{ The Giants Win The Pennant! }

[delga]

Dan's mental/nervous breakdown on SN troubles me on a level that I can't quite grasp. I am pathetic.

In other news, between the lectures and the bible reading every day, I find I am becoming more estranged from the religion I am trying to understand. The idea was to see if I couldn't become more familiar and sensitive to it and instead, I'm freaking out even more. I don't suppose it helps that one is the actual vocal text and the other is a series of lectures treating the Bible as a text which has context and what have you; it also doesn't help that I'm researching polygamy (what? Big Love has me asking questions about that area of religion, as well as the Church of the Latter Day Saints, which banned polygamy a while ago) and that I've also been trying to find out the dayes of Navratri which has led me to research my family's religion, Hinduism, and remember all the things that I used to know naturally. And family religion is weird like that because it's almost passed through the womb. I grew up in an area where there were no Indians/British Asians and yet I still know prayers and rites, and I know the stories behind them too. Admittedly, I know the Bible and biblical lore better and not just because I grew up in a white/Christian-leaning environment but because the literature of the West is founded on Biblical and Mythological lore, and literature is my Knowing Place. But the stories of the east, of Japan and China and India, I know those too, and I know the stories of the African tribes and the Native Americans too because ultimately they are all stories and narratives, and again I say, that is my place. But religion is tricky on that front because my perspective on the narratives and on their worths as moral guides comes back to what is native to me. And that is Hinduism.

Hinduism is polytheistic and monotheistic so the Christian trinity makes sense to me, and the basic morals and teachings of Judaism, Islam and Christianity all make sense to me and I think are worthwhile. These are the roots of morality that they share with Hinduism anyway. It's the individual teachings that I can't get around. The Christian God of benevolence is the one concept that I cannot fathom. I get that faith is supposed to transcend knowledge and that's the foundation of belief, but as I'm not a believer, that doesn't carry weight with me anyway. Like I've said before, what I do believe in is balance. I also believe in basic politenesses such as respecting your elders (even if I don't/can't do that all of the time); being honest; that brothers and sisters are important; that kindness to strangers is a prerequisite; that tolerance of others is a prerequisite. Basic politeness; basic goodness. A little boy falls down, do you leave him or help him up? No brainer. Your friend is a devout Christian and wants you to convert; do you blow them off or listen and give them a chance? To me, no brainer - give them a chance, listen and learn from what they're telling you, think about what you've been talking about and make your decision. It's then your friend's move to be as accepting of you as you are of them: you decision should then hold importance because you did not brush them off.

I don't know. There are some things that I am reading and hearing that are deeply unsettling to me, deeply worrying. I don't think it helps that I lack faith of all kinds; absolute faith has always, to an extent, terrified me. But I think I have to do what I am telling myself and at least be knowledgeable. There is no excuse for ignorance. And in knowing, maybe I'm believing in something else. We'll see.

Comments

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

I find this post most interesting and very difficult to comment on. Not because you have expressed yourself unclearly (you haven't), but rather because you write about a very important subject that I occasionally think about myself and find very difficult to clearly formulate my thoughts on. The first thing I want to say (before I get myself muddled and sidetracked) is thank you; you have made me think about this subject again, and shared your thoughts on it and I think that is a great gift. In the spirit of one of the first posts of yours I commented on (the one about comments/feed back in fan fiction) I am trying to take the time and make the effort to tell you that what you have written has touched me and sparked thoughts.

I have read your posts about studying the bible, and they have made me want to get back to my own project of reading that book. Though I am not a Christian believer, Christianity is my cultural background, being a white Westerner so I think it is an important cultural document for me and I should know what it says. In some ways I think it is even more important to read it if I don't believe in it, in the same way I think I should taste food before saying that I don't like it. I just went off to fetch my bible and found that last time I started the "read-the-bible" project, I only got as far as Genesis chapter 10. I am easily distracted, and the fact that there are several contradictions within the first three pages, doesn't help. As I said one of my reasons for reading the bible is to check whether it is actually something I can/do believe in, and those contradictions just prove to me that it isn't. I am a scientist; science and scientific method are integral parts of me. In maths (the "purest" form of science) an important and very successful way of proving something is to assume the opposite, and show that this leads to a contradiction, thereby proving that your original assumption was false. Therefore, to me just reading the first three pages is enough to disprove the theory: The bible is a true account of the history of the world. This does in no way mean that it doesn't have important things to tell me, and it is still very much on my to-be-read list. However, having lived in Western Europe, in a Christian cultural setting all my life I feel I am likely to have learned quite a lot of what the bible has to teach me already, even though I may not know that it comes from the bible. In some ways, I think reading the Koran/Qu'ran, Buddha's teachings (which I don't even know the name of) and the holy texts of other religions are more important to read, because I am less likely to (have) pick(ed) up the lessons of these through daily living.

