Stuart N. Taba's Rogue Messiah:The Philisophical Wanderer Chapter Two Pg.12

                                                                           Chapter Two
                                                 The truth is always the strongest argument.
                                                                                                                      Sophocles
     In Chapter Four of his book, author/teacher Tom Morris develops some "tools for the wisdom quest":belief, truth, and knowledge. First of all, writes Morris, "belief is foundational to who you are." Feelings, desires, hopes and dreams are dependent on your beliefs. Here is the first equation of our tool kit: Beliefs + Desires = Actions. Belief, writes Morris, is "the ultimate wellspring of action." Having the right beliefs thus is of not only intellectual importance, but of  "utmost practical importance." Therein lies the problem:we all have our share of false beliefs.
     When I went to Georgetown Lawschool in 1983, I was of the belief that I had to go to a high-ranking school to have a successful legal career. As I have written before, I could've gone to the University of  Hawaii Lawschool, which would have been a fine starting point for an aspiring attorney.  Thus, I held the false belief of the necessity of attending a prestigious school, the desire of being a star-attorney, and therefor took the action of leaving home to attend Georgetown.   

Stuart N. Taba's Rogue Messiah:The philisophical Wanderer Chapter One Pgs. 9-11

     In Chapter Two of Philosophy For Dummies, author/professor Tom Morris quotes Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951): "Philosophy is not a theory, but an activity." Writes Morris,

     Philosophy at its best is an activity more than a body of knowledge. In an ancient sense, done right, it is a healing art. It's intellectual self-defense. It's a form of  therapy. But its also much more. Philosophy is map-making for the soul, cartography for the human journey. It's an important navigational tool for life that too many modern people try to do without. (Pg. 21)

     Continues the author

     Consulting the great thinkers of the past, as we draw our own maps for the present and future, is like stopping to ask a cabbie or a cop for directions, rather than just wandering around lost. (Pg. 22)

     This analogy caught my attention because, seven christmases ago, Miss Mychael Inagaki-my Central YMCA girlfriend-gave me a sticker that I pasted at home, that reads "NOT ALL WHO WANDER ARE LOST." Its source is JRR Tolkien, writer of The Hobbit.
     At the time, I was shaping my identity as Undercover/Rogue Messiah, guided in large part by the songs I heard on the radio.*L* One such song was an "oldie"- The Wanderer, by Dion, which celebrates the vagabond path of a rebel protagonist.^L^  Given my homebody ways (sometimes many days pass before I'll venture out into the world), I felt a bit hypocritical attaching to this song, but I guess it's not the physical world where I wander, but the metaphysical (that part of philosophy concerned with the study of the ultimate causes and the underlying nature of things).
     In this manuscript, I shall interweave my self-perception as Rogue Messiah within a general overview of the study of philosophy, exploring ontology (study of being), epistemology (study of knowing), and ethics (study of proper behavior).

     Even though you can think about these three different subjects...seperately, they all work together to make philosophy what it is. Different philosophies place different emphasis on these subjects. Most philosophers do their work by expanding on what they already think they know. Different philosophers  identify different places to start- different foundational ideas on which to build their their thinking.(Idiots, pg. 7)*L*

     I shall start off with the epistemology embedded in some of the "tools for the wisdom quest," that is, belief, truth, and knowledge.

    " Self-knowledge is observation of your actions and knowing the right thing to do at any given moment."
               Menander

                                                                                                                                                     




    
      

    
    
    

Stuart N. Taba's Rogue Messiah:The Philisophical Wanderer Chapter One Pgs. 6-8

     This boldness tempered with caution stood out on Saturday May 4,2001, when "the rescue" occurred. As I have earlier written, I was spurred on by destiny to save the life of an anonymous female admirer. Its was like the Scrubs episode in which Turk, a brand new resident physician jaded and disillusioned by all the pain and suffering he tended to on Christmas Eve, feels an urgent compulsion to run to a distant light as he gazes pensively into the hospital's distance on Christmas Day. Like I felt during "the rescue," the revived Turk just knew he had to sprint to that spot, where it turns out a helpless, distraught women is giving birth.
     In the Scrubs episode, protaganist J.D. closes the installment with a voice-over: "So I guess Turk was right after all. Miracles do happen. I think you just have to be willing to look for them. During "the rescue," I figured that my damsel in distress was a stripper/prostitute--the miracle I looked for, my being so mindful of reality that my enlightenment would illuminate the path for all within days.*L*
     In the Music Video MY HERO, by the foo fighters, a similar rescue is depicted. In the opening sequence, a tall, strapping young man leaps out of a back alley, resolutely sprints down a sidewalk, through a parking lot, then down a street as the strong, percussion-led intro is played. He reaches his distraught wife/partner outside a burning building, then unflinchingly races in.
                                                           Too alarming know to talk about
                                                           Take your pictures down and shake it out
                                                           Truth or consequence
                                                            Say it aloud
                                                            Use that evidence
                                                            Race it around

                                      The hero enters a room and picks up a baby from its crib.

