Caution: This is a terribly long, and probably boring post. I've been up all night as it's 6:35 am now here, and I had a lot of time to write this. Read my ranting at your own risk...
Ive never gone to church. Ive never been assured there is an existing higher power. My mother, father, and older brother are all atheists. When I was growing up, we never really talked about religion. There wasnt even a copy of the bible in my childhood home. There was a copy of Thoreaus Walden and his essays on Civil Disobedience instead. Hell, we even had a translated copy of Mien Kompf (my dad loves philosophy and my mom loves history.) But no bible, no hint even that I should care about a higher power or a set basis of beliefs was in my house.
But everyone asks the question. Why am I here? You learn to try to avoid asking it, but everyone ends up ruminating about it throughout their lives (if anyones ever seen The Big Kahuna, theres a great scene with Kevin Spacey and Danny Devito about it.) All thinking men are atheists, Ernest Hemingway once wrote. He meant that every thinking person can recognize that the world doesnt make sense, that theres no sign of a great plan in everyones lives. He meant that every thinking person, at one point or another, wonders what does it really matter? The universe is so big; history is so long, why does my life even matter? Every thinking person on earth has struggled with this meaninglessness, struggled with the pure chaos and pure evil that happens in this world. I dont care how much faith you have, when your husband has ALS and your son is autistic (a real person I know), you start to wonder why its happening to your loved ones.
People with faith prescribe to Gods plan. Its His plan to take away your 38-year-old husband, its His plan to have you lead a great life and hell reward you in the next, all the while causing indescribable agony in the current one. People without faith tend to believe everything that happened was by chance. This planet was created by chance. The spark that created the first cell was just chance, evolution took over from there.
I tend to disagree with both. How this world was made, and how we, and ultimately every cell, was put together makes curious sense. It really fits together nicely. How did everything line up right so that life could exist on this planet? How did it line up right that we are so much more intelligent than every other animal on this planet? That we are able to wonder hwy? That we are able to invent amazing machines, and think on such a deep, spiritual level? To sound concise, I think a higher power set it up. As for an ultimate plan for all of us, that theres a reason your husband will die before 40? Nope, God, or whoever, left all that up to us. He left the ugliness of war, of hatred, of accidents, of diseases all in our incapable hands. He let us learn for ourselves. See tragedy, yes, but also, through all the shit, see the beauty in life. See all the abundance of things the world has to offer for ourselves. It doesnt matter whether youre a genius or a moron, an athlete or a dork, a liberal or conservative, a Christian or Jew, a black or white. In the end, only whats in your soul matters. Your prevailing kindness, honesty, dignity is what matters.
What happens when its all over? I dont know, but it can wait. Whats above is what I truly believe, what I really have faith in, it doesnt really provide many answers to an afterlife, but it just allows me to life my life as good as I can, but make my own decisions. It doesnt really fit with a religion, or atheism, or even an agnostics beliefs. I guess because it really isnt a true belief system. It doesnt provide any answers, just states that you should live your life to the best possible way that you see fit. Thats good enough for me though: God set everything up, and let every individual find sense in meaning in their own life. Let every individual go on their own allegory, their own discovery, their own odyssey.
Ultimately, though, all that shit really doesnt matter in the long run. In this life, you need more than just faith to get by. You need hope. Thats what it all comes down to. When someones really in a deep depression, they may turn to God, but what theyre really turning to is hope. Hope that maybe someday, theyll get out of this rut. Hope someday theyll realize the world is shit, but Im alive and thats all that matters (Full Metal Jacket.) And thats what keeps Jean, the woman Ive spoke of, going: Hope that maybe one day, things will be better. However illogical or improbable it may seem at the time, hope can sometimes save a persons life, and, even more than faith, the loss of it usually ends a persons life.
Ive never gone to church. Ive never been assured there is an existing higher power. My mother, father, and older brother are all atheists. When I was growing up, we never really talked about religion. There wasnt even a copy of the bible in my childhood home. There was a copy of Thoreaus Walden and his essays on Civil Disobedience instead. Hell, we even had a translated copy of Mien Kompf (my dad loves philosophy and my mom loves history.) But no bible, no hint even that I should care about a higher power or a set basis of beliefs was in my house.
But everyone asks the question. Why am I here? You learn to try to avoid asking it, but everyone ends up ruminating about it throughout their lives (if anyones ever seen The Big Kahuna, theres a great scene with Kevin Spacey and Danny Devito about it.) All thinking men are atheists, Ernest Hemingway once wrote. He meant that every thinking person can recognize that the world doesnt make sense, that theres no sign of a great plan in everyones lives. He meant that every thinking person, at one point or another, wonders what does it really matter? The universe is so big; history is so long, why does my life even matter? Every thinking person on earth has struggled with this meaninglessness, struggled with the pure chaos and pure evil that happens in this world. I dont care how much faith you have, when your husband has ALS and your son is autistic (a real person I know), you start to wonder why its happening to your loved ones.
People with faith prescribe to Gods plan. Its His plan to take away your 38-year-old husband, its His plan to have you lead a great life and hell reward you in the next, all the while causing indescribable agony in the current one. People without faith tend to believe everything that happened was by chance. This planet was created by chance. The spark that created the first cell was just chance, evolution took over from there.
I tend to disagree with both. How this world was made, and how we, and ultimately every cell, was put together makes curious sense. It really fits together nicely. How did everything line up right so that life could exist on this planet? How did it line up right that we are so much more intelligent than every other animal on this planet? That we are able to wonder hwy? That we are able to invent amazing machines, and think on such a deep, spiritual level? To sound concise, I think a higher power set it up. As for an ultimate plan for all of us, that theres a reason your husband will die before 40? Nope, God, or whoever, left all that up to us. He left the ugliness of war, of hatred, of accidents, of diseases all in our incapable hands. He let us learn for ourselves. See tragedy, yes, but also, through all the shit, see the beauty in life. See all the abundance of things the world has to offer for ourselves. It doesnt matter whether youre a genius or a moron, an athlete or a dork, a liberal or conservative, a Christian or Jew, a black or white. In the end, only whats in your soul matters. Your prevailing kindness, honesty, dignity is what matters.
What happens when its all over? I dont know, but it can wait. Whats above is what I truly believe, what I really have faith in, it doesnt really provide many answers to an afterlife, but it just allows me to life my life as good as I can, but make my own decisions. It doesnt really fit with a religion, or atheism, or even an agnostics beliefs. I guess because it really isnt a true belief system. It doesnt provide any answers, just states that you should live your life to the best possible way that you see fit. Thats good enough for me though: God set everything up, and let every individual find sense in meaning in their own life. Let every individual go on their own allegory, their own discovery, their own odyssey.
Ultimately, though, all that shit really doesnt matter in the long run. In this life, you need more than just faith to get by. You need hope. Thats what it all comes down to. When someones really in a deep depression, they may turn to God, but what theyre really turning to is hope. Hope that maybe someday, theyll get out of this rut. Hope someday theyll realize the world is shit, but Im alive and thats all that matters (Full Metal Jacket.) And thats what keeps Jean, the woman Ive spoke of, going: Hope that maybe one day, things will be better. However illogical or improbable it may seem at the time, hope can sometimes save a persons life, and, even more than faith, the loss of it usually ends a persons life.