So while I am thinking about my reply to Danny, I thought I'd write down something about my own thoughts about life and meaning. I've written this quickly, so I might have to come back and revisit certain sections, but I wanted to put something down.
The core of how I understand the world is very much based on a desire to face the world and life as it actually is, to understand and learn and explore as much as possible. To suck the marrow of life as the saying goes. And a critical part of that approach is honesty. Honesty in the sense trying to come up with the best, most valid, most logical explanations for all the things that we experience.
So, from my perspective, belief itself is the antithesis of what I was interested in for myself. I wanted to come up with my own understandings of the world that were founded in reason and science and were not based on the suspension of disbelief. I wanted a solid ground that was reproducible.
This is not to imply a lack of respect for religion or a failure to appreciate some of the amazing wonders that have been created in the name of God. Many people, some of the best people that I know, are deeply religious and I honor that. From my perspective, whatever meanings get you through life are fine by me. Indeed, who am I to judge, assuming that your beliefs do not affect me?
So if you wanted a specific set of terms, then humanism and rationalism seem to best describe how I approach and understand life. I really haven't read that much about these terms, nor do I know much about their history, so I may need to come back to this. To a large extent, I don't even like having to come up with a single term to describe my own outlook. It seems like such a process of simplification when so often one doesn't even know one's own mind.
To me there is so much in nature, in the universe to marvel at and to glory in that it is beyond comprehension. I have no way to conceive of the number of stars in just the Milky Way, which is just one minor galaxy. And photos of the earth, our one single precious fragile planet, just bring a sense of awe.
Love is other strand that I think is critical in our lives, and certainly in mine. Despite all our terrible failings and our faults, I like being human and I love our capacity for love and empathy and altruism. And I don't think I truly realized all that this meant until I had Aralyn and Caeden, until I saw all the different connections that we have with other people, and until I had realized how much I love community.
So I guess at base I like to think of us, of humanity, as being organically bound together and integrated with the cosmos. Matter is really just energy, and as I told Aralyn when trying to comfort her in a discussion about death, when we die we just turn back into energy. And there is something to glory about in that, to think that we are made up of matter that was once space dust, exploded stars and planets. That is something to worship I think.
I quite like this post. I have to say it.
ReplyDeleteYour last paragraph really reminds me of some of the things I read when I was researching alternate beliefs, like Ascension, where one would pass on to another plane of existence, basically existing only in a form of Energy (cf. Ascended Master, by Guy Ballard or something like that).
If I may recommend a book I've always quite appreciated (I have an old French edition, from around 1940, though Amazon just told me the English version has recently been released, again) it would be 'The Two Sources of Morality and Religion', by Henri Bergson:
After distinguishing between "Static Religion" and "Closed Morality" on one hand, and "Dynamic Religion" and "Open Morality" on the other, this French philosopher concluded that the love experienced in "complete mystical consciousness" expresses itself as an impetus for constructive social change and continuing advances in the evolution of humanity.
"Joy indeed would be that simplicity of life diffused throughout the world by an ever-spreading mystic intuition; joy, too, that which would automatically follow a vision of the life beyond attained through the furtherance of scientific experiment... Mankind lies groaning, half crushed beneath the weight of its own progress. Men do not sufficiently realize that their future is in their own hands. Theirs is the task of determining first of all whether they want to go on living or not. Theirs the responsibility, then for deciding if they want merely to live, or intend to make just the extra effort required for fulfilling, even on their refractory planet, the essential function of the universe, which is a machine for the making of gods."
On a completely different note, I just wanted to point out a thought that just struck me. Throughout the times where mankind has existed, all the different cultures and different civilisations, we have always gone back to the idea of God. The way we saw that god has changed quite a bit in the whole process, going from blood-thirsty demons to love-praising hippies, we've had nearly all the depictions possible of "God". Yet, why?
Why are there so many references to deity? Rather than using the argument of believers, who would say that if it occurs so many times, it must be because there IS something "out there"; wouldn't it simply be because we have an ego? -- and by the looks of it, not such a small one. I would be more tempted to say that the reason behind all the religion-fury comes from mankind needing to be approved, needing to feel comfortable (in their choices) and more than anything, a need for hierarchy.
Anyway, getting back to work now.