Contents: Gospel & Universe

Annotated Contents Part 1

🪐 Preface: Situating Agnosticism locates agnosticism in history and in between theism & atheism. Approach, Overview, & Aim explains the structures and genres I use, along with my general goal. Rivers of Change, & Paradox take more poetic and philosophical tacts in order to illustrate the fluid and tentative nature of agnosticism. P.O.V. 1: Family, P.O.V. 2: Literature, & P.O.V. 3: Fault Lines indicate how my personal background affects my take on doubt. A Positive-Sum Philosophy outlines my positive-sum view of philosophies and religions, and Freedom of Thought explains my belief that political freedom is the best complement to free thinking and agnosticism.

🧩 Introduction: Layout explains the structure and content of this exploration. Q & A (Chart) & Core Beliefs give a question & answer chart and a list of points that are fundamental to agnosticism, and Two Infinities argues that agnostics see infinity as a unifying concept in both science and religion. The Mysterious Heavens looks at Hubble’s infinity and the fate of Giordano Bruno, and Huxley’s Definition looks at Henry Huxley’s derivation of the term agnosticism in the mid 19th century. To Believe and Not to Believe locates agnosticism in relation to Western history-based belief systems and non-historical systems like Hinduism; Types of Agnosticism defines the difference between hard and soft agnosticism; Sitting On Fences suggests the advantages of uncertainty. A Literary Approach and On Nightingales & Unified Sensibility illustrate the way I’ll be using literature and poetry as well as argument and prose throughout Gospel & Universe. The Unconvinced argues for the value of doubting one’s belief system, and Agnostic Geometry proposes a triangular model based on science, agnosticism, and liberal democracy. 🇮🇹 Parma, 🇮🇹 Florence, & 🇮🇹 Rome are about an Italian woman who tries to cope with bizarre sense impressions, the causes of which are uncertain.

Philosophy, Science, & Literature

🏛 Skeptics & Stoics emphasizes two Greek philosophies that urge suspension of judgment: A Rough Chronology gives an overview of the rough historical timeline I use in this study. Agnosticism Among the Isms supplies a chart and notes showing the relation between agnosticism and other philosophies, ontology, epistemology, and religion. Not Quite Skeptical 1 & 2 look at Pyrrho’s Classical skepticism in light of Coleridge’s suspension of disbelief and other thinkers. Nor Quite Stoic 1: Meditations and 2: The Bigger Picture look at the stoicism of Marcus Aurelius∙[In progress] Nor Quite Stoic 3:

🔭 The Sum of All Space begins the larger chronology of Gospel & Universe — starting with the way astronomy shook up our understanding of the relationship between humanity and the universe. With such a limited perspective, how can humans make grand claims about universal Truth? In Third Spinning Rock from the Sun I start with our present location and with the historical struggle to determine this location in astronomical (rather than theological) space. Of Sand & Salt is a fantasy about radical changes in space and time. Competing Explanations looks at the shift from geocentric to heliocentric models of the universe, and Cities of God looks at the persecution of Galileo. Dogma & the Stars suggests that meaning lies in the act of living and in the endless search for understanding — which is the subject of the rest of the chapter. The Chinese Sky looks at infinite space in Daoism & Chinese astronomy. The Outer Reaches 1 sees infinite space in terms of astronomical clusters; The Outer Reaches 2 uses Hubble Volumes to think about infinite three-dimensional space. The Unknown Arcs of a Sphere takes a fictional look at geometry, astronomy, tight jeans, & infinity. Alas, Poor Yorick contains poems which imagine death from the vantage point of infinite space and time.

🔬Science & Mystery explores how science became the most reasonable way of explaining our existence, even though it still doesn’t explain everything. Overview outlines the arguments of this chapter and shows how they fit into Philosophy, Science, & Literature and Gospel & Univeree. Possible Explanations and Dante’s Journey begins a historical take on the subject, starting with a quote from Aquinas and with the otherworldly vision of Dante. This vision holds within it the seeds of its own demise, especially when confronted with the secularism of Chaucer & Boccaccio (Don’t Forget the Miller) and the scientific advances that eventually provided a realistic explanation for human life (Summa Post Theologica). The final two pages are set in Italy, and deal with the power of realism (Primum Mobile) and the idea of Heaven as a glorious If Only (Bruno & St. Francis). Secrets & Mysteries highlights the human need for more than mere facts, Two Sides of the Fence weighs belief against science, The Crystal Ball of Science argues that agnosticism is in some ways closer to science than atheism, and Man’s Best Friend illustrates the notion that we can’t rule out the possibility of telepathy.