You say that (to an extent) absolute faith terrifies you; it terrifies me, too, but I think even more I find it confusing and very difficult to understand. To me, one of the most important things is doubt and questions. It is through doubting and asking questions that we expand our knowledge and understanding. And these doubts and questions are not just for/about other people, but I think it is important to question yourself as well. I know very well that I am sometimes wrong, and try to welcome questions and doubts from others (I have plenty of my own for myself as well), though I find it hard and fail at times. But I can't picture living without them; I watch my little nephew (still not one year old) exploring the world with all the tools he has -- eyes, ears, fingers, mouth. This is not something specific to him, children have been doing it through the ages. This thirst for knowledge, first-hand knowledge, seems universal in the young. So how and when do (some) adults loose it? I don't understand.

[delgaserasca.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm glad it's led to questions. Questions are important; discussion is important. I suppose where we differ are our cultural/religious backgrounds (obviously). I guess that's what makes biblical study easier for me - I'm reading it like a book. (It also helps that I'm actually only half reading it - Audio Bible Online. I know, what a cop out).

First off, yes, I see why you'd want to read the bible, or be at least familiar with the sense of it (that is, the general prgression of events), because I feel the same way about the Hindu holy texts. (Hinduism differs somewhat in that there is not one specific go-to text but many writings). If I knew where to start with Hindu texts, I would and it's been a thing for me recently - I've been considering becoming proficient in my first language (Gujarati) and also in the holy language, Sanskrit. But this is not just because of where I come from (culturally) but because I'm always looking for random side-projects, which is what this bible study amounts to. I figure I need to know about it and the Old Testament has always been of interest to me because of it's Judae-Christian teachings and because the King James Bible is written in what I call "mythos-voice".

I think that learning about other religions is important in order to see the similarities. The differences will teach you one thing, the similarities teach tolerance and they teach you about the wonders of faith - all these different people but we came from this same place, and this same story taught us these things. I also think it's important to know about Western vs. Eastern religious philosophies because I think there are some things that one can teach that the other doesn't necessarily.

What I meant by the absolute faith comment was more that... okay, there are moments when very obscure topics (such as absolute faith) become very clear to me momentarily and in those moments, I guess I suffer from a surfeit of the sublime. I'm a little in awe of it. (Death is like that for me; occasionally I grasp what it would truly mean to be dead and it can be terrifying; then, once I've shaken off the understanding/fear, my mind spends a few minutes trying to get it back because those moments of clarity are fairly powerful). The lectures I've been listening to have talked about believing ultimately in Yaweh, or God, and having blind faith and the idea of the lack of autonomy - when I fully grasp it - sends me off. I'm literally scared.

And that's where faith comes in. To you, questioning and doubt is important; to an extent that's what is important to me too, so I understand what you were saying. But I suppose the point of faith is losing all doubt, being so assured in your belief. Again: when I fully understand what it means to have that sort of faith, I get a little terrified by it because that would mean lack of control on my part and I am, by my obsessive nature, one who needs to be able to control, and measure by set parameters.

Ultimately, though, (and I've said this before), if I was going to believe, I likely wouldn't believe in a Christian god. The idea of the wholly benevolent god and the concept of him judging for not believing does not make sense to me and is not one that I can reconcile with. Also: God's plan & Free Will. How can you have Free Will if God decides all that will happen? And if God decides all that happens, how can you say that a person's suicide wasn't an act foretold by God (or the such)? That concept makes no logical sense to me.

On top of that, I don't believe that asking an almighty power for forgiveness for a 'bad' act is enough. I come from a background of karma - you get what you give. It's not so much that I believe you get rewarded for doing good and punished for doing bad, although that comes into it; more that I believe that everything has it's opposite and you're going to find good and evil in the world, and one way or another it's going to balance out. It's not that if you live a good life, bad things won't happen to you because they will; you have to live through the good and the bad, and you have to be good in spite of the bad. So I guess I'm less about believing and more about being moralistic.

OK, end part 1. I need to start a new comment :)

[delgaserasca.livejournal.com]

(part 2)

My culture teaches me certain things and sure, it may have something to do with religion but I think a lot of religions teach the same thing (about family and respect) but in my culture, religion and culture can often be the same thing. In my particular case, culture substitutes for religion and the concept of God is superfluous.

Anyway, back to the topic at hand: religion is tricky. You can either know it and believe it, or know it and study it. Me? I study because if I can't believe, I should at least know. Believing is religion, is god and faith; knowing is testing and holding, and is culture. I like the idea that those two can be interchangeable. For some people, belief is knowledge. For some, knowledge takes the place of faith. I like the dichotomy there, if nothing else.

Ah. End rambling. That was less coherent than I would have liked and I'm actually quite glad that you got through the post because I didn't think I was being all that clear at the time.