In the last Post thread James and I have been disagreeing pretty heavily over the existential nature of our universe, that is…was it “first cause/first principle” which “began” creation, or was it, as I suggest, God facilitating the SELF-creative process of the infinite fundamental and physical building blocks of what is “creation”–which I refer to as everything NOT God–in order that they may be the sole source of their own ability to be and exist and therefore act, and thus, not inexorably tying God  Himself directly to Creation and its actions; which has massive and not good (for God, particularly, because it makes him a hypocrite, a worker of impeccable redundancy, and wholly unknowable by the very creation He seeks to rule) implications, not the least of which being that there can be no rational distinction between what is God and what is NOT God.  In this instance, metaphysical truth is quite impossible to discern.  In fact truth of any sort is quite perpetually elusive, it being a function of an existential reality wholly separate from what we as humans can know.  For if ALL proceeds directly from God (the only other alternative being that it proceeded from “nothing”, which I argue and have argued is literally impossible in every single way: physical, metaphysical, theoretical, and logical) then there can be NO distinction between what is God and what is NOT God.  Because God, being absolute, is boundless, and beyond abstraction or distinction of ANY sort on His own, and so whatever proceeds from THAT frame of reference can only be the exact SAME thing.

But I digress…as usual.

Anyway, in the course of our disagreement I referred to James as a “mystic”.  I apologized on the thread, but I wanted to apologize to James again in a formal post. I let my emotions get the better of me, and I lobbed an unwarranted insult.  Regardless of the differences James and I hold on these subjects, nor my opinions as to the nature of his ideas, I know that in his heart, based on all his comments and the things I’ve read of his, he is by no means a mystic.  I may concede he has some mystic-like tendencies in the self-admitted paradoxical foundations of his assumptions…but that is MY opinion, and calling him a mystic proper implies that he acts in accordance with mystic ideas.

For the record, I don’t believe this for a second.

It was wrong of me to use my words and my site to insult him.

Now, I will often insult in a satirical way, such as when I skewer Dee and Deb over at Wartburg Watch for their hypocritical treatment of me, and Wade Burleson for his irrational doctrine, but this is meant as a communication tool; a literary technique to convey information in an entertaining way (and to vent without resorting to flagrant baseness).  I love to write like this.

But this is not what I did with James.  Calling him a mystic was a rank insult, and it was wrong.  It was not a literary technique, and it was not productive to the conversation.  It was an evil jab, sprung from an undisciplined “tongue”, and I regret it deeply.

Saying things like that is not what this site is about, and it helps absolutely NO one.  And that is not what I’m about.  I want to affirm people, not insult them.  I love human beings, I don’t use them as a “thing” upon which I may vent frustration or exasperation; they are not a narcissistic extension of my own self-loathing (oh yes…I’ve known people like this).  Sure, if I disagree with you, I have no compunction about telling you and telling you strongly; and you shall do the same to me.  If that (having to defend our ideas in the face of strong disagreement) makes either one of us cry and get offended and soil our big boy/big girl pants, it’s time to quite the arena and go watch TV.

This is the real world of ideas, and passionately and vehemently is how adults speak. So, what I mean to say is that I don’t care about tone.  But I DO so very much care about words; and my words were stray and stupid, and insults do not in ANY way comprise ANY part of my philosophical approach to life and ideas.

Idiots who have no argument insult.  And I WAS the idiot.

I played the part rather well, didn’t I?

Sigh.

Sorry, James.

P.S.  In light of my sin and mistake I have added a whole new category to this blog entitled:  Apologies

For something tells me this will not be the last time I will have to do this.