(no subject)
Why are people so shocked about that study which showed no link between a secular population and an increase in crime and suffering? Even the Pope himself said the reason why organized religion is losing its grip in the industrialized world even as it tightens harder around developing nations (I hate those terms, any other ideas?) is because organized religion requires suffering to exist. Which is absolutely true. In a world that is socially just, people will not feel the need to hope and pray for justice in the afterlife. As it is, people cling fervently to the belief in an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent god who will reward the good and the suffering in the afterlife because for the majority of them, there will be no earthly reward. Just pain and heartache and suffering surrounding tiny little pockets of joy and pleasure. I really can't blame people all that much for believing this way, even though I choose not to follow it for myself.
Anyway, it's not like the study is saying that religion causes evil. Just that an absence of religion doesn't cause an immediate back slide into anarchy and war and suffering. It reminds me of how I used to hear all the time that apostates were miserable people. They've fallen away, they have no purpose in their lives, inside they feel a big gaping void in their hearts, yadda yadda yadda. And then I became an apostate and interestingly enough, my existential crises began to clear up.
I do consider myself to be an existentialist at this point. I haven't read Sartre so I don't know if I fit the classical mold of what an existentialist is, but we discussed it in a class once and the ideas discussed were very similar to the ideas I had come up with for myself. Basically, I don't think there's any grand meaning to life beyond the meaning I give it. I can choose whether my life's meaning is to have an impact on the world around me, or I can choose whether my life's meaning is bare-knuckled survival, or I can choose whether my life's meaning is unbridled hedonism, or artistic expression or whatever. For a while I thought this was a position based purely in privilege, but then that assumes that people who live less privileged lives lack a variability in personality. And that's a pretty dehumanizing assumption to make based solely on the fact that people may or may not have access to any of the luxuries most of us have, as if a personality can only be formed within the comfort of a house with running hot water and full tummies. Which really, when you think about it, is all that separates the so-called civilized people of the world from the so-called uncivilized.
I don't know. Just some thoughts. Blame my recent readings about the Sudan and Hurricane Katrina.
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I switched gears and went back to reading the classics. I'm about halfway through Madame Bovary, which is a lovely, sad book. Based on what I'd heard I was expecting Emma Bovary to be this odious creature, but so far I am mindbendingly sympathetic to her. So she's shallow. So she's materialistic. I can absolutely foresee her wrecking her husband's life. But you know what? If she had been allowed the options to choose her own path through this world, instead of being handed off from dad to husband, she would have not been as miserable as she was. I imagine myself in her situation - an educated girl with wild dreams full of travels and excitements, confined to a pastoral country life that doesn't suit her - and I know I'd probably be just as much of a miserable wench as she appears to be.
Which is why the whole SAHM/working mom debate really irritates the living shit out of me. One lifestyle does not fit all. Don't try to pretend otherwise. Keep someone like me inside of the house day in and day out chasing around kids and cleaning up after them, and I guarantee a nervous breakdown would hover on the horizon of my existence. But other people would say the exact same thing about dealing with deadlines and clients and technology. That's the beauty of people. No one of us is the same as the other.
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I've had enough Ann Coulter to last me a lifetime. I'd never heard the woman speak for an extended period of time until the past two nights, and that was plenty. I have only one thing to say - I didn't understand the meaning of the word "shrill" until I heard her speak. Her goddamn voice is like a chisel in my eardrum. I know that "shrill" is an insult used to silence women, but I've heard other political women speak, and they don't have the same nails-on-chalkboard effect she has on my nerves. The only other person I've heard like that is Tammy Bruce, who always sounds like she's on the verge of screaming. Her voice does this weird wavering thing that makes me feel like I'm being screamed at by my mother.
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Is it bad that I can't stop looking at my icon and giggling? It's the phrase 'hurricane terrorists' that does it for me. I wish I could take credit, but I can't. I don't remember where I saw it, though.
Anyway, it's not like the study is saying that religion causes evil. Just that an absence of religion doesn't cause an immediate back slide into anarchy and war and suffering. It reminds me of how I used to hear all the time that apostates were miserable people. They've fallen away, they have no purpose in their lives, inside they feel a big gaping void in their hearts, yadda yadda yadda. And then I became an apostate and interestingly enough, my existential crises began to clear up.
I do consider myself to be an existentialist at this point. I haven't read Sartre so I don't know if I fit the classical mold of what an existentialist is, but we discussed it in a class once and the ideas discussed were very similar to the ideas I had come up with for myself. Basically, I don't think there's any grand meaning to life beyond the meaning I give it. I can choose whether my life's meaning is to have an impact on the world around me, or I can choose whether my life's meaning is bare-knuckled survival, or I can choose whether my life's meaning is unbridled hedonism, or artistic expression or whatever. For a while I thought this was a position based purely in privilege, but then that assumes that people who live less privileged lives lack a variability in personality. And that's a pretty dehumanizing assumption to make based solely on the fact that people may or may not have access to any of the luxuries most of us have, as if a personality can only be formed within the comfort of a house with running hot water and full tummies. Which really, when you think about it, is all that separates the so-called civilized people of the world from the so-called uncivilized.
I don't know. Just some thoughts. Blame my recent readings about the Sudan and Hurricane Katrina.
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I switched gears and went back to reading the classics. I'm about halfway through Madame Bovary, which is a lovely, sad book. Based on what I'd heard I was expecting Emma Bovary to be this odious creature, but so far I am mindbendingly sympathetic to her. So she's shallow. So she's materialistic. I can absolutely foresee her wrecking her husband's life. But you know what? If she had been allowed the options to choose her own path through this world, instead of being handed off from dad to husband, she would have not been as miserable as she was. I imagine myself in her situation - an educated girl with wild dreams full of travels and excitements, confined to a pastoral country life that doesn't suit her - and I know I'd probably be just as much of a miserable wench as she appears to be.
Which is why the whole SAHM/working mom debate really irritates the living shit out of me. One lifestyle does not fit all. Don't try to pretend otherwise. Keep someone like me inside of the house day in and day out chasing around kids and cleaning up after them, and I guarantee a nervous breakdown would hover on the horizon of my existence. But other people would say the exact same thing about dealing with deadlines and clients and technology. That's the beauty of people. No one of us is the same as the other.
------
I've had enough Ann Coulter to last me a lifetime. I'd never heard the woman speak for an extended period of time until the past two nights, and that was plenty. I have only one thing to say - I didn't understand the meaning of the word "shrill" until I heard her speak. Her goddamn voice is like a chisel in my eardrum. I know that "shrill" is an insult used to silence women, but I've heard other political women speak, and they don't have the same nails-on-chalkboard effect she has on my nerves. The only other person I've heard like that is Tammy Bruce, who always sounds like she's on the verge of screaming. Her voice does this weird wavering thing that makes me feel like I'm being screamed at by my mother.
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Is it bad that I can't stop looking at my icon and giggling? It's the phrase 'hurricane terrorists' that does it for me. I wish I could take credit, but I can't. I don't remember where I saw it, though.