cherry blossom girl (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} _newcitylights) wrote,@ 2005-03-15 17:35:00 |
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so i was sitting in civil society class watching an italian documentary about globalizatio and empire when i had an epiphany.
it might be a small epiphany which, in my small mind, seemed large... but i had bad dreams last night (and for the past week really) and this journal is taking a philosophical turn lately anyway.
i don't believe in god.
just 3 years ago i wrote a manifesto of sorts for my senior seminar in high school... a list of priorities if you will, and the first sentence atop the page was "i believe in god."
but i think what i've always meant is, i believe in the divinity of life - in the tremendous power of human creativity, of the human power to create, destroy, envision, and grow. aren't the powers of our species the same ones we attribute to what we call god? how many cities have we created and destroyed? how many civilizations have risen through our powers of creativity and fallen beneath our powers of annihilation? isn't the bible - old testament and new testament - just a description of the ongoing struggle of humanity against ourselves, a long explanation of the human condition which is both evolving and stagnant?
in genesis it says "you will toil in pain and give birth in pain." but every day now this becomes less and less true, we have created (are creating) our own messiah, we are attempting to bring about our own salvation - salvation from ignorance and oppression.
the holy land we inhabit is the earth, this planet, this universe - we are chosen because we possess hope and intellect and the free choice to create or destroy as we see fit.
so i suppose what i would call god is human intellect and creativity, i believe in humanity and our own power to save ourselves, and then i guess i'm happier because divinity is all around me and i guess i'm somehow validated in my convictions to do some good in the world... it seems i have much more incentive than i ever did while clinging to a ritualistic (and, i felt, fairly empty) faith.
but that's just me. and we all have to justify ourselves somehow, i guess.
it might be a small epiphany which, in my small mind, seemed large... but i had bad dreams last night (and for the past week really) and this journal is taking a philosophical turn lately anyway.
i don't believe in god.
just 3 years ago i wrote a manifesto of sorts for my senior seminar in high school... a list of priorities if you will, and the first sentence atop the page was "i believe in god."
but i think what i've always meant is, i believe in the divinity of life - in the tremendous power of human creativity, of the human power to create, destroy, envision, and grow. aren't the powers of our species the same ones we attribute to what we call god? how many cities have we created and destroyed? how many civilizations have risen through our powers of creativity and fallen beneath our powers of annihilation? isn't the bible - old testament and new testament - just a description of the ongoing struggle of humanity against ourselves, a long explanation of the human condition which is both evolving and stagnant?
in genesis it says "you will toil in pain and give birth in pain." but every day now this becomes less and less true, we have created (are creating) our own messiah, we are attempting to bring about our own salvation - salvation from ignorance and oppression.
the holy land we inhabit is the earth, this planet, this universe - we are chosen because we possess hope and intellect and the free choice to create or destroy as we see fit.
so i suppose what i would call god is human intellect and creativity, i believe in humanity and our own power to save ourselves, and then i guess i'm happier because divinity is all around me and i guess i'm somehow validated in my convictions to do some good in the world... it seems i have much more incentive than i ever did while clinging to a ritualistic (and, i felt, fairly empty) faith.
but that's just me. and we all have to justify ourselves somehow, i guess.
