Our hotel for the night was apparently one of the most ‘beautiful historic hotels of Switzerland’ – and it was certainly very quaint;

Although the highlight had to be the view from our balcony;

The first day, we walked. And walked. And walked. Actually it wasn’t that long, and it was actually mostly flat, and along a lake and really pretty. But I was really jetlagged! All that aside, it was incredibly beautiful, and if I’d had a motorised scooter it would have been absolutely perfect! OK I’m kidding. Here are a couple of moments I captured along the way;

When we finally reached the casino we were somewhat disappointed to discover it was quite unexciting-looking (although we had been spoiled by over-the-top casino glamour in Vegas only a week before so the poor old Montreux joint admittedly had a hard act to follow). After all this walking for what seemed (to me) like miles (I think it was actually about 3km, just so you know I’m not a total flake), we still couldn’t see any sign of the mythical Freddie Mercury statue which was erected in his honour after he moved to Montreux (for the serenity, apparently) and built a recording studio here where he recorded his last album – pretty cool! BUT what was not cool was the fact that no matter how hard we tried (admittedly I did stop trying once the sugar hit from my Calippo wore off) we could not find the darned statue. This was such a vexing state of affairs that we trudged back to our hotel, stopping  on the way to hang out with some really cute little lizards;

On our return, we promptly fell asleep for a stupidly long nap, which meant we went down to dinner looking like we’d been whacked in the head with a mullet. Actually I think the correct expression is that we looked like stunned mullets. Whatever the case, we were wrecked, but still managed to find amusement in the fact that our 4-course dinner was served to us with much pomp and ceremony by bustling ladies in long skirts, striped blouses and maid aprons a la Fawlty Towers. As we couldn’t understand everything on the menu we were preparing ourselves for a pot luck meal, although we were spared the suspense when some English vacationers at the next table began translating it for themselves very loudly. Even funnier was when a guest at another neighbouring table declined the ‘saumon fume’ (smoked salmon) entree as she was a vegetarian, and, as a replacement, she was brought (with much pomp and circumstance as the occasion required) a plate of sliced honeydew melon served with a celebratory cocktail plume; honestly I don’t know how to describe it other than to say it was a big toothpick with a bunch of magenta-coloured lame glitter kind of sprouting out the top like a lopsided firework (that’s supposed to be like ‘lah-may’ with a fancy acute thing over the ‘e’, although let’s face it, either adjective works); I suppose the chef must have thought the magenta set off the green colour of the melon quite nicely; anway, dinner accomplished, we went back to our room and slept some more……

The next morning, my husband set off on an exploratory mission before I was even awake; he went for an enormous and exhaustive run around the lake, and returned with the devastating news that even on this reconaissance mission to end all others, he still could not find the Freddie Mercury statue. We consoled ourselves with some breakfast in the hotel dining room, where we ate some lovely home-made bircher museli out of bowls that we later realised were coffee cups (oops – our cups just aren’t that big in Australia, ok!?) then we decided to take a little hike to the Chateau de Chillon before we hit the road once again.

It turned out to be a great decision; this castle was really amazing and painstakingly restored to give an idea of what it would have been like in its medieval heyday. Because we were there on a Monday morning the place was nigh on empty, and when we wandered through the dungeon we were the only ones there.

There were some scrawlings on the walls, it’s unknown who did them or when, but along with all the names carved into the pillars as we walked through, what looked like some old blood stains on the walls, and the post where the famed Bonivard was supposedly chained for a few years, it all combined to have a pretty spooky effect (the hotel keys on their 5-kg metal keyring (why!?) jangling around in my husband’s pocket sounding like chains clanking didn’t help either);

Next it was up to the part of the castle where the lordly type of people lived, which was much more civilised; we took a walk along the sentry walk

and checked out the amazing view through the holes in the rock walls (OK actually I’m just putting this photo in to show how arty my photo-taking abilities are)

Then up to the top of the tower for a view over the whole of Montreux (still couldn’t see the Freddie Mercury statue! Is it all a big hoax!?)

And then it was back down many steep flights of stairs and onto our next destination; the fabulous cheese and chocolate pastures of Gruyeres!…..

