Faith (Poetic Prose)
Baleful red eyes, beware Satan, for he is the Adversary, that's what the word 'satan' means.
Salvage your soul, oh, I beg your pardon! Not salvage as if it's some unworthy wreck, but salvation, these words are just so similar.( But why are you in need of salvation to begin with?)
Places of worship are holy, books given by the Divine are holy, Man created in the image of God is holy(But doesn't that give God a form? Doesn't that turn us all into God(s)?), preachers that spread Creation's words are holy.
But who decides who and what is holy? If people say that they themselves are holy, it'd be unthinkable, inconceivable, just like Creation was before the Creator came along. If people call each other holy, then it begins to make sense. A holy man should recognise others of his, rarely her, kind.
So who decides what is holy, or rather, indicates it? The Spirit of things, the Holy Spirit, surely. So, to turn things into sacred, the Spirit must dwell there, since we all know how those that communicate with the Divine are really treated, so the Spirit must stay. Bottled Faith. Accumulated Faith that we can all use, take. Bottled Holy Spirit, It must be pleased.
(Bedlam, oh Bedlam, protect us from the night.)
Check out my latest posts:
- When Marnie Was There - Farewell to Studio Ghibli
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Art and flair courtesy of @PegasusPhysics
The image used in this photo is from the Milk Grotto in Jerusalem. Artist unknown (at least I couldn't find it), and is fair use.
© Guy Shalev 2003.
I loved the questions raised in this piece. Growing up in a religious household (and no longer being religious), there are a lot of inconsistencies that are taught as dogma.
Man (not woman), is created in the form of God, something holy and infinite. Yet, man is damned to suffer and needs salvation, and so man is endlessly trying to achieve this salvation for he is damned by the same God that wants to save him. It's a very masochistic relationship that a lot of humans have with God, and it's sad that a lot of people don't question anything. I believe that religion has to be a personal relationship and resolution, and it is silly how a lot of people follow a religion blindly, without ever using logical or ethical reason, except I was taught so.
Isn't that the point of dogma? That you take it on faith, that it is an axiom and is taken as true, and you use it to prove other things? Silly people, trying to question axioms being axioms. But of course, that is the way of rationality.
I think religion is exactly there so you wouldn't question everything. Because it's a much harder life, to be asking questions, especially when there are no answers.
There's a reason the image of God to so many is of an old man who keeps them safe, looking over them, tells them right from wrong.
I don't think it is silly at all. There are good reasons for it. It is just not true for what I think of life, or of myself, or of what use our brains are.
I never looked at that way. I know some people study and choose faith for their own reasons, and for some faith makes sense. You are right though, dogmas are unquestionable because of what they are. My mind ponders on a lot of questions, and I am comfortable with having questions that cannot be answered, but I understand that for others, without the answers, life doesn't mean anything.
"... it'd be unthinkable, inconceivable, just like Creation was before the Creator came along."
Yes! It's not a chicken/egg question, the creator came along much after the fact.
Did you ever wonder that 98% of the people that follow the one true religion (whichever that may be) follow the religion of their parents? I do wonder about things like that.
Thanks for a terrific post.
That line you quoted was also pointing out the contradiction inherent in most of the current religions. Would be easier to accept that we just don't know everything. Yet we assume we do. Talk of another contradiction - belief is there to cover we don't know everything, yet we assume we can know what can't be known to cement it.
I've wondered about it for many years. I've also thought of it with relation to politics, and "true love." Political affiliation is also very much akin to religious affiliation. All these things that are happenstance.
In Israel I think of it not just in terms of religions as a whole, but religiosity. How religious you are has a lot to do with how religious the household you've been raised in is.
And then people speak of it as if it's a decision to be religious, or secular. And while some people choose to diverge from the environment they've been raised in, most do not.
I think house-holds where the two parents differ is where you can truly choose. But that brings to mind questions on whether you just choose based on the parent you feel closer to or what.
Who or what is holy, indeed. Good question.
One of my favorite repeated bits of Alan Watts (for he repeated it a lot) was variations on the line "If you tell a Hindu you are God they will say 'hurray!' because you are saying what is obvious to them"
That's a really good quote.
And I think this is one of the best questions, in that the asking and thinking of it is more valuable than the answer itself.
Though that quote makes it sound as if the seeking is needless, and there is something to it, that there's something to be had from surety, but I'm of the seeking mentality :)
This is so far out of my comfort zone, I’m too scared to comment. I wrote some stuff and deleted it. I don’t want to be struck by lightning...
The only thing you'll be struck by lightning for is not putting yourself out there. How do you bring new things into your comfort zone, and new areas into the light, without venturing outside the range of light of the bonfire? :)
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