Colors of Life, Faith and Death

Well, I saw this absolultely "as is" (i.e. I didn't stage it, it's simply a capture of the real thing) and it kinda hit me hard...

However, I'm torn between two quite different approaches.
As you can see, a little crop changes the meaning 180 degrees.
Life *is* weird, I guess...

#1: Protecting the faith:



#2: Life, Faith and Death:



Both are "true" images, yet the meaning spins on a dime...

What do you think?

This is interesting but confusing Nikolai!

You have the abililty to grasp the beautiful and the fire in one hand. Here the support for the gun is the "Holy Bible". It's as if to say "An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth!" when that phrase means monetry compensation since otherwise justice is as cruel as the criminal!

Thinking that bibilical words are always literal and ignoring metaphor is one of the key misunderstandings of the ancient writings! No one was sentenced to death, AFAIK. Conditions for prewarning were so stringent, and evidence required so direct, that almost no one could be given any capital punishment.

Here the implication is that the gun really does have a foundation and support from the bible. That exageration is taken one step further by erecting the gun in this most rare position, as it would normally be left its side!

So someone left a message! Perhaps they have questioned the gun or reminded you to lock it up for safety. Someone with bullets to match might get hold of it then you will need the Crucifix waiting ready nearby!

Meanwhile, the Russian little doll aint saying a damn word!!!

Asher

Asher,
as always, thank you for your thoughts and time!
I'll remain mum about my own thoughts on this, at least for a while, let's see if anybody else has something to say..

I think that a lot of people are very reluctant to express opinions on God, religeon and guns. This is an inflammatory risk. However, to my mind when we work at the edges of acceptable, we might be able to challenge what people might take for granted.

So please let us know your own thoughts on all this!

Asher

If you read the book / God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything / by Christopher Hitchens (My wife got it as a gift for someone and I could only start reading it) you can see plenty evidence on how guns go hand in hand with religion. There are example after example from most organized religions where violence is the end and also the means .

I believe that others believe, so I am very respectful of that what I consider a cultural necessity of the human mind, in the same level as art, fashion and sports, all activities not seen in other animals.

So, not so bad image after all.

Oh, yeah, right... We do comment only on kittens and sunsets...

OK, here's what I thought when I saw this image IRL.

I stroke me as a perfect picture of life's complexity and non-trivialness.

What is universally presented as a peace-loving and love-seeking religion supports what is universally accepted to be an instrument of death. Both tend to turn the world into a very gray matter, while a sign of imminent death (red safety-off indicator) is clearly visible.
Opposed to this is a single and very simple wooden doll. Its bright colors and the very nature indicate life and joy. Unlike rectangular shapes and dark colors of the right-hand part it's colorful and curvaceous. Those who know how these dolls are made would know that there are more to them that hits the eye.

This image is loaded with juxtapositions: life vs death, dark vs bright, male vs female, faith vs inquiry...

Yet all in all, it's just a real life image of a bookshelf of a high school sophomore girl...

So we got it right first time!

Just why is the gun erect? Who put it up that provocative way? It cannot be an accident. That is something carefully done. Why?

Asher

Asher Kelman said:

So we got it right first time!

Just why is the gun erect? Who put it up that provocative way? It cannot be an accident. That is something carefully done. Why?

Asher

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Think "gun on a pedestal"

Asher Kelman said:

So we got it right first time!

Just why is the gun erect? Who put it up that provocative way? It cannot be an accident. That is something carefully done. Why?

Asher

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You can also think "who/what is BEHIND the gun", as in "who's responsible"

You're right, one can go derive all sorts of thinking from here

Let's have other pictures of life death, male and female, and see where it goes!

Asher

I was looking forward to a discussion on the existence of God, but I guess we are not going to have it. What about the superiority of the MAC OS? ... just kidding

Some would say the existence of Windows is proof there is no God

I'm still totally confused. .....and fascinated at the same time.
-Greg

Being an agnostic on both counts, I just see it as wood pulp supporting a chunk of metal )

Wow (what a dumb thing to say, but it just took me by surprise)---I never come across anything like this--here in the Bible belt of the nation (of the US). I see so many things here--contradictory, inflammatory, angry. I have to think about this before I write any more.

Diane

Diane Fields said:

Wow (what a dumb thing to say, but it just took me by surprise)---I never come across anything like this--here in the Bible belt of the nation (of the US). I see so many things here--contradictory, inflammatory, angry. I have to think about this before I write any more.