We were flying so close I could actually see markings in the snow, and, far from being scared, I was so filled with wonder I was in danger of breaking out into ‘The Sound of Music’. Imagining Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer and all their good-looking children scaling the peaks to escape the evil grip of Nazi Germany, it was lucky that my husband distracted me before I was moved to start in on ‘Climb Every Mountain’ .  That potential crisis averted, we landed in Geneva, Switzerland and picked up our chariot for the next 6 weeks, a noble Peugeot 207 .

Impressed with its sleek interior and inbuilt navigation system, our excitement soon dissipated when we realised it was so hi-tech that we couldn’t figure out how to turn the radio off whilst leaving the sat nav on. And so it was that on our drive into Geneva we ended up straining to hear the directions to our hotel over some extremely bizarre Swiss avant-garde choral music – yes, welcome to Europe you silly uncultured Australians, this is how we roll over here! Consulting the manual for the Peugeot, I realised that, extremely helpfully, it was all in French. Oh dear. Struggling into our hotel after 24 hours in transit, the receptionist took one look at me and upgraded us to a mini-suite (yes occasionally it is actually an advantage to straggle around looking like something the cat dragged in)… and so our day in Geneva began!

The Old Town was the first place we visited, and I was slightly surprised to find myself walking the ‘Rue du Purgatoire’ (or ‘Purgatory Street’) – right next to the church, no less! I thought I would have had to wait until after I died for that particular privilege!;

Wandering around other parts of the city, there was no mistaking the fact that we were in the watch-making capital of the world;

Or that we were now in yahoo of the greatest number of chocolateries known to mankind (be still my beating heart!);

There were a few unwelcome surprises, such as this mannequin in a children’s clothing store (what were they THINKING!?), which, once seen, was not soon forgotten (a very successful representation of Chucky – note to proprieter: perhaps not the best way to sell lots of clothes to children?)

All horror-movie characters aside, we also enjoyed promenading along the lakefront near the big fountain;

And even saw some beautiful swans swimming on the lake;

After a good sleep it was time to leave Geneva behind and strike out for our next stop; Montreux!

There are those who build a path, and those who tear it down;

There are those who continue to walk a path, and those who stray from it.

I wish to be a person who forges a path;

A person who persists in walking a path

No matter what; until the end, I will keep walking, keep running.

Even if I should fall along the way, and return to the dust of the land,

Because I believe in those who will succeed me along this path,

I will not have a single regret.

- Daisaku Ikeda

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‘Winter’ is an instrumental piano piece featured on the EP ‘Ophelia of the Spirits’.

Click here to buy Ophelia of the Spirits at Angela’s online store.

Click here to buy Ophelia of the Spirits on iTunes.

To truly appreciate art we must understand its symbolic significance, its past and its present, its history and its future, its connection to ourselves and the world around us. Never does there exist only one layer of meaning. Nothing is what it seems. As Oscar Wilde once said, “All art is at once surface and symbol.” Nothing is by accident, and everything is one. “There are many philosophical systems – such as Taoism and Buddhism – which make no distinction between creator and creature. People no longer try to decipher the mystery of life, but choose instead to be part of it…The Spirit finally merges with the Material, and the two are united and transformed.” (from ‘The Witch of Portobello’ by Paulo Coelho)

In our society we are taught from birth to trust the logic and rationality of our conscious mind. But many of us exist without ever understanding that “completely new thoughts and creative ideas can also present themselves from the unconscious. They grow up from the dark depths of the mind like a lotus and form a most important part of the subliminal psyche.” According to Jung, we can unlock our unconscious through our dreams. “One cannot afford to be naïve in dealing with dreams. They originate in a spirit that is not quite human, but is rather a breath of nature – a spirit of the beautiful and generous as well as of the cruel goddess. If we want to characterize this spirit, we shall certainly get closer to it in the sphere of ancient mythologies, or the fables of the primeval forest, than in the consciousness of modern man. I am not denying that great gains have resulted from the evolution of civilized society. But these gains have been made at the price of enormous losses, whose extent we have scarcely begun to estimate.”

Many of us have lost touch with the ritual, the spiritual, the mystic, the sacred. Many of us have lost touch with emotion, experience, empathy and humanity. It is art which reminds us that we must once again embrace “the edge of certainty beyond which conscious knowledge cannot pass.”It reminds us to feel again, to lose ourselves in something which is both beyond reason and before reason – something both primeval and eternal in the same moment.

