I Truly Envy The Religious Among You
To all of my friends in the world who possess religious faith, I envy you. You have managed to fill the spiritual void in your lives with your belief system, and here I am, a pilgrim in the universe perpetually seeking truth and understanding. I probably have spent about 80 – 90% of the mental free time in my life comtemplating the meaning and yearning for absolute knowledge of the spiritual undercurrent that I believe drives this existence we occupy. Certainly there must be something far greater, and while I will spend my whole life trying to understand or comprehend it with my limited human intellect and imagination, you lucky folks have found it. You know it, you possess it, and you file it away for when you need it.
While out walking tonight, I looked skyward and saw a wondrous painting of distant stars sprinkled throughout the cosmos. I reckon I best I could only see a fraction of a trillionth of the universe. I am one of nearly 9 billion humans who are only one of millions of species that occupy this rock that floats through space. While you have a great understanding of your spiritual purpose, I am left to wonder about the greater purpose of it all. I envy you.
Of course some of you believe that your deity will punish/torture me eternally for being intellectually skeptical of his or her existence within the parameters of your beliefs, but I’d much rather spend the remainder of existence being tortured than to ‘pretend’ to believe something that I do not, let alone a monstrous cosmic tyrant.
Being raised in a strictly Southern Baptist existence early on, I assumed I had it all understood. But once I got old enough and found the courage to know that my beliefs were based on fear of eternal damnation, I looked elsewhere. For many people, this religion works very well for them and gives them what they need and I commend and respect them. However, it left me with more questions than answers (and the rule that ‘questioning’ is a sin, ironically). I now find comfort in Taoism and Buddhism to high degrees, but not to the point of completely identifying with them. Atheism doesn’t work for me either, as I am sure there is something far greater than meets the eye. Agnosticism seems to be the best I could ever hope to attain in this incarnation. I could never believe in a simple God who is petty and possesses the worst of human traits. Yet, I could never believe in absolutely nothing. The answers probably lie within us all.
While my some of my friends are fortunate enough to have figured it all out, I keep walking and digging and peeling and dreaming. It’s all kinda cool when you really step back and fall into the depth of a clear night sky. Namaste, folks.
Why envy them unless you consider that being blissfully ignorant is preferable to being a seeker. You are free to become whoever you want to be. They, on the other hand, will forever be constrained by a faith that tells them exactly what is permissible and what is not. Enjoy your freedom and seek God on your own terms.
The depth and size of the multiverse is anathema to religious people….I ALWAYS get them with this question “If God made us oh soooo special…..WHY is there SOOOO much left over stuff?”…it blows their tiny mind….they DON’T experience what you believe they do in your post above (other than in a totally reproducible psychological sense …..a feeling of deep religiosity can easily be induced by a skilled psychologist or, say, a Priest who knows the ‘trick’…..look up “Derren Brown: Experiments”….it’ll FUKN BLOW YOUR MIND what that guy can do….but the BEST thing about him, is he SHOWS you how they do it)…..the concepts are too big for the god botherers (they “KISS” keep it simple stoopid). Great post….
http://www.channel4.com/programmes/derren-brown-the-experiments/4od
Why not learn all major religion, and from there you pick it which the one that telling you the truth..
In Buddhism you don’t really contemplate the meaning of existence, essensially the Buddha said that if you are shot by an arrow, you don’t start enquiring who shot you, what the arrow is made of and what direction it came from; you first seek to solve the imediate problem of ‘bleeding to death’. In the same way Buddhism is practical, by aiding people to solve the most imediate problem of human suffering, rather than dwelling on questions which are at this present time irrelavent. That’s not to say that I believe you should ever stop seeking; science and medicine would have been stuck in the dark ages if human beings stopped looking for answers to ‘supernatural’ experiences. As a spiritual person, who now identifies with Buddhism and was also raised Christian, I don’t believe my journey is over and I feel that that’s almost part of the enjoyment. I think not having a defined faith and seeking aswers from multiple sources is a good thing, which not enough people do. Being ‘put in a box’ and constrained by one religion wasn’t healthy or spiritually satisfying for me. Don’t envy the religious, we have sooo much more spiritual wisdom to ‘play’ with
I loved you post!
Great post…
Nothing worked for me. I did look. I was not atheist very agnostic. I had some basic beliefs and thoughts and expanded ever so slowly on them. Really it was just defining me not a deity or practice. Middle age when I had all the reasons to be angry to demand and get vengeance (legally) and made the choice not to. I accepted it that I would not take bitterness and anger into me I was familiar with affects both rightly and wrongly. Nothing happened no epiphany no revelation but I’m more at peace with myself and family and do have a sense of confidence I did not have before. Then I began practicing Buddhism (wrestling might be a better word).
Whatever your path is and where it leads may you find the peace you are looking for.
Reblogged this on bhayanakbot.