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Inlägg #1: Postat: 2003-03-05 15:35:00
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Frederik |
A tough one… There are so many attitudes to be found concerning religion, from smart people who dive head-first into religion and find there a wealth of love, purpose and meaning to enrich their lives, via those who claim in utter self-assurance that they ‘don’t need religion’ and look somewhat down on those pathetic ‘believers’ clutching to their spiritual teddy bears, all the way to those who use religion as a shield to defend their political interest or hide from their low self-esteem.
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Inlägg #2: Postat: 2003-03-05 15:35:00
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Frederik |
With such a diversity of attitudes – and if one cares to go searching – it’s of course extremely difficult to find the ‘real thing’. Even more so when one is faced with the animosity to be found against religion in our secular society, and the glee with which it is sometimes ridiculed including here at Sourze.
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Inlägg #3: Postat: 2003-03-05 15:35:00
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Frederik |
To over-simplify a complex issue, belief involves subjecting your will to something larger than yourself. This might explain its unpopularity in our individualistic society, where me, myself and I is what really matters, and where it’s a terrible downer on one’s ego to see oneself as part of and serving a larger whole mind me, I can be egotistic and serve a larger whole, but then this ‘whole’ is just the extension of my ego: ‘saving the world’ to get prestige and fame, if you see what I mean.
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Inlägg #4: Postat: 2003-03-05 15:35:00
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Frederik |
So pride is one of the barriers that may block a view on ‘God’ or ‘The Mystery’, or ‘Love’ or whatever else one wants to call it – unfortunately all those names have been misused so often that they have more negative connotations than positive ones. Another one however might be despair: there’s quite some comfort to be found in despair, isn’t it? Everything’s lost, nothing really matters.
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Inlägg #5: Postat: 2003-03-05 15:36:00
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Frederik |
Scary, perhaps, but also quite safe: no responsibility, no one to account for. It’s all meaningless anyway. Because if all this Godlovewhatever-business were true, then what I do would indeed matter. I don’t mean all this heaven and hell stuff, here, another of those things that has done more damage than good. I mean that if someone does love you, then what you do or become has an effect on him/her, whether you want it or not. You become responsible.
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Inlägg #6: Postat: 2003-03-05 15:36:00
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Frederik |
You can choose to ignore it, of course, but that’s your ‘response’, then, and the pain you may inflict that way is of your own choice and making. This is all linked somehow to my favourite metaphor to describe my relationship to ‘God’: it’s like love in a normal, human relationship: you can’t ‘prove’ it. All you can do is interpret the other one’s behaviour and ‘believe’ in his/her love. Only if you do that does the relationship grow, and will ‘love’ become part of your reality.
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Inlägg #7: Postat: 2003-03-05 15:37:00
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Frederik |
To do that however you have to let go of both your pride and fear and join something ‘larger than yourself’ the ‘couple’. While it’s all very visible in a relationship, it’s way more difficult when it comes to something large as ‘God’, you may say. I don’t know, however. Personally I don’t need big, supernatural miracles and light-shows to believe in God.
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Inlägg #8: Postat: 2003-03-05 15:37:00
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Frederik |
The sheer beauty of a tree or a cloud, the amazing mystery of love between a mother and her child or of friendship between people are enough for me to believe in a larger purpose and meaning to our lives. Mere ‘physics’ or ‘biology’, one may say. But then one should also say that the Mona Lisa is only dried oil on a canvas, don’t you think? Mind me, it’s not my intention to ‘convert’ you to anything. Only to say that if you wonder where God is then you have to start looking at yourself first.
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Inlägg #9: Postat: 2003-03-06 13:02:00
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Jon B |
I svåra, existentiella frågor lutar jag mig gärna mot Lennart Hellsing:
Om ingenting fanns
hade räven ingen svans
och svansen ingen räv
Rosseau och Voltaire hade aldrig vart där
och ingen hade skrivit en vers som den här
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Inlägg #10: Postat: 2003-03-06 13:06:00
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Jon B |
Möjligen övertolkar jag herr Hellsing, men jag tror han vill antyda att eftersom hans vers existerar så existerar nog andra saker också, och då är vi kanske ändå inte alldeles ensamma;-
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