PARIS
The curtain white in folds,
She walks two steps and turns,
The curtain still, the light
Staggers in her eyes.
The lamps are golden.
Afternoon leans, silently.
She dances in my life.
The white day burns.

A visit to the mountaintop village of Bokor Hill is a reminder of the contradictions which define the history of this place. Built by the wealthy French as a residential village and holiday refuge in the early days of the twentieth century (the air was cooler there because of the elevation), the winding road upwards is shattered by the gaping holes left by landmines 30 years earlier, when it became a vital strategic stronghold for the Khmer Rouge due to its three hundred and sixty degree views of the surrounding land and sea. Reaching the village, I look around and see the burnt out ruins of a church, and two casinos (the second casino was built because the first one was too close to the edge of the cliff and legend has it that men who had bet too much of their money had a habit of walking to the end of the balcony and never coming back). Standing amongst the buildings, it is a surreal feeling – like being in a ghost town of a past golden age – in my mind’s eye I can almost conjure up the sound of the waltzes and lavishly dressed couples swirling around the old casino’s grand ballroom as I stand there amongst the burnt out ruins, shattered glass and the words of dead or dying soldiers scrawled across the walls.

Elsewhere, there are children. Everywhere. They are by turns endearing and playful and they cause me to feel a sense of great sorrow. Many of them are forced by their parents to sell on street corners, beg, borrow and steal before they can barely walk or talk. There were many nights that I lay down to sleep and my face was hot with tears of frustration and injustice that so many of them were forced to grow up so early, that they had such an enormous fight just to survive. The sense of personal futility can be overwhelming.

Equally as overhwleming in a different sense is the sheer natural beauty of the place. Just out of the town of Siem Reap are the temples, many in ruins, thousands of years old, whispering secrets, offering up dark passageways and crumbling walls that beckon you to clamber over them, feeling the smooth surface of the rock and touching the intricate carvings that ancient hands inscribed. Some of the temples have succumbed to the forces of nature and the stone has cracked and molded to become almost a part of the enormous trees and above-ground roots which have overpowered the man-made structures. On the way to the temples further towards the outskirts, driving down dirt roads in the middle of nowhere, after miles of wooden squat houses on stilts and languid palm trees, suddenly a Buddhist wat (temple) rises out of the haze and the monks stare shyly at my white skin and strange clothes. They are dressed in orange robes with shaved heads. During the days of the Khmer Rouge many of the monks were exterminated and their wats destroyed but they have sprung up again all over the country in recent years, like a wellspring which will always continue to flow. There is a spirituality which seems to pervade this country and I can see it in the wise eyes and gentleness of many of the people I met on my journey there.

My friend Asahel Bush has been working with an organisation called Sustainable Cambodia. It is a nonprofit, grassroots NGO operating in Pursat Province, Cambodia, and with an office in Florida, USA. SC runs a primary and secondary school for children from the poorest local communities in Pursat. It also operates a range of development projects in these communities, including water sanitation (wells and filters), latrines and hygeine, nutritional supplements, preschool and adult education, and livelihood projects (such as animal pass-on, community gardens, irrigation, organic farming, vocational training, and microfinance). SC employs a model of sustainable, participatory development which empowers communities to develop, grow and provide for themselves through education and quality-of-life improvements.

SC is funded entirely by private donations and by funding grants from international aid foundations such as Rotary. In keeping with SC’s model of community empowerment SC’s projects are run by local Cambodian community members. SC’s non-Cambodian staff, inlcuding its directors, are all unpaid volunteers.

For more information, please visit http://www.sustainablecambodia.org/

So this will be a little chronicle of some of my journeys and experiences and thoughts, partially trivial, partially fun, sometimes serious, because I do like existential questions and that type of thing.

What is truth? Are religious or spiritual beliefs different in kind from scientific or commonsense beliefs? Is truth absolute? (And if not, is that an absolute truth?)

