theatrical_muse #186: Religion
It's just a belief, that's all, that's all you tell yourself. It's all you'll allow.
Oh, you believe in Time, Pain, and Death, certainly. They rule the universe and the very fabric of it. Not as personifications, of course, nothing to be worshipped, but they exist nevertheless.
And Rassilon, well, met the bloke, didn't think much of him. Maybe brilliant, but you know he was nothing more than just a man.
You stopped believing in Death after the first regeneration. As a child, you had visions of a chatty young thing with a shock of white hair and soft, understanding eyes. Together you would dance and dance, and she would laugh, and then she would vanish, and you would be new. Instead, you are crippled and old, and you can feel your weak hearts slow, and then you feel nothing, and then you feel everything, and then you are someone else. It was not the beauty they had always said it was, the kind you believed, even after you grew old enough to know better than think an angelic maiden would really dance with you. It, instead of she, was not beautiful and only led to...
Pain, you came to learn, was nothing more than nerve endings firing and a dull ache in your hearts and in your mind. There was no power behind it, no mystical force of some kind. It was simple physiology and psychology, and it was because of the person, the events, the emotions. Oh, it stayed, for far too long, and it sometimes wore the colour of red, but you stopped thinking that an old wretch of a woman could possibly be behind the scientifically explainable. It, instead of she, almost never got better with...
Time is not kind to anyone, and though it can be striking, and much can be learned from it, you, too, understood that the wonderful mother that she was portrayed as was nothing more than a story. Time kills. Why doesn't time love? Why does Time feed Pain and Death? Why do you question how long you have to live and the travel back and forth you do? Time was not wise in and of itself. It, instead of she, just was.
Every now and then, though, you like to think she is more than a story, and the silver of her dress ebbs and flows and sings you to sleep. You always did like her the best.
Your faith in Time, Pain, and Death had been shaky long before, but if there was one specific time, just one you had to choose, when any faith in them was lost, it was during the War. You never worshipped harder than then, along with the rest of the men, the women, the boys and the girls, the scientists and soldiers, scared to death on the battlefields. They were fair, above all else, and what was fair about this? They let the universe continue in its circle, life and death and everything else. What was fair about destroying the ones who loved them?
You've heard the Human arguments before, and from other species. How could a just and loving god do something or other? It always stupefied you, but you know, now. You understand, now. No gods could exist.
And it wasn't fair to think that there was a being or beings beyond the universe playing with it all. You don't believe in fate. You once believed in destiny, when you and your best mate stared at the stars before the first sun came up and he would speak of greater things. He would speak of callings and of the knowledge--no, the faith, that was all it was--that the both of you would do something remarkable. You liked his thoughts. Until they became a twisted reality. You cannot comprehend the thought of everything in your life and the lives of all others being decided or influenced by higher powers. Free choice. If nobody could choose, then what was the point of it all?
You've never bought into miracles. People do the most amazing things themselves.
Just people in the dark, in the end, that's all everyone is. You've met gods, demi-gods, the ones that claim to be god, the ones that have powers similar to a god, but you don't have to believe in any of them. And you don't. That's what brings them down. If nobody believes, then what are they? Showoffs.
You've become more Human now. Replaced the name Rassilon (you never liked using it anyway) with god. Maybe you're a blasphemer. That wouldn't be a very new description of you. You've sinned in every religion you can think of (and even some you can't, you know). You might even be the demon in a few of them.
Sinners and saints. You can't tell the difference anymore.
Gods and demons never appealed to you much. The question of whether they were what they claimed they were isn't a fun one to ponder, so you just don't. You accept that they exist, these beings of power, but you never accept what they mean. Something so powerful, it created the universe. Something with power over love, over war, over good, over evil. Something beyond all laws of the universe (something beyond Time, Pain, and Death). That was the stuff made of mythology.
You've even been called a god, whether it was in mocking or by someone so awed by you that that is the only comparison they can make. You don't like playing god. You never did, and you've told yourself that you never will again, not after what you have done.
What constitutes a god? What if you were? What if, in that one moment, you were god, with the power of life and death, time and space--does that mean, being the last, you still are? You're not to be worshipped.
You'd make a very bad god, you know.
As for faith, well, you know that everyone has faith of some kind. In themselves. In another. In a football team. In a product. In the universe. In a god. Everybody has faith. And that's good. Faith's always a good thing to have. Faith is power.
And an afterlife, to you, never made sense. To others, yes, but to a Time Lord? It wasn't needed. You have life after life after life. Why extend it to another realm when the final death comes? What's the point in saying the good go here and the bad go there? Or the neutral place afterward? Or the nothingness. Or the purgatory. Or the higher plane of existence. Or anything any religion preached. It's all pointless to you. You don’t know what, if anything, is there, and you don’t much think about it. It’ll come soon enough.
Religion, even, at times, seems pointless to you, but you're smart enough to know and understand the sheer force the ideas have.
The rest is just belief. Theories, basically, only not based on science. You've got your own theories, your own rules that you live by. Does that make you religious? Is science a religion? Does it even matter?