                                                             There goes my hero
                                                              Watch him as he goes

                                       With the baby tucked upon his shoulder, the hero exits the building.

                                                              There goes my hero
                                                              He's Ordinary

                                         He hands the infant to his woman, then rushes back into the fiery building.
                                
                                                               Don't the best of them bleed it out
                                                               While the rest of them peter out
                                                                Truth or consequence
                                                                Say it aloud
                                                                Use that evidence
                                                                Race it around

                                          The hero enters a bathroom and gathers a small dog.

                                                                There goes my hero
                                                                 Watch him as he goes
                                                                 There goes my hero
                                                                  He's ordinary

                                           He exits the building, hands the dog to its owner, then-perplexed-searches the crowd for his woman, who tells him "I love you," or something (I'm not skilled at reading lips), then rushes back to the building.

                                                                Kudos my hero
                                                                Leaving all the best
                                                                You know my hero
                                                                The one that's on

                                             The hero frantically searches drawers amidst the burning building.

                                                                There goes my hero
                                                                 He's ordinary

                                             He finds the object he searched for- a photograph of his wife--then exits fatigued and limping. He embraces his lover and baby, as the crowd congratulates him. *L* I'm not sure of the symbolism, but I think he rescued the woman's self -perception, represented by her portrait. At any rate, the main point is that the hero does everything heroically, leaving nothing undone. *L*

    

Rogue Messiah:The Philosophical Wanderer by Stuart N. Taba

                                                                   Chapter One
                                       Fortune cannot aid those who do nothing.
                                                                                                        Sophocles
     What is philosophy? Like most people, I've long used the term without stopping to consider the word's actual definition. Philosophy is not the stale sholastic teaching contained in the textbook seldom--if  ever- opened,but, literally, the love of wisdom and, in practice,the guide to a life of wisdom. Not all philosopy is good- the unwise among us sometimes choose  to live lives of reckless abandon guided by heedless philosophy, or to live lives of  wary timidity guided by fainthearted philosophy.
     You hear of the former on the news all the time: For instance,Two Teens Killed in Drunk Driving Accident;KSEE 24 News; Fresno,CA; 2/05/10. The latter you seldom hear of;  never wanting to make waves , the overly cautious live anonymous lives of quiet desperation . The wise walk the middle road between these extremes, as I have written in my previous manuscripts. They follow Buddha's Middle Path, Aristotle's Golden Mean, Christ's Moderate Way, or other guides' directions to temperate living. *L*  (Emoticon meaning I am drunk/Sloshed.)
     I have to admit that I tend to be a bit too cautious, but have finally started accepting responsibility of my duties. For example, I formerly let my 79 year old mother drive me to family affairs, etc, so I could drink free-of-conscience, until I choose to act like a real man and take the responsibility of driving.  I think I became convinced to do so after I was a passenger in a rental car that my aunt - twenty plus years senior - was driving when my family was visiting Maui. We barely missed being broadsided by an oncoming car while my aunt was making a tough left turn with a blind spot. I believe it was then that I woke up to the familial obligation that I had turned from. I'm game now; that is I have chosen to walk the tightrope of responsible living, balancing caution with boldness - seeking mindffully the Golden Middle Way.
                                                                                                                                                    Pgs. 4&5
                                                                                                                            

Rogue Messiah: The Philosophical Wanderer by Stuart N. Taba

2

Table of Contents

Prologue 3

1. Introduction 4

2. Belief, Truth, and Knowledge 12

3. Skepticism 23

4. Precursive Faith 39

5. Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan 51

6. Free Will and Destiny 65

7. Human Agency 83

8. Asian Thought 91

9. Mind/Body 114

10. Ontology: East/West Perspectives 125

11. Dualism 143

12. Fear of Dying 157

13. Existence of God 206

14. Evil 236

15. Pascal’s Wager for God 254

16. A Slice of Theory of Everything 268

17. Theory of Everything 275

18. Endangered American Values 298

19. Absolutism/Relativism/Existentialism 388

20. Cosmic Consciousness 421

Epilogue 452

Start From Scratch:Begin with nothing without advantage. In racing the "scratch" is the starting line sometimes literally scratched on the ground. Horses or peope racing with a handicap start ahead of the line;the ones thought not to need a handicap "start from scratch." James Joyce, in Ulysses (1922), wrote of "A poor foreign imigrant who started scratch as a stowaway and is now trying to turn an honest penny." (pg. 247)

 