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It is interesting that every person who offers me an opinion on the question of what truth is does so by telling me what they ‘believe in’, religiously or otherwise. It is here that we see the intertwining notions of ‘belief’ and ‘truth’. They do not mean the same thing, but it would seem that they are in many ways co-dependant terms (for example, in order for something to be considered the ‘truth’ it must be believed to be true). There are important distinctions to be drawn between these two terms – just because I believe in something does not necessarily mean that that something is true (take, for example, Santa Claus). But if that something cannot be proved to be untrue, is it not plausible that, to me, it would represent the truth until it was proven to be false?

Let us take a significant example. Some people believe that God created the universe. Others say that the universe was created suddenly in a Big Bang. Still others believe that the universe has existed for an infinite amount of time and thus was never begun – and all of these people think that what they believe is the truth. And who is to say that it isn’t? How can we say that it is not the truth until we are certain that it is false? Humanity is not yet at the stage where we can definitively determine who or what created the universe, or whether it was created at all.

This brings us to the problem of certainty and proof. What is certainty? Many people would argue that certainty and proof can only be delivered to us through science and common sense, not religion. If religious (or spiritual) certainty does exist, it must by nature be a very different thing to the certainty of science and common sense, for it cannot be physically proved in the way that these can. In using these terms, I make the connection of science and common sense to the physical world around us, and religion to the world of the abstract and mystical (although we shall see that religion can too often become a corrupt social construct within the physical world). Philosophy is somewhere in between these two worlds – the best way to describe it seems to be that it seeks to explain the world of the abstract by relating it to the physical world around us. It links the world of science to the world of religion.

How does the notion of truth, then, relate to these different worlds? Are there different types of truth, gleaned from different types of experiences? Are there degrees / variations of truth – that is, the notion of truth is not black and white? Humphreys (1974:24) puts forward the view that “there is absolute Truth, which none of us will fully know until we rise in consciousness to its own level, and relative truth, which is all that most of us know about the Truth.” Bur if truth is relative, how do we know that we are all heading towards the absolute Truth (that is, the same truth)? And how can we be as sure as Humphreys is that an absolute Truth even exists?

The element of the question which deals with the notion of absolute Truth is paradoxical – that is, if the absolute Truth is that there is no absolute Truth, there will never be any resolution to either of these statements because they will eternally contradict each other. I would argue that such a situation mirrors the situation which competing belief systems face. The paradox of the question mirrors the paradox of a vast number of contradictory belief systems who all claim to hold the key to ultimate meaning – for if we have a number of groups all claiming that their belief is the only true belief, and that their way is the only right way (take for example Jesus’ “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life.”- John 14:6) an impossible situation arises. There cannot, in reality, be 10 ‘only ways’, for obvious reasons. This brings us again to the ever-present question of whether believing in something which has not been proven false can constitute belief in some sort of truth. And if this is the case, does this mean opposing beliefs on the same issue can be simultaneously true?

This predicament seems most aptly summed up by Bertrand Russell (1952:4), in his article, “Is There A God?” – “If we are Protestants, we know that there are absurd beliefs among Catholics. If we are Catholics, we know that there are absurd beliefs among Protestants. If we are Conservatives, we are amazed by the superstitions to be found in the Labour Party. If we are Socialists, we are aghast at the credulity of Conservatives. I do not know, dear reader, what your beliefs may be, but whatever they may be, you must concede that nine-tenths of the beliefs of nine-tenths of mankind are totally irrational. The beliefs in question are, of course, those which you do not hold.”

The question of opposing beliefs can only be discussed (I refrain from saying ‘answered’!) when we examine religious, scientific, and commonsense beliefs, and the different ways in which they help us to form notions of truth.

First and foremost, we must decide what our terms refer to. We have established that, in the most general sense, religious beliefs relate to the abstract and mystical, whilst scientific and commonsense beliefs relate to the physical world around us. These distinctions have become somewhat blurred, however, with science increasingly seeking to explain the metaphysical world in recent years – such as Davies’(1992:40) mention of an attempt to explain the origin of the universe “within the framework of physics” – and religion (as a system) having always possessed an element of the social and political. Even within the realm of religious belief we will see that it becomes important to draw distinctions between personal religion (that is, belief in and worship of God(s)) and religion as a system.

