Roaming Conclusions

In the final section "Conclusions" of the anthology of selections and commentary entitled Texts and Pretexts (1932) Aldous Huxley invites us to consider last thoughts

Or if we must play the theological game, let us never forget that it is a game. Religion, it seems to me, can survive only as a consciously accepted system of make-believe. People will accept certain theological statements about life and the world, will elect to perform certain rites and to follow certain rules of conduct, not because they imagine the statements to be true or the rules and rites to be divinely dictated, but simply because they have discovered experimentally that to live in a certain ritual rhythm, under certain ethical restraints, and as if certain metaphysical doctrines were true, is to live nobly, with style. Every art has its conventions which every artist must accept. The greatest, the most important of the arts is living.

I find it conducive to philosophical musings to juxtapose the above with an excerpt from the Henry Vaughan poem collected under the heading of "Amor Fati"

   Man hath still either toys or care :
But hath no root, nor to one place is tied,
But ever restless and irregular,
   About this earth doth run and ride.
He knows he hath a home, but scarce knows where ;
   He says it is so far,
That he has quite forgot how to go there.

Religion as toy for the homeless? Being at home in the world is to be without religion?

And so for day 503
29.04.2008