A few years ago, when I was in the throes of figuring out what was what, I could have argued religion with anyone through the night and into the morning. Now, as the groundwork has been laid and I've moved on to the process of tweaking my ideas, I don't really care to state my opinion because I have it and I believe it and I don't care to try to spread my insight because other people can draw their own opinions.
That said, I am contradicting myself by writing this entry. But hey, I never forced anyone to read my writing (aside from my teachers, I suppose).
When a person is looking for a spouse or significant other, it's usually to achieve a feeling of being needed. That's not quite the right word... How about this: people seek intimate relationships to gain a sense of purpose, to feel like they're a part of something that really matters. It's a feeling that's satisfying and fulfilling and, when that kind of relationship ends, people often feel the urge to stop breathing. That's what, the third tier on Maslow's hierarchy? Sure. But first let's back up a bit.
When a little dude is born, it needs its parents to survive. Its mom breast-feeds it until its old enough for its dad to teach it the infield-fly rule. When this particular little dude reaches puberty, it hits a kind of void in the transition between needing and being needed. All of a sudden, this little dude gets a job and stops begging its dad for twenty bucks on Friday nights. And then this little dude learns how to drive, and how to read between the lines, and all of a sudden this little dude is self-sufficient. Then, one day, this little dude realizes that being self-sufficient is cool, but there's a hole in the middle of its soul that paying its own cell phone bill just won't fill. All of a sudden, it's no longer cool to just get by because its need of feeling alive goes unreciprocated by its environment. Sure, it's illegal to commit suicide, and there are welfare programs to keep people's bodies alive, but merely surviving is unfulfilling for this middle class dude. It's missing a sense of purpose, as if his existence means something.
(It should be noted that this little dude could never see sports as anything more than a triviality used to keep the brain functioning at a low level and, effectively, to kill lots and lots of time. He could never successfully manage to find joy in living vicariously through his hometown team's championship season, and playing basketball in high school made him feel like he was a big part of something that was achieving absolutely nothing aside from distracting depressed people from the notion that their collective existence is meaningless and that their species is about to bubble over and their habitat is in the process of exterminating this unwelcome group that insists on living above the laws of nature.)
Our little dude grew up fairly clever, however: as most of his friends turned to drugs and alcohol and television in an attempt to deny or avoid responsibility for the situation they were born into, our little dude saw through that policy of constant distraction and decided to confront the problems of the world head-on. Having found nothing capable of dispelling this general feeling of malaise, our little dude sought out the purest and least trivial form of coping with a seemingly futile circumstance: an intimate relationship, or company for the journey around this circular track that our culture is stuck on (only circumstances within our culture are repeated. For instance, tribal people in remote regions of Africa won't have to deal with Hitler reincarnated because Hitler was not a product of that hypothetical culture. Maybe an angry gorilla will attack them, and it will be reminiscent of a past, tragic gorilla attack and it will appear as if history is "repeating itself"). And here we are, back at the beginning of this little story.
I guess I began to make a case for marriage being necessary to deal with an unfortunate existence... but that's not what I set out to do. Actually, I don't remember my purpose of writing today. Hm...
Well, let's see. I read this article by Desmond Tutu who linked religious affiliation with place of birth. His point was that religious people (he was really referring to Christians, probably because he is one and, hence, is most familiar with his fellow chumps... but he included) like to tell themselves that their ideology is, indeed, the correct one and that, deep down, all other people are actually Christians who just haven't figured it out yet. Of the religious writings I've recently read, this one irritated me the least. It's good that he's pointing out how ridiculous the notion of one religion being "right" is, but he made a point I can't quite agree with. He said that it's wrong to consider all religions the same. I can't help but disagree. I mean, aren't the various prophets, from Moses to Muhammed, all revealing discussions they had with the same god? Am I wrong here, or are all these holy wars and jihads and quran burnings caused by everyone in the world agreeing on the same god but disagreeing over his message? What kind of god is that? And since when is there one god? And the idea of people being created in a god's image while being horribly flawed says something about the god they believe in. And salvation? Well, if I believed that there was something innately flawed with me and my species then sure, I'd consider seeking salvation.
The agricultural revolution was, what, 10,000 years ago? And prior to that, the human population increased at the pace of a glacier and lived in harmony with the world for 2-3 million years? Then the revolution spread like cancer and the population has been on a very steady and consistent rise ever since. And famine became possible when people stubbornly refused to pick up sticks and move to more ideal conditions, but the surplus of food makes enormous losses of human life seem irrelevant as we keep packing ourselves in.
The hopelessness was settling in 2,000 years ago when, conveniently, a god decided that some of the souls in the human race were salvageable. So he sent his son down, who wasn't very clever. See, this son, named Jesus, took on some disciples but he never took on an apprentice. All his disciples got the gist of it, but none fully understood. When Pontius Pilate decided, on behalf of the people, that this Jesus dude was a real asshole who needed to be nailed down, it was too soon. And then, a few hundred years later, a few people recounted their versions of the disciples accounts of what Jesus said. And now a lot of people can't seem to agree on the vague statements in this book. And a few weeks ago, one guy went so far as to miscalculate the end of the world, only to deny that he was entirely wrong while deciding that another date is more accurate. Huh.
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