the singularity of being and nothingness
Archive for May, 2007
Anberlin – "Cities"
May 15th
Anberlin absolutely shines on their newest album, Cities.
True enough, many of their critics suggest that Cities is yet another collection of the standard Anberlin fare, and in a sense the critics are correct. Melodically, Anberlin does not diverge significantly from previous works, and the band delivers the same aggressive musicianship for which they are adored.
What makes Cities a meaningfully different album, then, is the level of introspection in which the band engages throughout the project. Cities engenders the human condition, confronting issues of love, failure, disappointment, injustice–just to name only a few. Yet the depth of these existential investigations is not simply thrust upon the listener without warning, but is rather buttressed gracefully by the driving, yet infectious melodies and rhythms which seem to move and fuse seamlessly from track to track, creating a truly epic and album-ic listening experience. This collusion of lyrical depth and melodic intensity underscores the importance of each line, creating an almost desperate yet intoxicating pleading for the full attention and involvement of the listener in the profundity of what is occuring in this primal moment.
In this sense, then, Cities is not meant for easy listening or casual interaction; rather, it’s very form and function More >
Introductory Thoughts Concerning the Shift from Faith to Objectivity in Religious Thought
May 2nd
There was perhaps no greater shift in human epistemology than that engendered in the Englightenment. The revolution in thinking was so profound that if Socrates is the father of philosophy, Descartes is his violent and victorious progeny. All aspects of human epistemology–from history to science to religion–have undergone palpable changes, philosophy being forever marked by the revolution of the modern philosophical programme.
While volumes and volumes can and have been devoted to outlining the changes and effects actualized through the implementation of Enlightenment thinking to all areas of human epistemology, one of the most profound can be seen in Christian thinking. While doctorates could be written and institutes established concerning this more refined topic, I simply wish to outline some very brief reflections concerning what I perceive to be devastating shifts within Christian thinking concerning the inheritance of the Enlightenment and the nature of faith. In doing so, I simply wish to call attention to the all-too-subtle ways in which inherent philosophical assumptions of culture (racial, social and religious) create definitions of religious categories which may or may not cohere with the ancient beliefs of the earliest believers, concluding, alternatively, with suggestions of the how the same can be avoided More >
