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6 months ago
Friday 11 July 2008
A Chocolate-y Laugh
Many people say the loveliest sound in the world is a baby's laugh and the most disturbing is a baby's cry. I am one of these people, I guess. Out of all the baby laugh in history, my nephew Joshua's is probably the cutest. It is so cute - he is so adorable - that you want to kiss him to death. By the way, it's a peculiar thing that parents, at the height of their affection to their children, feel like - and often say it out loud, without thinking too much of it - that they want to eat them. "Oh, I'm going to eat you!" There's a theological theory behind this, but I'm not going into it now. Below Joshua is eating chocolate and enjoying a laugh at the same time.
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8 comments:
ats the theological story behind parents eating their kids? this is a cute picture:) I reeeaaaly miss this face with the two bulky random teeth:) 'kurre'
whats*
I'm quite a novice myself too, but I'll give it a try. Basically, it comes down to theology of love.
It is a verifiable fact that both parents and lovers sometimes speak to their loved ones (children or lovers) using words and expressions like "I'll eat you" or "You're so edible" etc. So both parental love and erotic love uses this kind of language. And this applies to every language: it is easy to come up with examples from Finnish, for instance.
Why so? Either this language is savage and morally disgusting or then it reflects some deep secret about love. Christian theology believes the latter.
According to it, all human love is a reflection of divine love. God is love -> we are made in his image -> thus our love reflects his love. And love, at its most intense moment or purest state, wants to join the lover with the one being loved. Mothers and babies live in a symbiosis; man and woman joins in "one flesh" etc.
The bible uses both parental and erotic love analogies when it speaks of God's love for mankind. The culmination of this Divine Love Story is Christ. More specifically, the Eucharist or Holy Communion.
Most Christian churches have a sacramental theology: they believe that God uses natural materia (e.g. water and bread) as means for imparting his supernatural grace (life and love) to us. Thus, for example, baptism is more than just symbolism - and the same applies to the Eucharist or Holy Communion.
And when you partake in the Lord's Supper, as it is called as well, you EAT Jesus' body and drink his blood. God comes into your being in a very deep way... is there anything deeper than this? For some (usually those who don't hold a sacramental theology) this is blasphemy and brutality and superstition. For others it is beautiful and meaningful, the secret of life.
So humans, when they use "culinary" love language, knowingly or unknowingly proclaim the secret - of which there is a faint echo in their hearts - that love's ultimate secret is the joining of the lover and loved one in such a deep way that it escapes adequate human language. The best we can come up with are analogies - analogies of parental bonds, sex, and eating.
This is one theological explanation for this odd phenomena. I'm sure evolutionary biologists and others have their own versions.
Ha! I'd love to hear an evolutionary biologist's explanation. :-)
Jussi,
So would I, seriously though. I'm quite sure that for someone how doesn't have a "spiritual six sense", in other words doesn't think theologically about anything (which wouldn't be a defect from a purely naturalistic perspective but rather a virtue) theological explanations of things sound positively ABSURD. I don't blame them, though I think they're missing out on something essential.
This said, I'd be very excited to hear an evolutionary biologist poit of view!
Jason
theology of eating:
1) men ate in Eden and it was bad
2) original sin is hereditary and concupiscence stays in man
3) man wants to eat things not allowed (such as people) today as well
See, Jussi? There are a lot of crazy theologies out there too. One does not need to look to evolutionary biology.
I was going to mention cannibalism in my marathon answer to Cathy. It was a good point (Emil). Both love and eating are good things, so whether one accepts the love or eating theologies as explanations of the curious phenomenon, cannibalism is an evil perversion of a good thing.
Again, it would be interesting to hear an evolutionary biologist's explanation for cannibalism.
FP, Jason
Amen, brother! I think this could be added to the list of the Atheists' nightmares! The best one is the banana - there is simply no biological explanation for either cannibalism or bananas that compare with the theological ones:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGMuIyBK5P4
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