♒️ A River Journey explores how water symbolizes change and openness to change, both of which are fundamental to agnosticism. I take the reader on a journey of sorts, from the Thames & Dordogne to the Tiber & Ilisos to the Ganges & Yangtze — that is, from the familiar humanism of Montaigne to the more distant metaphors and mysticisms of the East. Mountain Springs explores the question What do I know? in terms of the mountains and sacred springs of Europe — yet also of India and China. This leads to A Chinese Interlude, where I suggest that Classical Stoicism and Daoism have several things in common. In Montaigne & French Currents, I highlight the flow of skepticism from early humanism to existentialism. Riverboats & Sheep looks at how Twain, Voltaire, Pope, and Pink Floyd use metaphor to contrast idealism and realism, while Fry Day: The Atheist Fish is about a fish who isolates the problem with certain religious metaphors. Prufrock looks at past epic ideals vs. Modern realities in Eliot’s famous poem, and the following pages highlight the relation between Classical skepticism and Modern doubt: Rome 1: Sunset uses Heart of Darkness to explore the eternal question in the Eternal City; Rome 2: Odysseus, Prufrock, & the Philosopher’s Cave returns to Prufrock’s failed epic and to E.M. Forster’s take on the Hindu cave; and Rome 3: The Eye of the Gods concludes the Roman holiday in the Pantheon and along the Tiber. Heraclitus: Athens & Allahabad looks at the unseen rivers of Greece and India which suggest that reality may be more than it seems. The final page, Rushdie’s Sea of Stories; A Tale of Birds & Fishes, focuses on the fusion of Hindu motifs (Somadeva’s Ocean) and Muslim motifs (Attar’s flight) in the children’s book Haroun and the Sea of Stories.

❤️ Three Little Words introduces the benefits of critical distance and the three little words: I don’t know. After a brief introduction (Critical Distance), I suggest that because we’re products of our own free-ranging senses, we operate best in an open, individualistic, democratic society (Locke’s Double Key). We live in a material world, however much we might dream of other worlds (Locked Into This World) and however much we might be tempted to idealize our knowledge (Teacher: “The Apple Cart Before the Horse” & “More Uncertain Than Socrates”). Because critical thinking is crucial to this freedom, I look at how to detach ourselves from ideas and systems so that we can contemplate new ones (Que Sais-je?, Teacher, Montaigne’s Balance, Pyrrho’s Equilibrium & Zhuangzi’s Pivot, and Hegel’s Dialectic). I note that Montaigne’s suspension of belief derives from the Greek skeptics and has affinities in Laozi and Zhuangzi, and I suggest that Hegel’s notion of a progressive dialectic differs from the polylectics of Whitman and the English Romantics (Whitman’s Cosmos, Byron: Carrying Sail, Byron: Trickster of Change, and Keats’s Negative Capability). I then link Romantic and Transcendentalist modes of thinking to Tennyson and finally to Huxley, who gives to agnosticism its definitive form (Tennyson’s Ulysses, On Warnings, and The Problem with Explanations). This chapter also ends on a fictional note: in The English Garden of Sense Claudia ponders the empiricism of David Hume, who pushes Locke’s theory of sense impressions into a skepticism so radical that it questions everything.

⛱ Señor Locke uses Locke’s theory about sense impressions to delve into autobiography and travel — mainly in Mexico, Canada, Paris, and Cuba. The Gringo Takes Stock & Under the Umbrellas introduces Guanajuato (the main Mexican setting) and my interest in the waitress of La Oreja de Van Gogh café. Campfires explores a childhood trauma in Alberta. Beneath the Aonian Mount 1 returns to Guanajuato, Locke’s sense impressions, and the pretty waitress. Seeing Double begins an autobiographical retrospective, starting in Calgary & Paris. This retrospective is continued in The Train of Memory, which goes from Western Canada to Sicily, and explores the enduring power of early romance. Howling at the Moon contains poems written in Oaxaca, Guanajuato, Yucatán, & Puerto Vallarta. Beneath the Aonian Mount 2, In the Valley of Darién, & Aura 1 return to Guanajuato, where I suggest the impossibility of writing about others, much less about the meaning of life. I also introduce the novella Aura by Carlos Fuentes.The Tiny Pyramids of Ra is set in Paris and recounts a day in the life of a dissolute, lovestruck youth. Señor Locke & the Jaguar & Aura 2 embark on a fantasy version of Mexican history and impossible love. Cuba explores the lure of tropical life and Cuban beauty. Aura 3: Inside Van Gogh’s Ear and Aura 4: In the Shadow of Macbeth look at empiricism, the supernatural, and the afterlife in Aura in light of personal experience of danger, Pinocchio, Mexican music, karma or universal justice, Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Macbeth, and Dickens’s Bleak House. [In progress: John Locke on the Beach of the Dead - Hotel Cervantes]. The Floating World is set in Paris and explores the consolidation & dissolution of memory.