Diane

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Thank you, Diane, I'm anxious to hear your thoughts on this!

OK, so the storm is brewing after all, small phrases and soldiers only showing their flags from their trenches. How many times has the existence -- or superiority of mine against yours -- of God has been debated in the history of human thought exchange from 50,000 years --when it is believed that religion and art first appeared-- .

I think that Diane has a lot of emotion invested in the idea, not only of God in general, but in the message that he allegedly left to us in the Bible. We can see that whit words like "Wow, what a dumb thing to say". I have the exact same reaction when talking with my mother, whom I very much love, and is from the Virgin Mary belt down there in Latin America. She doesn't want to get in to an argument with me anymore and I respect that.

Basically the way I see it is that there are two world that can co-exist with relative facility: the materialist world and the metaphysical one.

In the material world there are laws that govern everything from simple to complicated and nothing happens against this. To us humans some laws are known and others are yet to be discovered, but the fact that we don't know them doesn't mean they don't exist.

On the other world things happen by miracle and in a fantastic way. This world is full of poetry and tradition, exists in all or almost all human cultures from 50k year ago and depends on people to believe in a voluntarily way. You can't force people in to be part of this non material world of believe -- there are cases when societies impose this in to reluctant members by means of torture and/or death --.

The way I see it is that the Material world should accept and respect the metaphysical, but it should be a the same in the other direction.

It is difficult to "prove the inexistence of God" obviously God exists in the culture of most civilizations in the world.

On the other side, the moment that you prove of the existence of any part of the metaphysical world you are denying a fundamental quality of that what you have just taken in to the material world.

In other words if you prove that God exist, then you cannot continue to have faith in God because you will know of God.

Uncertainty is the other side of the coin of believing. And certainty is the other side of the coin of the material world.

What Nikolai said was: I don't believe in the Bible. Diane answered: that is s "dumb thing to say". Implying that it is because she --and most everybody in her tribe of the Bible belt of the nation (of the US) believe that in the Bible. But it is not dumb to believe in the Bible or NOT to do so. (It is probably not a good idea to say that the Bible is worth nothing because it is not true, it has an enormous importance in human culture)

I could go on and on, but since this is a photography forum I will not get carried away and let you go back to your work...

Leonardo,

Coming from a man who has sslept in the mountains and woods with fighting men facing death, I respect your words. To people who believe in God, however, they beieve the do know God! Still I did meet a Baptist who said that in fact the belief of devout people is also one where they do believe in "doubt", not being sure of the other side of the mountain. Nevertheless, most fundametalists of the Abrahamic religions have absolute certainty that they do know the truth and do know God. These people are protected because they make logic secondary to their core beiefs and, unlike that Baptist, they do not even consider "doubts" as anything but apostacy.

To me, religion, at its best, is a scaffolding for us to rise above animal behaviors, not to fire missiles from or hang people.

Asher

"To me, religion, at its best, is a scaffolding for us to rise above animal behaviors, not to fire missiles from or hang people. "

Unfortunately religion has not been very useful as such scaffolding because animals never kill for their God -- allegedly they don't have any -- as man does time after time. Not only God asks us to kill but there is a lot of killing in the old testament, for example, when one child has to die from every family in Egypt so that the other ethnic group gains certain --important-- political freedoms.

Think about that scenario in modern times. What would the Security Council say about such God? I'm sure that UNICEF would publish a protest for so many lives of innocent children...

I read the book - Why God is not Great

Hi Leonardo,
I'm here to back you up friend as I have read the book you mentioned. It's a nice book but in my opinion doesn't hit hard enough. I challenge anyone to come up with a war that was not fought over religion in one way or another.
Eric

Roman wars were not for religion, but the Empire! They used and dismissed Gods at their whim! The Opium wars were about trade and money and the Trojan wars were about loss of a girlfirend!

Asher

Eric Hiss said:

... I challenge anyone to come up with a war that was not fought over religion in one way or another.
Eric

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Did he say "challenge"? Oh goody!

I ain't real astute on history, but how about the U.S. Civil War? That was fought over a way of life on one side and human rights on the other wasn't it?

As well, some wars are worth fighting, religion or not.