“I think, therefore I am.” Davies (1992:34) notes that Descartes’ statement of the irrefutable reality of his existence contains within it a paradox which stretches throughout the history of human thought. “Thinking is a process. Being is a state. When I think, my mental state changes with time. But the ‘me’ to which the mental state refers remains the same.” Davies argues that this same paradox can be seen to occur in the world around us – although it is constantly changing over months, years, centuries, milleniums, the world itself continues to exist. He argues that “the present fades into the past, and the future ‘comes into being’: the phenomenon of be-coming. What we call ‘existence’ is this paradoxical conjunction of being and becoming.” Davies cites this as the vital reason that people turn to religious beliefs – “People come and go, trees grow and die, even mountains gradually erode away, and we now know the sun cannot keep burning forever. Is there anything that is truly and dependably constant?” When faced with the lack of dependability in the physical world, many people feel that the best thing to believe in is something mystical and abstract, something transcendent. McGrath (1999:29) notes that many people define religion as “local culturally-conditioned responses to the same basic transcendent ultimate reality.” Such a view could be said to relate to Voltaire’s comment that, “If God did not exist it would be necessary to invent him.” Although probably intended in a different sense, Voltaire nevertheless indicates the fact that people turn to religious belief because they need to believe that there is something greater than themselves. They cannot accept that their own flawed and fallible selves are the ultimate reality, so therefore must either attempt to elevate themselves to the status of a higher being (for example, Buddhism) or believe that they will be saved by a higher being (for example, Western Christianity and Islam).

McGrath (1999:44) claims that one of the fundamental questions we must ask ourselves when dealing with the fields of science and religion is: “Are the insights of science and religion contradictory or complementary?” I would argue that they can be both. Davies (1992:23) states that “science demands rigorous standards of procedure and discussion that set reason over irrational belief.” In this way, scientific beliefs could be said to be in complete opposition to religious beliefs. However Armstrong (1994:200) makes the point that “science demands the fundamental belief that there is a rational explanation for everything; it also requires an imagination and courage which is not dissimilar to religious creativity.” Armstrong (1994:269) further states that “today many people in the West would be dismayed if a leading theologian suggested that God was in some profound sense a product of the imagination. Yet it should be obvious that the imagination is the chief religious faculty. It has been defined by Jean-Paul Sartre as the ability to think of what is not.” Davies (1992:28) notes that “the key to major scientific advances often rests with free-ranging imaginative leaps or inspiration” rather than logical reasoning, that is, scientific beliefs are often founded on the ability to think of what is not. William James, in his lecture “The Reality of the Unseen” (p13) expresses this phenomenon most clearly: “instinct leads, intelligence does but follow.”

Such a description must also apply to what we call commonsense beliefs, since they are not formed through logical deduction or formal experimentation, but are those beliefs which appear to come naturally to us, often through our everyday experiences. Davies (1992:23) states that “what we call common sense is the product of thought patterns deeply embedded in the human psyche, presumably because they confer certain advantages in dealing with everyday situations, like avoiding falling objects and hiding from predators.” Davies (1992:27) uses the rising of the sun as an example of a common sense belief (or inductive reasoning) which is only true because of the “dependability of nature.” However, who is to say that nature could not change its course? Therefore, according to Davies, “on the basis of induction [common sense], we may conclude only that it is very probable that the law will hold the next time it is tested.” Common sense, therefore, is based only on the way the world happens to be at a certain point in time, whilst science is intent on finding out how all the parts of the world work together and why they work the way they do. If common sense is acceptance, science is inquisition.

We must return to the notion of truth, however, and again we also return to the distinction between the notions of truth and belief. As outlined, scientific beliefs and religious beliefs could be said to be similar in many ways. But this does not mean that scientific truth is the same as religious truth – in fact these two notions could be said to be complete opposites, since one must be proved, and the other cannot be proved. This takes us to a discussion of the relative merits of cognitive knowledge and conative (experiential) knowledge. Stan Rosenthal, in his introduction to the Tao Te Ching (p14) maintains that experiential knowledge is far superior to cognitive knowledge, because “when we seek cognitive knowledge of a thing, that is, understanding of it, the knowledge we gain of that thing is understanding only of its manifestations, which is not knowledge of the thing itself.” Rosenthal is of course speaking about understanding the Tao, and such a concept could be said to represent the essence of personal religious worship (not collective religion). However, such a statement begs the question: is scientific truth more valuable than religious truth? That is, is cognitive thinking (or deduction) more valuable than conative (inductive) thinking? Kung (1996:xxi) asks, “Can we not doubt everything except mathematics and what we can observe, weigh and measure?” This brings us to the issue of doubt and certainty.