🦖 At the Wild & Fog. After a detailed outline and contextual commentary (A Misty Maze, But Not Without A Plan), I compare Pope’s vision of Nature (Pope: A Mighty Maze) with that of Dickens (What the Dickens). Dickens’ vision includes the cosmic materialistic perspectives of science (Love Amid the Fog) as well as an ambiguous mix of religion and science (God Among the Scientists) — specifically geology (Hutton’s Hammer and Sir Leicester’s Geological Apocalypse) and primatology (Jardine’s Monkeys). Dickens doesn’t write in the secular vein of Darwin (Darwin’s God), but takes full advantage of the power of religious imagery in his depiction of the Chancellor and Tulkinghorn (God & the Devil) and Lady Dedlock, Esther, & Jarndyce (Angels Fallen & Angelic), and Bleak House vs. Chesney Wold (Two Houses). He also attacks blinkered ‘philanthropists’ (The Far-Sighted Curse), putting them in the same category of useless people as opportunistic dreamers and privileged elites (The Uselessness of Some), all the while defending goodness, decency, and respect for religion (A Secular Redemption). Continuing my focus on the relation between religion, science, & liberalism, I then look at Forster’s A Passage to India in light of ✰ 19th and 20th century society and religion (A Passage to Forster), ✰ a cosmos which is at once indifferent and full of mystical possibility (From London to the Marabar Caves), and ✰ a world divided by politics yet connected by love (Only Connect).

🎲 Almost Existential explores the precarious freedom of an agnostic perspective as well as the challenge of finding meaning in an existential world. The pages alternate between argument-style essays and personal and autobiographical perspectives. Poor, Bare, Forked observes that the Medieval religious vision only briefly interrupted the uncertainties of the Classical & Modern worlds. Between the Flippers contains the poems “Thirteen-Year-Old at the Wheel” and “The Shadow & the Butterfly.” Doctors of Revolt contains an ironic poem about the evils of science, two sections on existentialism, and a short prose piece about existential revolt. In the Shadow of Borges: during a literature class in Buenos Aires, I muse about the meanings of Jorge Luis Borges. The Status Quo suggests that in the modern existential age we've returned to the Ancient and Classical concepts of chaos & uncertainty. Hitler’s Perfect World applies Voltaire’s view of evil on a visit to Auschwitz & Berlin. Ontology Precedes Epistemology suggests that being is more crucial to the human condition than seeming or philosophizing. The Permeable Self compares the revolts of the agnostic to those of Sartre, Camus, & English Romantic poets. Starbucking contrasts secular mysticism to Sartre’s existentialism and to theism. Cloud Illusions is a fictional account of a drug-fuelled, ill-fated optimism. Petals Fallen from a Wet Black Bough contains two poems suggesting that it’s too soon for nihilism: “Poetry” and “Petals Before the Garden Frost.”

🧜🏽‍♀️ The Mermaid: Existential & Then Some interprets Procol Harum’s song “A Whiter Shade of Pale” from existential and agnostic points of view. The Epic Heroine supplies the overall argument along with the textual variants. The Wine-Dark Sea looks at links between alcohol and the nautical epic. The Miller argues that the chorus is more powerful in light of Chaucer. Neptune looks at the existential threads of the poem in the light of Gilgamesh, Odysseus, and Sartre. The Queen of Love looks at decadent mysticism in the light of the poetic paradoxes of Cohen’s “Closing Time.” Beyond Alienation and Myth & Mysticism interpret the ending of the lyric in light of Cohen’s “Suzanne,” myth, paradox, and four other songs by Procol Harum.

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Next: Annotated Contents Part 2 - 🪐 Preface: Situating Agnosticism

Table of Contents - Annotated Contents - Layout - Core Beliefs