Waiting for Godot to Leave

This is from Eric Voegelin's lecture "In Search of the Ground". One should be aware that we always act as if we had an ultimate purpose in fact, as if our life made some sort of sense. I find students frequently are flabbergasted, especially those who are agnostics, when I tell them that they all act, whether agnostics or not, as if they were immortal! Only under the assumption of immortality, of a fulfillment beyond life, is the seriousness of action intelligible that they actually put into their work and that has a fulfillment nowhere in this life however long they may live. They all act as if their lives made sense immortally, even if they deny immortality, deny the existence of a psyche, deny the existence of a Divinity—in brief, if they are just the sort of fairly corrupt average agnostics that you find among college students today. One shouldn’t take their agnosticism too seriously, because in fact they act as if they were not agnostics!

Here's how arguing on the internet goes. A: The sky is blue. B: How dare you! Prove it. A: Look at the sky. What color do you see? B: White. A: Those are clouds. B: Got ya! A: No, you don't "got me". You're looking at the wrong thing. Let's try this. What color is that shirt you're wearing? B: Blue. A: Look at the sky. That open part next to the clouds. Is not that the same color as your shirt? B: Are you saying the sky comes from Wal-Mart just like my shirt? You are a idiot!

This is from a post on my old blog ... Since I'm currently a judge in a one-act Catholic play writing contest, I don't want to say too much about the plays I'm reading.  But I have seen enough to know how to write a really bad play. And I'm passing that advice on to you, dear reader! Make sure your script contains NO comedy whatsoever - nothing the least bit funny, or if something almost-funny sneaks in, make it very predictable and stupid. Put a homeless man in it so the audience has someone to feel sorry for. Set the play at Christmas or in a foxhole during a war or in an abortion clinic.  Or better yet, at a makeshift abortion clinic in a foxhole on Christmas Eve. Handle exposition awkwardly.  For example, in the first few lines, have one of the characters say,  "Remember when that meteorite hit our house and you bravely struggled to pull me out and save our four children and the reporter from the liberal paper made fun of you because you were Christian and -...