In the end, what you believe doesn't matter. It never has, because that's all it is, and that's all you'll allow.
Oh, you believe in Time, Pain, and Death, certainly. They rule the universe and the very fabric of it. Not as personifications, of course, nothing to be worshipped, but they exist nevertheless.
And Rassilon, well, met the bloke, didn't think much of him. Maybe brilliant, but you know he was nothing more than just a man.
You stopped believing in Death after the first regeneration. As a child, you had visions of a chatty young thing with a shock of white hair and soft, understanding eyes. Together you would dance and dance, and she would laugh, and then she would vanish, and you would be new. Instead, you are crippled and old, and you can feel your weak hearts slow, and then you feel nothing, and then you feel everything, and then you are someone else. It was not the beauty they had always said it was, the kind you believed, even after you grew old enough to know better than think an angelic maiden would really dance with you. It, instead of she, was not beautiful and only led to...
Pain, you came to learn, was nothing more than nerve endings firing and a dull ache in your hearts and in your mind. There was no power behind it, no mystical force of some kind. It was simple physiology and psychology, and it was because of the person, the events, the emotions. Oh, it stayed, for far too long, and it sometimes wore the colour of red, but you stopped thinking that an old wretch of a woman could possibly be behind the scientifically explainable. It, instead of she, almost never got better with...
Time is not kind to anyone, and though it can be striking, and much can be learned from it, you, too, understood that the wonderful mother that she was portrayed as was nothing more than a story. Time kills. Why doesn't time love? Why does Time feed Pain and Death? Why do you question how long you have to live and the travel back and forth you do? Time was not wise in and of itself. It, instead of she, just was.
Every now and then, though, you like to think she is more than a story, and the silver of her dress ebbs and flows and sings you to sleep. You always did like her the best.
Your faith in Time, Pain, and Death had been shaky long before, but if there was one specific time, just one you had to choose, when any faith in them was lost, it was during the War. You never worshipped harder than then, along with the rest of the men, the women, the boys and the girls, the scientists and soldiers, scared to death on the battlefields. They were fair, above all else, and what was fair about this? They let the universe continue in its circle, life and death and everything else. What was fair about destroying the ones who loved them?
You've heard the Human arguments before, and from other species. How could a just and loving god do something or other? It always stupefied you, but you know, now. You understand, now. No gods could exist.
And it wasn't fair to think that there was a being or beings beyond the universe playing with it all. You don't believe in fate. You once believed in destiny, when you and your best mate stared at the stars before the first sun came up and he would speak of greater things. He would speak of callings and of the knowledge--no, the faith, that was all it was--that the both of you would do something remarkable. You liked his thoughts. Until they became a twisted reality. You cannot comprehend the thought of everything in your life and the lives of all others being decided or influenced by higher powers. Free choice. If nobody could choose, then what was the point of it all?
You've never bought into miracles. People do the most amazing things themselves.
Just people in the dark, in the end, that's all everyone is. You've met gods, demi-gods, the ones that claim to be god, the ones that have powers similar to a god, but you don't have to believe in any of them. And you don't. That's what brings them down. If nobody believes, then what are they? Showoffs.
You've become more Human now. Replaced the name Rassilon (you never liked using it anyway) with god. Maybe you're a blasphemer. That wouldn't be a very new description of you. You've sinned in every religion you can think of (and even some you can't, you know). You might even be the demon in a few of them.
Sinners and saints. You can't tell the difference anymore.
Gods and demons never appealed to you much. The question of whether they were what they claimed they were isn't a fun one to ponder, so you just don't. You accept that they exist, these beings of power, but you never accept what they mean. Something so powerful, it created the universe. Something with power over love, over war, over good, over evil. Something beyond all laws of the universe (something beyond Time, Pain, and Death). That was the stuff made of mythology.
You've even been called a god, whether it was in mocking or by someone so awed by you that that is the only comparison they can make. You don't like playing god. You never did, and you've told yourself that you never will again, not after what you have done.
What constitutes a god? What if you were? What if, in that one moment, you were god, with the power of life and death, time and space--does that mean, being the last, you still are? You're not to be worshipped.
You'd make a very bad god, you know.
As for faith, well, you know that everyone has faith of some kind. In themselves. In another. In a football team. In a product. In the universe. In a god. Everybody has faith. And that's good. Faith's always a good thing to have. Faith is power.
And an afterlife, to you, never made sense. To others, yes, but to a Time Lord? It wasn't needed. You have life after life after life. Why extend it to another realm when the final death comes? What's the point in saying the good go here and the bad go there? Or the neutral place afterward? Or the nothingness. Or the purgatory. Or the higher plane of existence. Or anything any religion preached. It's all pointless to you. You don’t know what, if anything, is there, and you don’t much think about it. It’ll come soon enough.
Religion, even, at times, seems pointless to you, but you're smart enough to know and understand the sheer force the ideas have.
The rest is just belief. Theories, basically, only not based on science. You've got your own theories, your own rules that you live by. Does that make you religious? Is science a religion? Does it even matter?
In the end, what you believe doesn't matter. It never has, because that's all it is, and that's all you'll allow.