Oh, the philosophic musings of teenagers...
Right.
Remember ages ago, there was that writer's block prompt about how your siblings affect your life? And I said you wouldn't be anything like the person you are now? Well, I was talking to my mum when we went a-walking (brrr, all snowy and windy *grimace*) and we somehow got onto the subject (it had something to do with the Daily Mail and its crapness, I seem to recall, and something to do with stressing over the art exam next Tuesday, which I'm actually NOT stressed about, because yay, six hours of nothing but drawing, and I think this parenthesis is getting far too long).
So, anyway, we were talking about how much my family have affected the person I am. Like, I copy my big sister, my social and academic life are deeply influenced by my twin, my moral and political beliefs are partly taken from my parents by a combination of osmosis and discussion, and so on. And from there we come to 'how different would I be if I was adopted at birth by (for the sake of argument) two childless French conservatives?' If every element of my life were different, how much of who I am would be the same? I thought maybe I would have the same urge to make people happy, but would I? Did I get that from my parents or my family, or was it programmed into me at birth? And if it was pre-programmed, how much of that could be genetic?
So, obviously, from 'adopted at birth', we go to 'different parents'. How different would I be again were I born to the theoretical French parents, as opposed to being adopted at birth? Babies show distinct personalities, but even then, perhaps more so, they are already recieving signals from the people around them, from before the birth. Or it could be genetic. Either way, being born to different parents in a different place should then change the way the personality develops. So what, if anything, about my personality would remain the same?
Which, in turn, leads us onto 'is there such a thing as a soul'? I'd like to think there is, but if so, how much does it affect us? My sister, I later found, thinks not much. She says it's nothing more than primal life force. But my mother and I believe that if there is a soul, although there is a tendency to portray it as static and unchanging, is actually mutable and in a state of constant change, whether growth or regression.
This, of course, takes us to the tricky subject of reincarnation and karma. Clearly, this philosophy is based on an idea of the soul being mutable, since the ultimate purpose of Hinduism and Buddhism is to achieve nirvana (or samsara in the case of Hindus). So the soul grows and changes, and the way my soul is now would be totally different to how it will be next time I am reborn (if I am). The thing is, if the ultimate goal is total detachment and living for the moment, then the way we are taught about reincarnation at a school level would seem to be totally erroneous.
At primary school, we learn being bad in this life=tree. Good in this life, hey, you get to be human. The concept of nirvana, being rather difficult, isn't even touched on until secondary education. But this is a very homocentric veiw, especially since humanity is a bloody long way off total detachment. Even when we're thinking of nothing, our brains are buzzing. It takes years of training to switch this off, even briefly. So I don't think we're quite ready for nirvana yet. The way I see it, we're sort of halfway there. We're probably closer to nirvana than a mouse or another small prey animal, but it's a lot easier to imagine the leap between a tree and nirvana (although, of course, a tree may think even more than a human, just on a dfferent timescale).
This begs the question; among humans, which are, after all, imperfect, who is closer to nirvana (excluding holy men, although the poor Dalai Lama has no chance, since his political responsibilities definitely make it hard to live for the moment)? Is it the men in their ivory towers, forever worrying about tomorrow? The woman who cleans the toilet in Tesco's, who'll clean toilets all day then go to the pub or watch telly? The middle-class teenager worrying about love and exams (*points at self*)?
And henceforth, we talk about religion. This came from "consider the lilies in the fields". We chatted about Jesus, and Mohammed, and Buddha.
And I came to a conclusion.
I would happily call myself a Christian, if there was no Church hierachy and no corruption. Think of Jesus turning the moneylenders from the temple. Meditate on his "easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle". He never said "Don't do this or you will go to Hell", he said "do this and you have a better chance of getting into Heaven". He said "the sheep will be seperated from the goats", he never said "you are a goat and there's nothing you can do about it". For that matter, he never said "only Christians get to go to Heaven", I think. In short, the Church is what stops me being Christian. I agree with the teachings of Christ, even if I don't believe he was God's son.
I would just as happily call myself a Hindu, or a Muslim, or a Jew, or a Wiccan, or a Jainist, or anything, really. I believe elements of all those religions. I just have a Thing about organised religions, I think.
And on that note, happy Zombie Jesus weekend from this particular Pastafarian Buddhist Quaker.
