I pulled this quote from Jive Turkey from another thread because I wanted to respond to it and this thread seemed more appropriate.
for me, it's one of the glaringly obvious proofs of it being man made (among many other things).
I assume you're still religious? Where does that leave you in regard to what god you believe in?
I am going to assume here that Jive Turkey has little or no religious upbringing (I'm not talking lack of knowledge or understanding or any unfamiliarity with text and writing. I mean the day to day or week to week or major holiday to major holiday experience with religious participation.) Please correct me if I am wrong. I'm making this assumption from posts but I could be wrong.
I grew up in a religious home and spent a lot of time in church. I vacillated between belief and nonbelief, but certainly believed that the Bible was man-created. I did not believe in an afterlife or that one needed a religious grounding to be a good (or a bad) person. I am a Darwinian. A Dawkinsian (?)
But I still carry that earlier background and teaching buried within--deeply, almost primal so it still has influence on me. I admire many of the cultural works the Bible inspired--art work, music, literature, particularly the use of the icons by secular artists.
While my rational mind dismisses it, much of my subconscious (artsy, emotional side) embraces it-- whether it is superstition, the sheer ecstasy of some of the music ("the minor fall, the major lift"), the archtypes, the validation of crying out in the wilderness even though you're pretty sure nobody is going to answer or even hear or the calm and quiet, the catharsis. It pushed me to see the dark side of things--including the concept of god with his own dark side, and contemplating that if there was god, what was the relationship to man? And what was our relationship to each other.
To me it was an enlightening puzzle, whether it was moot or not. It did not really matter whether there was a god or not. It was a framework, a reference point.
(Or perhaps I tend to believe things at 4 am that I don't believe at 6 am. I also shop at 4 am, so there is that consideration also)
I don't know other cultures very well, whether the fact that religion is all around other places as it is in the US. I suspect culturally we continue to be a religious nation (in its broadest sense) even among many secularists--spirituality, which is pretty much religion for nonbelievers, allows people to take the beneficial perks of religion.
Religion/faith created many emotions in me, anger not the least of them. But I carry much that I have used from it.
It was never about rationality to me. It was about hope and despair and how the light juxtaposes with the dark and what we can learn from it.
) semantics. There's a direct connection between sin and the quality of the person (call it 'goodness', call it what you want). I didn't get anything wrong. And this is boring as fuck, but if you'd like to hang your hat on it, I'll throw you a bone. You rarely get one of those and this is pretty goddamn minor in the grand scheme of things.
I'm the person I'm trying to satisfy with what I question.