Prologue

I begin this manuscript –- “Rogue Messiah: The

Philosophical Wanderer” – by analyzing “Philosophy for

Dummies,” by Tom Morris, integrating the task from my

perspective. I then similarly read and write of former President

Jimmy Carter’s “Our Endangered Values,” an account of a

morally responsible man pushed from the Oval Office by the most

effective corporate spokesman of the media age, bringing forth an

era of exploitive Republican capitalism. Writing from my

perspective, I seek not merely to recite Carter’s message, but to

report and react to his issues and themes. “A Theory of

Everything,” by Ken Wilber, is the third book I use as the focal

point of my writing, highlighted by the descriptions of “second tier

consciousness,” the next step of the consciousness evolution. I then

turn to discuss absolutism, relativism, and existentialism, widening

the scope of my work. Finally, I conclude by incorporating

“Cosmic Consciousness,” by Richard Maurice Bucke, M.D., into

my realization of human destiny. This manuscript ends my “Rogue

Messiah” trilogy; in it, I have learned as I have read and written

of a coming era of higher consciousness revolution. Welcome, read

on.

 

Alternate Reality;Madonna a.k.a. Rachel

     I can't say for sure, but this event took place in 87' or 88'. Its a story that has similarities with the first "Alternate Reality" story, so here it goes.Its sometime during the weekend I'm relaxing, just listening to music, daydreaming. Once again the radio announcer comes on and he's just going over news in music. He say's something to the effect. "and in related matters Madonna will be coming out with a video, an X-rated video. Lets see out that turns out.." I know he says more, but I just can't remember what else. So, come monday morning I'm on campus telling everybody I "heard" Madonnas going to be staring in an x-rated video. In my mind the way I heard it, was x-rated as in Adult video, but time tells the real story of how it went down.
     Now this time around before I wrote this little event, I googled the video to find that "Justify My Love" wasn't released until 1990. I'm going to give myself the benefit of the doubt and say that I "heard" it on the radio in 1988. I was still in highschool, I know that for sure because I was telling all of my friends and classmates. That I do remember. So it would give the time span of about 2 years differential from the time I "heard" it on the radio to the time it actually happened. Just about the same time difference with the Prince experience.
      Here's an interesting side note  that I really didn't think about until I started writing and remembering the events that took place. In Madonnas video there just happens to be a cameo appearance of none other than..."Prince."
     O.k. thats about all I want to say about that. These two stories could have easily been fabricated out of thin air, really not verifiable unless you happened to be one of the people or class mates who were there to experience these events which occured over 2 decades ago, so its pretty much "dust to the wind", however I do have one more story that did take place back in the eighties, that has not yet occured, and that one I'll be puting out maybe sometime next week.

Alternate Reality

     The beginning of this story takes place sometime in the summer of 1984. I was not yet a freshman in highschool, but would soon be. Nothing unusual happened during the course of the summer. Just the same old boring "out of school vacation". I would spend alot of my nights listening to my radio in the wee hours of the morning. Just daydreaming about whatever popped into my head. It was a common event for me to listen to the radio for hours on end, sometimes up to five hours at a time. So one night I'm listening to the radio and I hear the radio announcer come on, he says something to the effect, "This year Prince will be coming out with a movie titled Under the Cherry Moon, so look for it in theaters near you." I really wasn't into prince then so it was just a passing occurence, nothing worthy of making note of; Or so I thought.
     Finally the summer ended and my first year of highschool begins. I'm in my english class and the room is somewhat silent. Students have their noses to the books doing a "preview quiz", once in awhile a low chatter could be heard. My mind wonders off to my lazy days of summer, and then it hits me. I blurt out, "Hey, I heard Prince is going to be coming out with a movie, It's gonna be called Under the Cherry Moon". I was talking to my buddy sitting next to me and a student in front of us just turns around, but has a look of annoyance. Apparently not impressed with the news. Whats  bizzare is my bud is really not impressed either. He really doesn't have any kind of reaction to my remark. I think back on it now and it was as if maybe he didn't believe me. Maybe he thought I was just trying to start a rumor.Theres really nothing more I have on this memory. Thats pretty much it, except that several months later a movie comes out. The star of the movie is the artist formerly known as "Prince", and the movie is called "Purple Rain".
     Whats really weird about this experience is that no one else had "heard" about the fact that Prince was going to be making a movie. Nobody came up to me saying, "Hey are you going to go watch Under the Cherry Moon, when it comes out?". This is the first experience I had that seemed to be "Normal", until several years later. Upon further reflection, things just didn't seem right, or things didn't "add up". No one validated the fact that Prince was coming out with the movie, also I've never heard anything about Prince changing the name from Under the Cherry Moon, to Purple Rain. Thats the only piece of information that I have that proves my experience. The name "Under the Cherry Moon". I believe Prince has the answer...