Remember ages ago, there was that writer's block prompt about how your siblings affect your life? And I said you wouldn't be anything like the person you are now? Well, I was talking to my mum when we went a-walking (brrr, all snowy and windy *grimace*) and we somehow got onto the subject (it had something to do with the Daily Mail and its crapness, I seem to recall, and something to do with stressing over the art exam next Tuesday, which I'm actually NOT stressed about, because yay, six hours of nothing but drawing, and I think this parenthesis is getting far too long).
So, anyway, we were talking about how much my family have affected the person I am. Like, I copy my big sister, my social and academic life are deeply influenced by my twin, my moral and political beliefs are partly taken from my parents by a combination of osmosis and discussion, and so on. And from there we come to 'how different would I be if I was adopted at birth by (for the sake of argument) two childless French conservatives?' If every element of my life were different, how much of who I am would be the same? I thought maybe I would have the same urge to make people happy, but would I? Did I get that from my parents or my family, or was it programmed into me at birth? And if it was pre-programmed, how much of that could be genetic?
So, obviously, from 'adopted at birth', we go to 'different parents'. How different would I be again were I born to the theoretical French parents, as opposed to being adopted at birth? Babies show distinct personalities, but even then, perhaps more so, they are already recieving signals from the people around them, from before the birth. Or it could be genetic. Either way, being born to different parents in a different place should then change the way the personality develops. So what, if anything, about my personality would remain the same?
Which, in turn, leads us onto 'is there such a thing as a soul'? I'd like to think there is, but if so, how much does it affect us? My sister, I later found, thinks not much. She says it's nothing more than primal life force. But my mother and I believe that if there is a soul, although there is a tendency to portray it as static and unchanging, is actually mutable and in a state of constant change, whether growth or regression.
This, of course, takes us to the tricky subject of reincarnation and karma. Clearly, this philosophy is based on an idea of the soul being mutable, since the ultimate purpose of Hinduism and Buddhism is to achieve nirvana (or samsara in the case of Hindus). So the soul grows and changes, and the way my soul is now would be totally different to how it will be next time I am reborn (if I am). The thing is, if the ultimate goal is total detachment and living for the moment, then the way we are taught about reincarnation at a school level would seem to be totally erroneous.
At primary school, we learn being bad in this life=tree. Good in this life, hey, you get to be human. The concept of nirvana, being rather difficult, isn't even touched on until secondary education. But this is a very homocentric veiw, especially since humanity is a bloody long way off total detachment. Even when we're thinking of nothing, our brains are buzzing. It takes years of training to switch this off, even briefly. So I don't think we're quite ready for nirvana yet. The way I see it, we're sort of halfway there. We're probably closer to nirvana than a mouse or another small prey animal, but it's a lot easier to imagine the leap between a tree and nirvana (although, of course, a tree may think even more than a human, just on a dfferent timescale).
This begs the question; among humans, which are, after all, imperfect, who is closer to nirvana (excluding holy men, although the poor Dalai Lama has no chance, since his political responsibilities definitely make it hard to live for the moment)? Is it the men in their ivory towers, forever worrying about tomorrow? The woman who cleans the toilet in Tesco's, who'll clean toilets all day then go to the pub or watch telly? The middle-class teenager worrying about love and exams (*points at self*)?
And henceforth, we talk about religion. This came from "consider the lilies in the fields". We chatted about Jesus, and Mohammed, and Buddha.
And I came to a conclusion.
I would happily call myself a Christian, if there was no Church hierachy and no corruption. Think of Jesus turning the moneylenders from the temple. Meditate on his "easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle". He never said "Don't do this or you will go to Hell", he said "do this and you have a better chance of getting into Heaven". He said "the sheep will be seperated from the goats", he never said "you are a goat and there's nothing you can do about it". For that matter, he never said "only Christians get to go to Heaven", I think. In short, the Church is what stops me being Christian. I agree with the teachings of Christ, even if I don't believe he was God's son.
I would just as happily call myself a Hindu, or a Muslim, or a Jew, or a Wiccan, or a Jainist, or anything, really. I believe elements of all those religions. I just have a Thing about organised religions, I think.
And on that note, happy Zombie Jesus weekend from this particular Pastafarian Buddhist Quaker.