Armstrong (1994:1) states that “there is a distinction between belief in a set of propositions and a faith which enables us to put our trust in them.” Any belief in a transcendent reality or being requires a leap of faith, for we cannot be certain (in any mathematical or scientific way) that such a reality exists. But is faith a different type of certainty? A conative certainty rather than a cognitive certainty – not ‘knowing’ but ‘understanding’? In his article “Wittgensteinian Fideism and Religious Skepticism”, Matt Talbert (p17) quotes Wittgenstein as saying, “The game of doubting itself presupposes certainty” – that is, we must be certain of our own beliefs to doubt someone else’s. But what happens when we doubt our own beliefs? Armstrong (1994:218) notes that “[Islamic philosopher] Al-Ghazzali was as aware as any modern skeptic that certainty was a psychological condition that was not necessarily objectively true.” In matters of religious belief this notion is particularly apt, as there is no objective way of proving beliefs (in a scientific sense) and thus any beliefs held are highly subjective. Kung (1996:xxi) notes the problems that this creates when he states that “many are at a loss between belief and unbelief; they are undecided, skeptical. They are doubtful about their belief, but they are also doubtful about their doubting. And there are many who are even proud of their doubting. Yet there remains a longing for certainty. Certainty?”

Pascal [in Kung (1996:61)] states that, “If we must never take any chances we ought not to do anything for religion, for it is not certain. But how many chances we do take: sea voyages, battles. Therefore, I say, we should have to do nothing at all, for nothing is certain. And there is more certainty in religion than that we shall live to see tomorrow. For it is not certain that we shall see tomorrow but it is certainly possible that we shall not. We cannot say the same of religion. It is not certain that it is true, but who would dare to say that it is certainly possible that it is not?”

Like the notion of truth, certainty is a relative notion. Perhaps the question of whether there is absolute Certainty is just as relevant as that of whether there is absolute Truth. And of course it must be noted that these two notions intertwine. Finding the absolute Truth (if such a thing exists) would provide us with absolute Certainty – for how can anything be more objectively certain than that? Until we are able to know Truth and Certainty, however, we must accept that, in many ways, religious beliefs are often used as a tactic to allay doubt rather than to create certainty. This brings us back to the issue earlier discussed of believing in a transcendent reality only to escape the triviality and imperfection of our own flawed existence. It is this fear of our own mortality which has allowed religious leaders over the centuries to corrupt and control. We shall soon see that the truth achieved by personal worship is an entirely different thing to the ‘truth’ offered by religious systems, the leaders of whom seek to use their power in ways completely contradictory to the ‘beliefs’ which they represent. For we have already seen that truth is a relative notion.

Smith (1963) describes the way in which the meaning of the Latin word religio changed over time, originally representing concepts such as piety, reverence and worship, whilst the modern term ‘religion’ has greatly deviated from this interpretation to mean a belief system which preaches set doctrines. As an example of this, Smith (1963:28-9) cites the title of St. Augustine’s book, De Vera Religione. “Modern predispositions are betrayed in any impulse to translate the title as ‘On the True Religion’, and to suppose that the writer, since he is known to have been a Christian, would believe that the true religion is Christianity. In fact, this would be a misrendering. A closer translation would be ‘On True Religion’; the idea is the order of ‘On Proper Piety’ or ‘On Genuine Worship.’” The book itself makes little mention of Christianity, but strongly emphasises “a warm, reverberating and sustained affirmation of a personal relation to [a] transcendent God.”

Similar ideas on worship were in practice long before St. Augustine’s time and indeed long before the time of monotheism, however. Armstrong (1994:109) states that in the Roman Empire, “people worshipped the gods to ask for help during a crisis, to secure a divine blessing for the state and to experience a healing sense of continuity with the past. Religion was a matter of cult and ritual rather than ideas; it was based on emotion not on ideology or consciously adopted theory.” These ways of worshipping are in keeping with ideas of relative belief and truth. One can hold their own beliefs and worship in their own way without persecution. We could say that personal religious worship is an affirmation of (conative) certainty for believers. Unfortunately, religious systems throughout the ages have often twisted the notion of truth, and have used followers’ fear and uncertainty as powerful weapons against humanity. Religion as a system, in the wrong hands, can achieve the opposite of what it purports to strive towards.

