Of Gods and Planets

I wrote this. Technically, what I wrote was a poem, but it can be turned into a song by putting the verses to the same tune as "Somebody's Baby", by Jon Foreman, which you can listen to here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmRCmbqVxas. It's a great song, so check it out.

As for my poem/song, I rely heavily on allusions, so to help explain the full meaning, here is a refresher on the Greek and Roman gods and goddesses. The Greek names are more familiar, but the Roman names are the names given to the planets. I use both, so I will write them as Greek (Roman).

Artemis (Diana): goddess of virginity, the hunt, and the moon
Athena (Minerva): goddess of wisdom, mathematics, strategy
Ares (Mars): god of war and violence
Zeus (Jupiter): king of the gods, god of the sky, ruler of Olympus
Apollo (Apollo): god of music, poetry, and the sun
Aphrodite (Venus): goddess of love, beauty, and sex
Dionysus (Bacchus): god of wine and ecstasy
Hera (Juno): goddess of marriage
Hermes (Mercury): messenger of the gods, with winged sandals
Poseidon (Neptune): god of the sea
Hades (Pluto): god of the underworld and afterlife

And with that, here is what I wrote. It's a song about idolatry, and it loosely follows one possible journey through life. Let me know what you think.

Of Gods and Planets

Verse 1:
It started off innocent, too good to be true
When Artemis told me to shoot for the moon
I chased it in circles, but it fled every day with the dawn

So I searched for Athena in figures and proofs
In books and in writings, if only I knew
That just being right doesn't make up for all of my wrongs

I chased after Mars and his fires of war
His violence was power, but I thirsted for more
Just like the red rover, Curiosity just wouldn't stop

So I lifted my sights and I started the climb
to the top of Olympus, there only to find
That even King Zeus is deluded alone at the top

Chorus:
These aren't my vices,
These are my gods
I'd make any promise
and break any law

I stand here condemned
When I kneel at their feet
Trading my birthright
For one bite to eat

I'm lost and I'm drowning
With the sirens at sea
Chained to the mast
As they serenade me

My demons surround me
They circle my heart
Like sharks in the water
Or planets 'round a star

Verse 2:
I plug in my headphones and hear Apollo's song
He tells me "look pretty", so I play along
I yell "Hey Aphrodite, come here, I want you to be mine"

The gym is my church ground, my altar the floor,
My body's a temple, but not to the Lord
I bow down to Venus, but get left in the dust every time

Then I met Juno, the love of my life
I said "You complete me," and made her my wife
But even the whitest of gowns only lasts for a day

When she lets me down, I scream "I've had enough,
Come on, Dionysus, come help me get drunk
My life is so bitter, your sweet wine can take me away"

Chorus:

These aren't my vices,
These are my gods
I'd make any promise
and break any law

I stand here condemned
When I kneel at their feet
Trading my birthright
For one bite to eat

I'm lost and I'm drowning
With the sirens at sea
Chained to the mast
As they serenade me

My demons surround me
They circle my heart
Like sharks in the water
Or planets 'round a star

Verse 3:
I tried to run faster, to join the elite
I asked Mercury to put wings on my feet
My god brought me messages faster than ever before

I ran straight off the land into Neptune's domain,
Into swells of a storm that I could not contain
Adrift on the sea of my life like a man overboard

That's when I saw Pluto, the darkest of shores
No land for the living, but I'm not anymore
My life, like the light, had faded till I was undone

And there, at the end, I knew I had to turn back
And I realized the center is what holds things intact
And that all of these things were created to circle the Sun

Chorus:
These aren't my vices,
These are my gods
I'd make any promise
and break any law

I stand here condemned
When I kneel at their feet
Trading my birthright
For one bite to eat

I'm lost and I'm drowning
With the sirens at sea
Chained to the mast
As they serenade me

My demons surround me
They circle my heart
Like sharks in the water

Chorus 2:
These are my vices,
But You are my God
I trust in your promise
And dwell on your laws

I stand here amazed
As you wash off my feet
You laid out a banquet
And called me to eat

I was lost and was drowning
Till you calmed the sea
You broke every chain
And said I am set free

Your Spirit surrounds me
And dwells in my heart
I drink living water
Oh Lord, my God You are!

