopted as a Satanic strategy. 'Satanic' because Satan is the father of lies, a rebellious symbol against the Logos. Lying is the most arrogant way of being because it blatantly denies reality or bends its factual structure in the belief that one can get away with it, that reality won't snap back because you think yourself to be better than everyone else and can thus outsmart them all. The temptation conjured by the intellect is characterised by pride and arrogance—a danger symbolically represented by Lucifer, the fallen angel who champions falling in love with its own productions and the subsequent sentiment of assuming that nothing worthwhile lies outside of its thinking purview; in other words, this devilish attitude describes the totalitarian mindset.

The danger in nihilism is a tendency to overlook a meaningful existence. Atheists mainly revolt against zealots who use literal or twisted interpretations of ancient texts to manipulate the masses. Indeed, the secular tend to weaponise the ideals of the Enlightenment in order to ward off the dangers of dogmatism—and in many cases they have reason to do so. Organised religion is nothing but a profitable business like any other, or perhaps worse because it profoundly exploits people. But there is value and great meaning to be derived from wisdom literature and sacred texts which reflect archetypal truths that can be applied today in a pragmatic manner. Ceasing to believe in God could mean renouncing ideals and virtue itself—things we cannot do without if we are to have meaningful and fulfilling lives. If you are not aiming higher, or at something greater than yourself, you will be inevitably lost and the only way after that is down into perdition.