Sep 11, 2008 23:40
Dear readers, if anyone on my friend's list enjoys reading, please read "The Story of B" by Daniel Quinn. I finally got around to finishing it. I posted about it previously. It really encapsulates everything I have ever believed about religion, and how we operate as a society. Daniel Quinn expressed alot of the things I have felt in a far more eloquent and intelligent way. I would like to share with you the following passage:
When they say to you, "B is the Antichrist," here's what you should say to them. Say to them, "Yes, you're right-absolutely right. B means to steal the hearts of the people away from you so that the world may live. B means to gather the voices of humans all over the planet into one voice singing,"The world must live, the world must live, the world must live!" We are only one species among billions. The gods don't love us anymore than they love spiders or bears or whales or water lillies. The age of the Great Forgetting has ended, and all it's lies and delusions have been dispelled. Now we remember who we are. Our kin are not cherubim, seraphim, thrones, principalities, and powers. Our kin are mayflies, lemurs, snakes, eagles, and badgers. The blinding we suffer in the Great Forgetting has abated, so we no longer imagine that Man was ill-made. We no longer imagine that the gods botched their work when it came to us. We no longer think they know how to make every single thing in the whole vast universe except a human being. The blinding we suffered in the Great Forgetting has passed, so we can no longer believe that suffering is the lot the gods had in mind for us. We can no longer believe that death is sweet release to our true destiny. We no longer yearn for the nothingness of nirvana. We no longer dream of wearing crowns of gold in the royal court of heaven.
Say to them, "You're right to see that we're straying from the path of salvation. We're straying from the path exactly as you always feared we might. But listen, we're not straying from the path of salvation for the sake of sin and corruption, as you always imagined we might. We are straying from the path because we remember that we once belonged to the world and were content in that belonging. We're straying from the path of salvation-but not for love of vice and wickedness as you contemptuously imagined we might. We're straying from the path of salvation for love of the world, as you never once dreamed in a thousand years of dreaming.