On Postmodernism and the Two Camps of Truths

Postmodernism isn't quite as prevalent today as it once was. The postmodern trend and culture is generally considered to have immediately preceded, or even coincided with, the secular project. I have heard it said that we are now in a post-secular society, where all of the previous deconstruction of ideologies has ceased, and people are now beginning to reconstruct their world views, shifting their focus from the individual to larger groups. That being said, it is clear to me, from various conversations I have had, that many of the dominant postmodern ideas still echo today. So I now seek to address these. Bear in mind that, while I do have very strong opinions on the ideas presented in this post, my main purpose here is descriptive, not prescriptive. I am attempting only to explain, to the best of my ability, how things are. Of course, I will make it very clear which worldview I subscribe to, but if I did not do this overtly, it would undoubtedly be conveyed nonetheless through subtleties and inherent bias.

In short, there are two camps of truths, and two groups of people corresponding to these two camps. There are those who say that some people are wrong, and there are those who say that all people are wrong.

In the first camp, we have those who have chosen a particular truth. They may call it religion, philosophy, science, logic, politics, common sense, respect, humanity, citizenship, love, or something else. At the end of the day, though, they have ideas, however vague or explicit, about how things are and how things ought to be. All who agree with their ideas are correct, and all who disagree are wrong. This is not to say that these people are confrontational, disrespectful, or arrogant about their belief (in fact, we shall see that those in this camp are often more open to a change in beliefs than those in the other). It simply means that, whatever they say (or think) that they believe, they actually believe it to be true. And if their truth is really true, then necessarily some other, incompatible truth cannot be. Once again, this does not necessitate that a member of this camp will make a point to let you know when you are wrong. But, if pressed enough, they will likely admit that, yes, according to their belief, you are wrong for believing another. This is the camp to which I belong.

Now, some people are overly zealous about informing others of their wrongness, just as many people are overly sensitive to being informed that they are wrong in another's eyes. Since we are dealing with the fundamental beliefs of a person about life and the world, it stands to reason that any rejection of those beliefs can very easily be perceived as a rejection of the person that holds them. The second camp of truth is often born from such an offense.

In the second camp, we have people that, on the surface, appear the same as those in the first. Often (for reasons that will become clear) their chosen truth is slightly less well-defined, and maybe not all-encompassing, but it exists nonetheless. However, beneath that truth there is a deeper, more fundamental belief. It is the belief that all truths that can be held by a person deserve equal treatment and acknowledgement. This is the defining belief of the second camp, and it is easy to see why it is attractive. Like in the first camp, each person is allowed to find a truth, but there no longer need be any offense given or taken for seemingly incompatible truths, because any truth held by a person becomes valid, by the sheer fact that the person believes it.

Unfortunately, this "miracle cure" of a truth turns out, like so many other miracle cures, to be too good to be true. It advertises options without the need to call anybody "wrong". But take a deeper look at this, and you will likely see a contradiction. By this assertion, every belief is equally valid simply because it is believed. This logic is taken from enlightenment logic used to describe people (i.e. every person is equally valid and valuable by the mere fact of being a person). But in taking this logic, we have to also take with it the limitation in which it applies; namely, that this automatically restricts the truth in question to the person that holds it. In other words, if we wish to use this reasoning to call all truths equally valid, we can only really say that a person's truth is valid for that person. Indeed, this is often the language that is used by postmodernists. As a truth, this is perfectly fine, as long as the implications are fully understood. The only way that seemingly incompatible truths can coexist is if they never occupy the same realm. This says, then, that anyone whose truth claims to say anything about anything outside of the person who holds it, is fundamentally wrong.

And so we see that postmodernism, in an attempt to  avoid having to call anyone wrong, has actually succeeded in calling everyone wrong. It says that, at the end of the day, what anyone believes doesn't really matter, because at best their belief can only be true within the confines of their own mind. So either we all resign ourselves to exist forever isolated within ourselves (which no being, save One, has ever done), or we surrender any hope we have of our truth actually being true. This is why many postmodernists don't concern themselves with the specifics of even their own beliefs, because ultimately, it makes no difference.