cogito ergo sum
My English paper was a narrative essay, about all the shit that happened to me this summer, and, because of it, I gained a new perspective on life and learned a lot about my identity. On the day it was turned in, there was a final peer review. I traded with the girl next to me, and was stunned, as I read and discover that her thesis and conclusion is a near replica of mine. Eventually, as I continued, I stumbled across the part telling how she "found Jesus Christ", and her "trust in God" helped her through hard times and led her to find herself. At that moment it occurred to me that she had, or would soon, read(from my paper):
"Faced with this feeling of emptiness, I began pondering about what I know and believe. I had denounced Christianity in the past, but decided it definitely was not benefiting me now, so I went even further and began raising questions. -For one, if every religion preaches righteousness then who is wrong? It allowed me to enter thought not simply as a non-believer, but instead as if I had never heard of religion at all."
The thought of it now, makes me laugh, but, at that time...well, I had to keep from laughing then, too. She didn't seem to find it very funny, but we both found it ironic. The fact that she experienced, in a way, the same thing, merely with different explanations, just supports my beliefs even more; on the other hand, she may be thinking the exact opposite. I don't hold anything against people who have faith in religion; if religion can give someone support, and they're happy with their life, good for them. I'm just sick of people who use "God" as a vice for everyday occurrances; I think as human beings, we can be better than that. People sounded rather foolish before the Enlightenment, all because a few people started giving a second thought, and... Oh wait! Uncle Jerry wasn't being punished by God, it was lung cancer! Ah man...the whole time, silly me! Everyday I listen to advertisements, but I don't "listen" to them and GO BUY A CAR AT HALL MAZDA RIGHT NOW, but I'd be crazy not to considering there's NO DOWN PAYMENT AND 0.00% FINANCING! So why should I listen to the reason why people speak different languages is because, once upon a time, in a special place no one has record of, a whole bunch of God's people decided they loved God sooooo much that they wanted to meet him. "That's a great idea," said Billy Babel, "but how will we ever get that high in the sky?" So they thought and thought and thought, until one day Billy had an idea, "Hey everybody, let's build a big tower!" Everyone thought it was the bestest idea in the whole wide world, HOORAY! They decided to name it after Billy since it was his idea, and called it the tower of Babel, and they all started building. They were almost finished, and the tower was SO BIG that God noticed what they were doing! This made God ver-wee mad! He decided he had to stop them! But how? So God thought and thought and thought, and then one day... "Oh I know! If I make everyone speak a different language, they won't be able to talk to each other and won't be able to keep building!", said God. So, the next day, God woke up really early, before anyone was awake, and he cast THE MAGIC SPELL OF A THOUSAND LANGUAGES, because surely there were less than a thousand people that knew about this great tower. God's people woke up the next day, and all of a sudden they forgot how to speak Arabic! They were all so confused, instead of using pictures or finding some unheard of way to translate what they were all saying, they gave up and decided it would be too hard and they didn't want to make God mad again anyways, so they all went separate ways. Then once no one was looking, God made the tower of Babel disappear, and it was never heard of again. The End.
Boy, that sure was a great story, huh kids? We better write it down, so that way, no one gets a CRAZY idea like building a rocket ship and flying all the way to outer space, or God will make them speak different languages all over again. Shucks, I guess we'll never get to land on the moon forever!
"Faced with this feeling of emptiness, I began pondering about what I know and believe. I had denounced Christianity in the past, but decided it definitely was not benefiting me now, so I went even further and began raising questions. -For one, if every religion preaches righteousness then who is wrong? It allowed me to enter thought not simply as a non-believer, but instead as if I had never heard of religion at all."
The thought of it now, makes me laugh, but, at that time...well, I had to keep from laughing then, too. She didn't seem to find it very funny, but we both found it ironic. The fact that she experienced, in a way, the same thing, merely with different explanations, just supports my beliefs even more; on the other hand, she may be thinking the exact opposite. I don't hold anything against people who have faith in religion; if religion can give someone support, and they're happy with their life, good for them. I'm just sick of people who use "God" as a vice for everyday occurrances; I think as human beings, we can be better than that. People sounded rather foolish before the Enlightenment, all because a few people started giving a second thought, and... Oh wait! Uncle Jerry wasn't being punished by God, it was lung cancer! Ah man...the whole time, silly me! Everyday I listen to advertisements, but I don't "listen" to them and GO BUY A CAR AT HALL MAZDA RIGHT NOW, but I'd be crazy not to considering there's NO DOWN PAYMENT AND 0.00% FINANCING! So why should I listen to the reason why people speak different languages is because, once upon a time, in a special place no one has record of, a whole bunch of God's people decided they loved God sooooo much that they wanted to meet him. "That's a great idea," said Billy Babel, "but how will we ever get that high in the sky?" So they thought and thought and thought, until one day Billy had an idea, "Hey everybody, let's build a big tower!" Everyone thought it was the bestest idea in the whole wide world, HOORAY! They decided to name it after Billy since it was his idea, and called it the tower of Babel, and they all started building. They were almost finished, and the tower was SO BIG that God noticed what they were doing! This made God ver-wee mad! He decided he had to stop them! But how? So God thought and thought and thought, and then one day... "Oh I know! If I make everyone speak a different language, they won't be able to talk to each other and won't be able to keep building!", said God. So, the next day, God woke up really early, before anyone was awake, and he cast THE MAGIC SPELL OF A THOUSAND LANGUAGES, because surely there were less than a thousand people that knew about this great tower. God's people woke up the next day, and all of a sudden they forgot how to speak Arabic! They were all so confused, instead of using pictures or finding some unheard of way to translate what they were all saying, they gave up and decided it would be too hard and they didn't want to make God mad again anyways, so they all went separate ways. Then once no one was looking, God made the tower of Babel disappear, and it was never heard of again. The End.
Boy, that sure was a great story, huh kids? We better write it down, so that way, no one gets a CRAZY idea like building a rocket ship and flying all the way to outer space, or God will make them speak different languages all over again. Shucks, I guess we'll never get to land on the moon forever!