Well glad I had a few takers on the challenge. I'll have to do a bit of reading, but I'm pretty sure I can show the civil war had a religious component, and we'll see about the rest.

I am an opponent to organized religion.

Eric Hiss said:

I am an opponent to organized religion.

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War fought over religion (one way or the other), ironic.

Thank you Eric, it is good to know that there are others that have the same religion -or lack of- as one.

I would not say that I oppose organized religion because I think that people should have the wright to organize as people please.

If you belong to one organized religion, then you are responsible to follow whatever rules and laws the may come up with. If not, then let them live their game.

But.. I would oppose any imposition on other peoples religious norms on third parties like us.

And, many --don't know if all-- wars are just that. Imposition of ones Gods demands on other peoples life.

That is why, as materialist, I don't want to preach my materialism or -definitively-- not fight a war to di-organize religion.

As a matter of fact, I don't think that it (organized religion) is one hundred percent bad. It is a human thing, like art and fashion. You can_t (i am writing in the dark and can_t see the keyboard) ban people from liking art or dress different. In other words, it would be organized materialism that could be as bad or worst. Believe me, I spent one full month traveling in the Soviet Union.

I read the other day an article on first page of the New York Times about an university in Saudi A. the article stated that universities in that country avoid topics like evolution because their religion tells them how the world was created by Divine Intervention. Isn't this interesting? how one of the most repressive-of-intellectual-thought societies has that in common with the Bible belt in the USA>|? what else do this cultures have in common?

Hi Asher,

To people who believe in God, however, they beieve the do know God!

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Not in my experience. People who believe in God, believe they can _never_ know God. The purpose of the prophets/manifestations/seers whoever is to reflect some of the attributes of God, and to reveal some new rules so mankind can proceed. Then, many years after the event, other mere mortals write books about it, distort what was revealed, etc. That is why, a few hundred years after the event, another prophet appears, to correct the man-made distortions. None of these later prophets say that the previous ones were wrong. Only a few people at the time of their appearance recognise them for who they are, since the existing priesthood can see their livelihood disappearing. In general, religion, as most people here have referred to so far, is little more then any other corporate business, and I doubt if it has anything to do with God, and possibly God wants nothing to do with it.

A local CofE archdeacon mentioned to me, quoting someone else, that 'it was Paul who nailed the butterfly of Jesus to the noticeboard'. I think that explains why this led to a continuation within the Christain faith, as it always was within preceding religions, to the subjugation of women. It was posibly Mohamed who first gave women some rights, but of course many of his followers and subsequent priesthood have put their own interpretation on this.

It is easy to confuse the society and practices of a religion with the religion itself, in the same way as it is easy to confuse the beauty of a photograph with the beauty of the subject. In most cases it has just become a ritual and play act, such is the way mankind chooses to exercise its free will.

Best wishes,
Ray

leonardobarreto.com said:

Thank you Eric, it is good to know that there are others that have the same religion -or lack of- as one.

I would not say that I oppose organized religion because I think that people should have the wright to organize as people please.

If you belong to one organized religion, then you are responsible to follow whatever rules and laws the may come up with. If not, then let them live their game.

But.. I would oppose any imposition on other peoples religious norms on third parties like us.

And, many --don't know if all-- wars are just that. Imposition of ones Gods demands on other peoples life.

That is why, as materialist, I don't want to preach my materialism or -definitively-- not fight a war to di-organize religion.

As a matter of fact, I don't think that it (organized religion) is one hundred percent bad. It is a human thing, like art and fashion. You can_t (i am writing in the dark and can_t see the keyboard) ban people from liking art or dress different. In other words, it would be organized materialism that could be as bad or worst. Believe me, I spent one full month traveling in the Soviet Union.

I read the other day an article on first page of the New York Times about an university in Saudi A. the article stated that universities in that country avoid topics like evolution because their religion tells them how the world was created by Divine Intervention. Isn't this interesting? how one of the most repressive-of-intellectual-thought societies has that in common with the Bible belt in the USA>|? what else do this cultures have in common?

Click to expand...

Yes certainly its a right to believe what one will - at least it is in my country. While I have volunteered that I am an opponent of organized religion, I have not declared if I am spiritual or not. Subtle difference?

I really don't see much good coming from organized religion but they sure do from you. They want your money, your time, your obedience, and lately at least in the US, your vote. I find it deplorable that a church minister can tell his flock how to vote.