Polysyllogism: God Is Empty?

A Photographic Portrait of a Dirty Woman

Emptiness is loneliness and loneliness is cleanliness and cleanliness is godliness and God is empty just like me. The Smashing Pumpkins, “Zero,” Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness

This quote is tagged “pop theology,” and it is the first such post here. This idea comes directly from Shawn Anthony (thanks!), and what he said regarding this idea holds true here: “I absolutely love it when armchair theological commentary is offered up freely in popular [culture]. It’s fun! I may not actually attempt to assimilate [culturally] acquired theology into my personal Christian faith, life and/or practice. Odds are I won’t be doing so, in fact. Heck, I may not even endorse it as Biblical, or wise.” The pop theology quotes will be offered especially for readers to discuss them. Have fun with it!

3 thoughts on “Polysyllogism: God Is Empty?”

  1. Ha! “Therefore God is not hampered by bad hygene” — Love it!

    And certainly, the “halitosis god” is far from worship-worthy.

    But I wonder if the syllogism doesn’t break down even earlier — is emptiness really loneliness? All too often we hear of people falling into depression, fighting an apparent emptiness inside, yet these same people are always around others — think, for example, celebrities with psychological problems.

    Then again, I guess it depends upon how one defines “loneliness.” Just as one could say while at sea, “Water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink,” so to could one be surrounded by people constantly without meaningful connection.

  2. For me the syllogism breaks down at Loneliness is Cleanliness, as I have found, since puberty, that lack of folks hanging around me is probably due to lack of cleanliness.

    So my experience is that Lack of Cleanliness leads to Loneliness. Then, if I get too lonely, I’m apt to go on an eating binge, and wind up Over-stuffed, which is antithetical to Emptiness. I’m rarely clean, lonely, and empty all at the same time.

    Thus we wind up at:

    Bad Hygene is Loneliness, which leads to Gluttony, which is not Godly at all. Therefore God is not hampered by bad hygene.

    Latest from Gordan: For Exploration of the Issues

  3. Walt Dickinson

    “is emptiness really loneliness?”

    As Jean-Paul Sartre so aptly put it, “If you are lonely when you are alone, then you are in bad company.”

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Use your Gravatar-enabled email address while commenting to automatically enhance your comment with some of Gravatar's open profile data.

Comments must be made in accordance with the comment policy. This site uses Akismet to reduce spam; learn how your comment data is processed.

You may use Markdown to format your comments; additionally, these HTML tags and attributes may be used: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

the Rick Beckman archive
Scroll to Top