Sunday 31 January 2016

Thirteen

Thirteen people enter a room; after three days only twelve come out alive, and the room itself is empty.

Fundamental applications of law and religion would suggest that either the remaining twelve persons have killed and devoured the thirteenth, e.g., murder and cannibalism, or conversely that the thirteenth was the Christ, e.g., death and resurrection.

Hindu gods are not gods in the Graeco-Roman tradition, or like those of the Norse for example. Rather, instead of God, as a deity, they seek to demonstrate a sense of metaphysical speculation through principles represented by deities who are in turn philosophical concepts behind the great happenings and processes of nature.

In Bhutan, there are prayer wheels the size of Volkswagens rotating steadily, their inscribed prayers spooling heavenwards. And too,  there are enormous feather flags, also so-inscribed, and as they flutter in the clear mountain air, the messages drift smoke-like along the high peaks of the world.

Thirteen people enter a room; after three days only twelve come out alive, and the room itself is empty.  


4 comments:

  1. interesting .... but i have to nit-pick: "conversely" isn't the word you wanted. "Conversely" is 'if p then q' <> 'if q then p', or 'p or q' <> 'q or p'. Christ's (or anyone's) death & resurrection isn't the *converse* of murder and cannibalism. "alternatively" works. now, i realize logic isn't the point of your post, but the wrong word is working against your point here (unless you're doing a play on words, i.e., "converse" as a play on "conversion"). Just sayin' ....

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  2. My meaning of the word was as a proposition obtained from another proposition by conversion. Just a passing thought, rather than a diatribe....

    Thanks for looking in.

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  3. I'm enjoying it. And I like the post and its metaphor. But deriving (or "obtaining") one proposition from another isn't what's going on, is it? Aren't you really juxtaposing conflicting explanations of the (metaphorical) event? Donn't the 3rd & 4th paragraphs emphasize and contrast the transcendent with the mundane to enrich the metaphor?

    Of course if your "passing thought" is just the verbal hat-trick of being simultaneously glib and abstruse, never mind. We've both had plenty of practice at that, eh?

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  4. That's good. I wouldn't like to think that I had encouraged overreading of what are effectively notes in the margin, or had caused offence by seeming to set out such slight asides as something more noteworthy.

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