jchrisobrien (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
jchrisobrien) wrote2002-02-15 03:37 pm
jchrisobrien) wrote2002-02-15 03:37 pm
F day
I'm starting a new tradition, where I pick a word starting with F and talk about it on Fridays. Last week I chose flirt. This week's contestant? Faith.
read on...
I look at faith mostly in a religious sense: faith in God, faith in your religion of choice. A lot of people talked about their faith and beliefs in a series of posts recently. Common among them was a rejection of organized religion for a more free form, personalized spirituality. The details of such a belief were pretty vague and far between. This seems to fly in the face of reason to me. I have a hard time accepting a religion or belief system without rules or rituals. Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism. All of the major world religions have a belief structure, hierarchy of sorts, a mythology. They are a spiritual discipline, through which you can achieve a relationship with God. Modern spiritualism seeks to cut that all away in favor of a personal relationship unclouded by rules or dogma. But it sounds like a cop out to me, no offense. Faith isn't easy, its hard. It's painful at times. It's accepting that sometimes bad things happen to good people. That your grandfather gets killed in a car crash and a serial rapist walks free. That you aren't at the center of the universe, that things will happen that you can't understand and you can't hold anyone accountable for it. People have wrestled with concepts of good and evil, God or no God, from the beginning of time, and will still be debating it when the universe ends. No answers will be coming. Nothing that doesn't require you to make a leap beyond logic at some point. Nothing that doesn't require faith in the end to solve.
All that being said, I think my faith is pretty eroded these days. Too much time away from the Church, perhaps. Too much time not thinking about it. Too much time considering every side of the issue, and then getting paralyzed while I sit on the fence. Impaled on it, in the end. The realization that your religion may be nothing more real than the stories of Zeus or Ra. I hit me the most when I started doubting the existence of an afterlife. That sudden sinking feeling that there would be no reward for living a good life in the end, for enduring the trials and tribulations and injustices we face every day. And oddly, there would be no punishment for my crimes, if I chose to commit them. I could do whatever I wanted, and only be accountable to natural and federal law.
It crushed me. Because if good and evil and morals are all just fabrications, then why follow any one over the other? Why follow them at all? We would just be living a lie, pretending to be something other than what we are: animals. Beasts.
But I guess I don't really think that. Because somewhere in my core is still the belief, drilled in by many years of church and catholic school, and later process and accepted by myself, in the hope of something better. That something is out there, that we can draw strength from, or comfort. And even if it isn't there, our belief, our faith, can make it so. You can will God into existence... or out of it.
All right, this is starting to sound like a Mage game discussion, so I'm ending it here.
read on...
I look at faith mostly in a religious sense: faith in God, faith in your religion of choice. A lot of people talked about their faith and beliefs in a series of posts recently. Common among them was a rejection of organized religion for a more free form, personalized spirituality. The details of such a belief were pretty vague and far between. This seems to fly in the face of reason to me. I have a hard time accepting a religion or belief system without rules or rituals. Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism. All of the major world religions have a belief structure, hierarchy of sorts, a mythology. They are a spiritual discipline, through which you can achieve a relationship with God. Modern spiritualism seeks to cut that all away in favor of a personal relationship unclouded by rules or dogma. But it sounds like a cop out to me, no offense. Faith isn't easy, its hard. It's painful at times. It's accepting that sometimes bad things happen to good people. That your grandfather gets killed in a car crash and a serial rapist walks free. That you aren't at the center of the universe, that things will happen that you can't understand and you can't hold anyone accountable for it. People have wrestled with concepts of good and evil, God or no God, from the beginning of time, and will still be debating it when the universe ends. No answers will be coming. Nothing that doesn't require you to make a leap beyond logic at some point. Nothing that doesn't require faith in the end to solve.
All that being said, I think my faith is pretty eroded these days. Too much time away from the Church, perhaps. Too much time not thinking about it. Too much time considering every side of the issue, and then getting paralyzed while I sit on the fence. Impaled on it, in the end. The realization that your religion may be nothing more real than the stories of Zeus or Ra. I hit me the most when I started doubting the existence of an afterlife. That sudden sinking feeling that there would be no reward for living a good life in the end, for enduring the trials and tribulations and injustices we face every day. And oddly, there would be no punishment for my crimes, if I chose to commit them. I could do whatever I wanted, and only be accountable to natural and federal law.
It crushed me. Because if good and evil and morals are all just fabrications, then why follow any one over the other? Why follow them at all? We would just be living a lie, pretending to be something other than what we are: animals. Beasts.
But I guess I don't really think that. Because somewhere in my core is still the belief, drilled in by many years of church and catholic school, and later process and accepted by myself, in the hope of something better. That something is out there, that we can draw strength from, or comfort. And even if it isn't there, our belief, our faith, can make it so. You can will God into existence... or out of it.
All right, this is starting to sound like a Mage game discussion, so I'm ending it here.
Re: you know....
It's why I occasionally get twitchy when I see Christian bashing go on on list. I know it's not directed at me, that the people getting bashed most often deserve it... but the sweeping generalizations irk me.
Re: you know....
somehow, when i think of the idea of religion coming up, adn someone becoming uncomfortable, i usually think of it being the other way around - with the non-religious person as the one secretly squirming.
this is probably because that person is me, and since all the squirming is secret you never realize it's going on on the other side as well.
this actually came up in my playwriting class today. while i'm sure there are people of various religions in all sorts of my classes, it seems the poetry- and play-writing classes in particular draw people who really, really like to talk about christianity. while i understand that religion can play a major part in people's lives, it starts to disturb me when these kids show up and everything they write involves the judeo-christian god, or jesus, or a church, or the same tired and over-used "christian themes" that showed up in all the stories they read LittleMe in sunday school...i start wondering why there's nothing else in their lives that's worth writing about. the whole topic makes me a little uncomfortable, mostly because i don't know how to respond or relate to it. it's something not only outside my life and experience, but something i don't even want to be a part of. unlike other cultural differences (which i tend to find really interesting and like talking about), the religion one is one i just like to avoid...i think it's mostly the condemnation and threat-of-conversion-attempts. i mean, i've certainly never been told that i have to, say, become Asian or face eternal damnation :P
Re: you know....
It just saddens me to hear people debase Christianity. Not that they don't have good reasons all the time, but it's easy to forget that not everyone who follows a given faith follows it lock, stock, and barrel. Does it make me a bad Christian for now following the Church on everything? I don't think so. Jesus was a Jew, who was disgusted with what the Jewish faith had become (or so it is written). So I think there is room for a Christian who follows what he believes to be right, but not what the hierarchy says is. That being said, people have a right to air their complaints, and if the comments aren't directed at me, I shouldn't let them affect me. After all, I'm not an asshole. :)
It is interesting that even in groups of tolerant, "open minded" people, we still mock and revile other groups (Republicans, Catholics, etc). If we were really open minded, wouldn't we allow everyone their say?