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05.19.2003 || 01h26 Schemes and the Agnostic Front I was yakking with Mystie down at the canal to-day. Somehow it came up that she calls herself an atheist (Hell, not even agnostic. I guess she's *sure* there's nothing else). strangely, it made me sad to hear that because it saps the simple magic and beautfy from the world around us. Suddenly, her unwillingness to go camping ('I fear nature') becomes clear. The forest isn't part of the greater living spirit of the planet, it's an array of soulless machines bent on destroying one another. Suddenly it becomes possible to associate freedom with gas-guzzling, speed, and a straight, open road as opposed to sitting on top of a mountain far from civilisation and knowing that there's nothing but Life all around you. The animist will always respect the planet more in practise and in life because he or she will know that we're just part of something bigger. I find that atheism comes from the same judaeo-christian hubris that puts humans at the top of the pyramid and puts the planet there for our exploitation. I know that they're related, merely because from my completely unscientific experience, virtually all the atheists I've known were brought up in one of the more stringent of the judaeo-christian structures. Coming from a catholic viewpoint, it's hard not to fall immediately upon atheism at the first loss of faith in the Cloth. Hell, you probably just don't know that there are any other choices out there (I come from a long-assed line of French-Canadian Catholics. Dude, it doesn't get Cloth-ier than that). That being said, I've only known about a dozen atheists in my entire life. Agnostics. You gotta respect the whole agnostic thing. it takes a certain je ne sais quoi to say 'Dammit, I really don't *know.*' I'm not agnostic anymore. I'm not an animist, either. I come from a completely different branch of paganism; one that sets a pair of deities out there, but not *up* there. The god and the goddess are useless for praying to; they just don't have the power to affect stuff. That's not what faith is about outside the j-c framework. I have slowly come to the realisation that the god and the goddess are actually just symbols of the 'duality' (hate that word) of everything. Everything on this gorgeous planet has two sides; be it heads or tails, dexter and sinister, or inside and outside. I like the idea that humans are part of something, that we've got that two-sidedness to us, just like everything else; and that there's a major-sized mechanism chugging away. Hell, it goes beyond the planet if you think about it. When you open the scope to see the wider picture, things we take for granted become huge. Gravity, light, physics, maybe time. Do I believe in Yahweh and His schemes? Fuck, no. Am I self-centred enough to think we're the shit? Fuck, no. I've spent too much time wondering to let it go at that. Doesn't mean my ideas aren't still evolving. Man, there's still stuff that doesn't sit right with me, and I think I've still got a long search ahead, but I'm pretty damned sure at this point that I'm headed in the right direction. |
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shite One last little note... - 09.21.2006 de-stressing, biking and terrorism - 06.06.2006 Mildly stressed... - 05.29.2006 More crime stupidity - 05.28.2006 Scary stuff - 05.25.2006
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