Many have argued that a symbolic, rather than literal, interpretation is the only way that religious texts can be relevant to a contemporary audience, however, it becomes obvious that lateral symbolic interpretation can, in the wrong hands, be an extremely dangerous tool. Armstrong (1994:449) notes that “Compassion is a particularly difficult virtue. It demands that we go beyond the limitations of our egotism, insecurity and inherited prejudice.” Unfortunately such a thing has proved impossible for the human race. From Joshua’s 6^th Century BCE ‘reformation’ of the Canaanites and their pagan religions (smashing shrines and idols, killing and burning priests) to the Holocaust, “the idea of a personal God, like one of us write large, is fraught with difficulty. If this God is omnipotent, he could have prevented the Holocaust. If he was unable to stop it, he is impotent and useless; if he could have stopped it and chose not to, he is a monster.” (Armstrong,1994:431)

Confucius (Trans. Raymond Dawson, 1993:6) says, in Book 2:3 of the Analects, “If you lead them by means of government and keep order among them by means of punishments, the people are without conscience in evading them. If you lead them by means of virtue and keep order among them by means of ritual, they have a conscience and moreover will submit.” The keyword to note here is ‘virtue’. Many systems are able to disguise their evil under the veil of ‘virtue.’ Weil (1979:9) describes this on a personal level: “There were some saints who approved of the Crusades or the Inquisition. I cannot help thinking that they were in the wrong. I cannot go against the light of conscience. If I think that on this point I see more clearly than they did, I who am so far below them, I must admit that in this matter they were blinded by something very powerful. This something was the Church seen as a social structure. If this social structure did them harm, what harm would it not do me, who am particularly susceptible to social influences and who am almost infinitely more feeble than they were?” (Weil, 1979:9)

A similar situation arises when we look at the way Copernicus’ and ultimately Galileo’s research into the structure of the solar system was condemned by the Church because such research contradicted their Scriptures. According to Kung (1996:9), “what had to be defended was the legally assured supremacy of theology in the hierarchy of the sciences, the authority of the church in all questions of life and finally – purely and simply – blind, obedient submission to the church’s doctrinal system.” Surely such behaviour could only be seen as an attempt to stem the progress of knowledge and truth, rather than to nurture it – an attempt seen time and time again in the history of organised religion.

In the face of the doubts, the criticisms, the permutation of religion (personal worship) into corrupt social structure, the incompatibility of multiple systems who all lay claim to being the ‘only true’ system – is the idea of an absolute Truth impossible? And even if it was possible, in accordance with Wittgenstein’s idea of the ‘language-game’ and its limitations as discussed in Talbert, the absolute Truth (if there is one) may be something entirely beyond our cognitive comprehension. In this case we could not describe, but only experience it. Perhaps I am experiencing it now, in this very moment.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Armstrong, K. 1994, “A History Of God: The 4000-year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam”, Ballantine Books.

Dawson, R. (Trans) 1993, “Confucius: The Analects”, Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Humphreys, C. 1974, “Exploring Buddhism”, George Allen & Unwin, London.

James, W. Lecture 3, “The Reality of the Unseen” from “The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature” (WWW) http://human-nature.com/reason/james/chap3.html

Kung, H. 1996, “Does God Exist?” SCM Press, London.

McGrath, A. 1999, “Science & Religion: An Introduction.” Blackwell Publishers, Oxford.

Rosenthal, S. “The Tao Te Ching: An Introduction by Stan Rosenthal” (WWW) http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/gthursby/taoism/ttcstan2.htm

Russell, B. 1952, “Is There a God?” , taken from “The Collected Papers of Bertrand Russell, Volume 11: Last Philosophical Testament 1943-68″ (WWW) http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/rusisgod.htm

Smith, W. 1963, “The Meaning and End of Religion”, Macmillan, New York.

Talbert, M. “Wittgensteinian Fideism and Religious Skepticism” (WWW)

http://www.ai-studio.com/meteorite/pdfs/2.Wittgensteinian.Fideism.pdf

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