This Week in God
"Religion is the opiate of the masses" once said Karl Marx.
Often growing up I wondered if religion wasn't a sham to keep us from realizing the truth; that mortality was finite and death the end of existence. It made perfect sense to my twelve year-old self, by believing that a God existed to take care of us, to keep us in eternal happiness so long as we followed His laws was way of controlling the working class. Literacy was discouraged by the Church for centuries, infact stained glass originated as a way of teaching through imagery the teachings of the church for those unable to read the word of God. God could be quoted as saying anything the priests wished and interpreted in any manner desired for who was able to contradict them? Ultimately, I believed that God and eternal life placated the masses and kept them from living each day as if it were there last or living life to its fullest, because there was supposedly no end to life.
Yet I have never wavered in my belief in a God of some sort, in some form. I rarely pray anymore, but certaintly I pray more than any other twenty-two year-old I know. I have a stronger faith than most preachers, precisely because my faith is not blind. It is born out of a long and arduous dissemination of religion and its nature.
My conclusion is this, there is a God, but there is no life after death. However, I do not believe that all morality and human rights stem from the existence of God or the Human Soul. I believe they are inherent in our existence divorced of any creator, real or imaginary.
I feel better, more secure, more safe and more collected after I pray. I believe this is probably due more to the truth in Marx's statement than in anything related to God. Yet, I continue to pray. I recognize that I am probably only doing it to feel better, and not out of faith or devotion. I don't care.I can never be a true existentialist because I cannot completely leech myself of the notion that there is a God, whose level of influence on my life I do not know. It is a nice thought, is it not, that someone is looking out for you? It's intoxicating and irrational, but there it is.
Ecclesiastes 3:18-19
18. I said in mine heart concerning the estate of the sons of men, that God might manifest them, and that they might see that they themselves are beasts.
19 For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them: as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath; so that a man hath no preeminence above a beast: for all is vanity.
Often growing up I wondered if religion wasn't a sham to keep us from realizing the truth; that mortality was finite and death the end of existence. It made perfect sense to my twelve year-old self, by believing that a God existed to take care of us, to keep us in eternal happiness so long as we followed His laws was way of controlling the working class. Literacy was discouraged by the Church for centuries, infact stained glass originated as a way of teaching through imagery the teachings of the church for those unable to read the word of God. God could be quoted as saying anything the priests wished and interpreted in any manner desired for who was able to contradict them? Ultimately, I believed that God and eternal life placated the masses and kept them from living each day as if it were there last or living life to its fullest, because there was supposedly no end to life.
Yet I have never wavered in my belief in a God of some sort, in some form. I rarely pray anymore, but certaintly I pray more than any other twenty-two year-old I know. I have a stronger faith than most preachers, precisely because my faith is not blind. It is born out of a long and arduous dissemination of religion and its nature.
My conclusion is this, there is a God, but there is no life after death. However, I do not believe that all morality and human rights stem from the existence of God or the Human Soul. I believe they are inherent in our existence divorced of any creator, real or imaginary.
I feel better, more secure, more safe and more collected after I pray. I believe this is probably due more to the truth in Marx's statement than in anything related to God. Yet, I continue to pray. I recognize that I am probably only doing it to feel better, and not out of faith or devotion. I don't care.I can never be a true existentialist because I cannot completely leech myself of the notion that there is a God, whose level of influence on my life I do not know. It is a nice thought, is it not, that someone is looking out for you? It's intoxicating and irrational, but there it is.
posted by Aubrey at 9:13 PM
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