Rebellious
Feb. 8th, 2009 09:31 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
poliphiloWe're not going to church today. There's still ice on the ground- and Ailz is afraid of falling- or of me losing control of the wheelchair on the hill.
Isn't it odd? I've been going to church for just over a month- and already I see it as some sort of an obligation. Do I think God will be angry if I don't go? Well, maybe, because that's how I thought as a child and we never entirely shrug off such things. Of course with my upper- adult- mind I scorn the idea. Why I don't even believe in God.
So why am I going at all? Is it because I feel I owe it to the people?
Here's something I haven't written about yet- or only hinted at. It's about feeling the need to choose sides. I've been getting increasingly annoyed over the past few years with what I see as the largely mindless embrace of atheistic materialism by the intelligentsia, the commentariat, by the sort of people who set the tone in our world. I don't mean David Attenborough- because his atheism is clearly part of a well-articulated, Darwinian world-view. I mean journalists, reviewers, comedians, actors- that sort of cannaille. They haven't thought things through or considered the evidence- how could they when they're so busy with their careers?- they're merely conforming to the fashionable philosophy of the day. They make me cross.
And rebellious.
Yes, I believe in ghosts/fairies/aliens/angels. Why not? Show me the evidence that they don't exist. In a quantum universe where over 90% of the matter that must exist is invisible to us I don't see how anything can be ruled out as too far-fetched.
The materialists are still working with a mid-nineteenth century model of the universe.
"What do you believe in, Johnny?"
"Whaddaya got?"
Anyway, that's one of the many reasons I'm going to church- to take my stand alongside the believers- even though their beliefs are not exactly mine.
Oh, and another thing I believe in is intelligent design. Not Genesis, not the Biblical account- which is plainly myth- but in the possibility that evolution is a process set in motion and helped along by intelligence. Yes I know that's not science- and I don't care. I don't think science- with its dogmatically materialist,19th century guidelines - is capable of giving us a full account of the universe.
Isn't it odd? I've been going to church for just over a month- and already I see it as some sort of an obligation. Do I think God will be angry if I don't go? Well, maybe, because that's how I thought as a child and we never entirely shrug off such things. Of course with my upper- adult- mind I scorn the idea. Why I don't even believe in God.
So why am I going at all? Is it because I feel I owe it to the people?
Here's something I haven't written about yet- or only hinted at. It's about feeling the need to choose sides. I've been getting increasingly annoyed over the past few years with what I see as the largely mindless embrace of atheistic materialism by the intelligentsia, the commentariat, by the sort of people who set the tone in our world. I don't mean David Attenborough- because his atheism is clearly part of a well-articulated, Darwinian world-view. I mean journalists, reviewers, comedians, actors- that sort of cannaille. They haven't thought things through or considered the evidence- how could they when they're so busy with their careers?- they're merely conforming to the fashionable philosophy of the day. They make me cross.
And rebellious.
Yes, I believe in ghosts/fairies/aliens/angels. Why not? Show me the evidence that they don't exist. In a quantum universe where over 90% of the matter that must exist is invisible to us I don't see how anything can be ruled out as too far-fetched.
The materialists are still working with a mid-nineteenth century model of the universe.
"What do you believe in, Johnny?"
"Whaddaya got?"
Anyway, that's one of the many reasons I'm going to church- to take my stand alongside the believers- even though their beliefs are not exactly mine.
Oh, and another thing I believe in is intelligent design. Not Genesis, not the Biblical account- which is plainly myth- but in the possibility that evolution is a process set in motion and helped along by intelligence. Yes I know that's not science- and I don't care. I don't think science- with its dogmatically materialist,19th century guidelines - is capable of giving us a full account of the universe.
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no subject
Date: 2009-02-09 05:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-09 11:24 am (UTC)I love disagreeing too.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-09 01:43 pm (UTC)I must say that while I see abundant evidence for the Darwinian viewpoint, I see no evidence for God as represented in the world's religions at all. I see magical thinking, I see unsubstantiated assertion.... God always seems to me, either to loom like a bully, or is so very insubstantial that he is always a wisp out of reach.
His claims to benificence are , at best, arguable. He seems to have hearing problems, perhaps caused by the din of conflicting prayers.
I do see that it can motivate great works of art and great feats of kindness and unselfishness, but I think these extraordinary expressions have their origin in the human mind and imagination, as are the acts of cruelty and bigotry perpetrated so frequently in religion's name.
I see faith as a kind of wishful thinking. I don't claim to know everything I just don't see God lurking in the fog of in what I don't know.
I certainly don't have some idea of humanity as "supreme" in the universe ... I see it as part of nature, a part privileged and burdened by the rare gift of self-consciousness. I see this gift growing out of our evolutionary history and as coming with moral responsibilities of our own devising attached.
For me, (and I think I've explained to you my extremely negative experiences with theistic religion in the past), I think religion is like smoking, I have to avoid it or I might, to my detriment, relapse.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-10 02:15 pm (UTC)In the end I don't think it matters what we believe- except insofar as it influences the way we behave. Isn't there some recent research that suggests that religiosity is something we're gentically programmed for?
I don't have good arguments for my belief- because I don't reckon there are any. It's not really a matter of intellectual conviction- much more to do with emotion and aesthetics- and all that woo-woo stuff.