Absent Fathers

The statement immediately below this one is true

The statement immediately above this one is false

Yes, I know it's old (and used to consist of one statement written on one side of a card and one on the reverse), but we all love a paradox, right? Well, perhaps not 'love'. More that we are fascinated by them, drawn into their apparent depth, hypnotised by their contradictions. It's similar to how we can spend long moments looking at their visual equivalents.

This impossible pentagram is based on the more famous impossible triangle. Adding extra sides into the shape reduces the visual effect, making it less striking, while still maintaining the impossibility, albeit a little more sneakily.

These phenomena seem remarkably similar, in the way they 'bewitch' us, to things that many belief systems use to ensnare their victims. Oh! Slip of the fingers - I meant 'enlighten their members', of course. Take, as a very simple example, the use of the word 'father' as a title for a priest, a man who has never been a father to a child, and has promised never to become one.

But surely there are much bigger, more real paradoxes in religions that that? Well yes, there are. There's the notion of life after death (by definition the cessation of life), the notion of burning for eternity (another impossible triangle?), the notion of a soul (undetectable but the very thing which is supposed to be what makes us human), and, of course, the good old 3-in-1 Christian god (the equivalent of the impossible pentagram).

Here's something else to think about. The idea of the Earth Mother pre-dates the patriarchal religions. It's easy to see how the idea, and worship, of an Earth Mother arose, because of the obvious life-giving and nurturing aspects of nature. You could physically touch her bounty. So how on earth did we go from there to the notion of an invisible father who is absent from our world apart from when he hurls lightning bolts, whistles up hurricanes and stirs up tsunamis?

It probably doesn't fit the definition of a paradox in itself, but I suspect there was a paradox, or two, involved in enticing the Earth Mother's children from her breast.

Posted via email from Jo S Wun on Posterous