What if God was none of us?
During a recent time of weakness (and vulnerability), I found myself almost pleading to god in the same way I would have done many years ago. It wasn't a conscience "time to pray for help" kind of thing, more of a knee-jerk reaction to those dark moments we all experience from time to time when things get rough.
A devout christian would no doubt interpret this knee-jerk reaction as a sign that, despite all my posturing and pleading to intellectualism and science, I'm really a man of faith after all....and I should view this as a sign that I should embrace the church which I so eagerly (and somewhat publicly) renounced in recent years. Indeed, if I heard of someone else doing that when I was...say....20 years old, I would be saying the same thing.
However, nowadays I'm a thinking, rational person, and the devout christian's outlook is as laughable as it is insulting. Here's what I take of this recent (for lack of a better word) revelation. I can now understand the tremendous susceptability to belief in God/religion when one feels weak, scared, or insecure. Here is a brief personal history describing my trend towards godlessness:
Grade 12: A teacher (in the catholic school system) casually introduced me (and the class) to the concept of "Fearing God". Naturally, my pissy, 18-year old self-righteousness jabbed in with incredulity and totally missing the point of the concept, as I wondered why a loving God wants us to fear him, but it planted the seed of agnosticism nonetheless.
Fanshawe College, ages 19-21: Having taken a philosophy course, and embraced eastern philosophy, the monotheism which I was indoctinated in began to be exposed for the falsehoods and various degrees of arrogance which landed me firmly into the agnostic camp (which is a difficult camp to be firm in, to be sure....or unsure).
Trent, ages 25-28: Here, I was introduced with more advanced concepts of the scientific method then I was previously aware of. Without having the mental faculties neccessary to study "science", I still am able to approach topics with a more rational, fact-based scientific approach, and the whole "god" question became more and more difficult to buy into. Near the end of my 2nd year, I decided that I didn't care if there was a god or not, as it had no bearing on my life whatsoever. Having accepted this, it was like a huge weight of my mind, and my conscience. It was more difficult to be an atheist than a man of faith because I had no recourse - no emotional safety net where a figure would love me and accept me no matter what. However, it was immensely rewarding because without the safety net, I came to accept that my future is dictated by my actions, not by how much I pray, go to church, or prostrate myself. If shit goes wrong, its because I fucked up in some way or another....not because of some etheral punishment from above and beyond....I had no one to blame/credit but myself, and it's fucking great!
Tonight though, my unfaith was momentarily shaken, and I think it says a lot about the painkilling effect of god/religion. While I consider myself a rational person, I'm still human, and I have moments of weakness. In my moment of weakness, at least this one time, I knee-jerked to my old ways that have been programed in me since infancy: The idea that god will always be there for me. I can't handle that sort of skirting of responsibility and cause/effect. I don't care if this makes me look like the most ego-maniac on livejournal, but I'm smarter than I was before, and I'm smarter than religion. I don't regret the knee-jerk (because you can't regret a basic reflex), but rather I'm pleased with the revelation it afforded me by accident: The fearful and ignorant are drawn to religion.
This is not to say that religious people are scared little baby-morons, but rather that religion offers a comforting way out for people unaccustomed to thinking for themselves, and taking comfort in their own ability to ration out problems without the painkiller that is God, religion, the Bible, the koran et. al. To paraphrase the only truly GREAT American president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, "I'm not saying that all religious people are stupid, but if you're stupid, chances are you're religious"
Again, I really don't care if anyone gets offended by this entry, nor if people think I'm king-ego. It's my journal, and I'll write what I want, dammit.
A devout christian would no doubt interpret this knee-jerk reaction as a sign that, despite all my posturing and pleading to intellectualism and science, I'm really a man of faith after all....and I should view this as a sign that I should embrace the church which I so eagerly (and somewhat publicly) renounced in recent years. Indeed, if I heard of someone else doing that when I was...say....20 years old, I would be saying the same thing.
However, nowadays I'm a thinking, rational person, and the devout christian's outlook is as laughable as it is insulting. Here's what I take of this recent (for lack of a better word) revelation. I can now understand the tremendous susceptability to belief in God/religion when one feels weak, scared, or insecure. Here is a brief personal history describing my trend towards godlessness:
Grade 12: A teacher (in the catholic school system) casually introduced me (and the class) to the concept of "Fearing God". Naturally, my pissy, 18-year old self-righteousness jabbed in with incredulity and totally missing the point of the concept, as I wondered why a loving God wants us to fear him, but it planted the seed of agnosticism nonetheless.
Fanshawe College, ages 19-21: Having taken a philosophy course, and embraced eastern philosophy, the monotheism which I was indoctinated in began to be exposed for the falsehoods and various degrees of arrogance which landed me firmly into the agnostic camp (which is a difficult camp to be firm in, to be sure....or unsure).
Trent, ages 25-28: Here, I was introduced with more advanced concepts of the scientific method then I was previously aware of. Without having the mental faculties neccessary to study "science", I still am able to approach topics with a more rational, fact-based scientific approach, and the whole "god" question became more and more difficult to buy into. Near the end of my 2nd year, I decided that I didn't care if there was a god or not, as it had no bearing on my life whatsoever. Having accepted this, it was like a huge weight of my mind, and my conscience. It was more difficult to be an atheist than a man of faith because I had no recourse - no emotional safety net where a figure would love me and accept me no matter what. However, it was immensely rewarding because without the safety net, I came to accept that my future is dictated by my actions, not by how much I pray, go to church, or prostrate myself. If shit goes wrong, its because I fucked up in some way or another....not because of some etheral punishment from above and beyond....I had no one to blame/credit but myself, and it's fucking great!
Tonight though, my unfaith was momentarily shaken, and I think it says a lot about the painkilling effect of god/religion. While I consider myself a rational person, I'm still human, and I have moments of weakness. In my moment of weakness, at least this one time, I knee-jerked to my old ways that have been programed in me since infancy: The idea that god will always be there for me. I can't handle that sort of skirting of responsibility and cause/effect. I don't care if this makes me look like the most ego-maniac on livejournal, but I'm smarter than I was before, and I'm smarter than religion. I don't regret the knee-jerk (because you can't regret a basic reflex), but rather I'm pleased with the revelation it afforded me by accident: The fearful and ignorant are drawn to religion.
This is not to say that religious people are scared little baby-morons, but rather that religion offers a comforting way out for people unaccustomed to thinking for themselves, and taking comfort in their own ability to ration out problems without the painkiller that is God, religion, the Bible, the koran et. al. To paraphrase the only truly GREAT American president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, "I'm not saying that all religious people are stupid, but if you're stupid, chances are you're religious"
Again, I really don't care if anyone gets offended by this entry, nor if people think I'm king-ego. It's my journal, and I'll write what I want, dammit.