As predicted, my last post was read and received in a plethora of ways. This is the reason why I write, the comments and discussion caused. So without further ado, let me finally write a proper reply rather than leaving a dangling conversation hanging in the form of a shoddy comments thread from my side.
It seems that my maxim of "live and let live" left a lot to be desired as it was taken to mean something a little different to what it was supposed to mean but, as the quoted subtitle and URL of this blog point out, everything is subject to interpretation. Allow me to attempt to clarify my position further.
I was accused of being too relativistic, meaning basically everyone has their opinions so you can't judge them and let everyone have them, etc. This isn't exactly what I meant. After a few days of deliberation and a further conversation I had with another friend of mine, I can now finally gather my thoughts.
I dislike the idea of relativism greatly. Especially the kind of relativism rampant within the current "liberal" wave of thinking. I refuse the notion of relativism because it basically leaves no room for actual opinionated discussion, instead it just lends itself to instant and constant disagreement which can never actually be disputed or argued which will, in turn, lead to no reasoned conclusion ever being reached.
I like to think that my position on religion is actually a cynical one rather than a relativistic one. Yes, I am all for everyone having their own beliefs and opinions as long as they don't offend anyone else. However, I am cynical about most opinions. That means that whatever you believe in, I will accept and respect while bearing in mind that it might just be based heavily on bullshit.
On the other hand, rather than claiming that my own views and opinions are the right ones, I know that since I came up with them myself and I am human, most of my own opinions might and probably are heavily based on bullshit too. I am cynical to the point of doubting my own ideas, basically.
My ideas are prone to change, as everyone who knows me well enough can tell you with great confidence. I am uncertain about everything and I am prone to changing the very way I think if an argument to the contrary is good enough. Yes, I'm stubborn, but still, if my arguments are completely destroyed, then I can never say, "Fuck it, I'm right anyway." I will also never, ever, for the love of all that you believe in, resort to "It's just my opinion" because that's when you know that the only thing between you and defeat is stubborn disinclination to accept it.
Hopefully this will clear the relativism argument, which leaves me one more thing to address. In my last post I said that I noticed I wasn't really committed to my belief when I was 15. This does not mean that I took a moral stance at 15 and stuck to it. Far from it! I am still trying to figure out the meaning of life and I am still trying to figure out what is morally right and wrong to this day. What happened when I was 15 was mere realisation that I was full of shit when I said I believed in the Catholic faith because, in reality, I didn't.
If somewhere along the lines I find myself leaning towards a particular faith, I would be inclined to take back my stance against organised religion and become devout to it, it just so happens that, so far, I have never been convinced that religion is not human and flawed. The conclusion being, I'd rather rely on my own human flaws than be expected to believe in things which I think are based on other human flaws.
Feel free to comment and discuss things as per usual, I do genuinely enjoy your reactions.
Good afternoon, the interwebz
Wednesday, June 12, 2013
Tuesday, June 4, 2013
The theological argument.
Just been inspired by a brief discussion with a friend of mine about religious beliefs and what not. Now I'm sure most of you either know or have deduced that I have renounced my faith and have been going through a journey or spiritual and ethical self-discovery for the last 6 or so years.
Why am I not still a Catholic? I was brought up, like the vast majority of people on this island as a Roman Catholic. I practised the faith and I believed in it until I was about 15 years of age when I realised that I was actually practising it out of habit rather than pious belief. This is the problem that about 80% of Catholics in Malta still have to recognise, the fact that they actually don't practise their faith, they merely exist within the framework of it without paying attention to what they're actually doing. This annoyed me at that age, and it annoys me no less now.
I believe that religion, from it's very conception, has been created by man to aid in his search for a purpose. If anything, it gives man hope. I am in no way going to disrespect a person for genuinely having faith, if anything, well done for being able to commit to it because I couldn't. As far as I'm concerned, live and let live. As long as you don't cram the fact that I'm going to hell (or whatever cosmic punishment your religion speaks of), then I won't go flailing around calling your beliefs 'horse shit'. I promise.
I am unable to invest myself in any particular faith because, as far as I'm concerned, the big religions have been distorted by generation of the other of blatant human influence. I believe that humans are fundamentally flawed and I'd rather live my life with the burden of my own flaws than claiming that theories changed by years and years of other people's flaws are true.
In essence, any ideal has the potential to be beautiful. I think that Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, even Communism, are essentially beautiful ideas. It the way that they've been presented by humans and their images and notions distorted by years of translation and editing that has basically fucked up the lot of them.
I want to agree with Nietzsche and say that "God is dead: of his pity for man hath God died", but I don't think the idea of God is actually dead. It can never be dead as long as man looks for a purpose in life and as long as a higher power can be described as the cause for all we have. Unfortunately, I tend to believe that if there was a higher power, than describing it in human terms is derogatory because it will be beyond our mortal comprehension in any case.
In a nutshell, I do not believe in any organised religion because even if they had an original divine creation, they are now merely human interpretations of the original ideal. Sort of like Plato's thoughts on art being a weak copy of a feeble copy of the ideal. That, in Platonic terms, is religion to me. I will keep living by my own moral compass created by years of thinking, reading and living within a civilised (barely) society and if, after I die, I find out there is a higher power and how I've lived is not good enough for it, then so be it.
Good afternoon, the interwebz.
Why am I not still a Catholic? I was brought up, like the vast majority of people on this island as a Roman Catholic. I practised the faith and I believed in it until I was about 15 years of age when I realised that I was actually practising it out of habit rather than pious belief. This is the problem that about 80% of Catholics in Malta still have to recognise, the fact that they actually don't practise their faith, they merely exist within the framework of it without paying attention to what they're actually doing. This annoyed me at that age, and it annoys me no less now.
I believe that religion, from it's very conception, has been created by man to aid in his search for a purpose. If anything, it gives man hope. I am in no way going to disrespect a person for genuinely having faith, if anything, well done for being able to commit to it because I couldn't. As far as I'm concerned, live and let live. As long as you don't cram the fact that I'm going to hell (or whatever cosmic punishment your religion speaks of), then I won't go flailing around calling your beliefs 'horse shit'. I promise.
I am unable to invest myself in any particular faith because, as far as I'm concerned, the big religions have been distorted by generation of the other of blatant human influence. I believe that humans are fundamentally flawed and I'd rather live my life with the burden of my own flaws than claiming that theories changed by years and years of other people's flaws are true.
In essence, any ideal has the potential to be beautiful. I think that Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, even Communism, are essentially beautiful ideas. It the way that they've been presented by humans and their images and notions distorted by years of translation and editing that has basically fucked up the lot of them.
I want to agree with Nietzsche and say that "God is dead: of his pity for man hath God died", but I don't think the idea of God is actually dead. It can never be dead as long as man looks for a purpose in life and as long as a higher power can be described as the cause for all we have. Unfortunately, I tend to believe that if there was a higher power, than describing it in human terms is derogatory because it will be beyond our mortal comprehension in any case.
In a nutshell, I do not believe in any organised religion because even if they had an original divine creation, they are now merely human interpretations of the original ideal. Sort of like Plato's thoughts on art being a weak copy of a feeble copy of the ideal. That, in Platonic terms, is religion to me. I will keep living by my own moral compass created by years of thinking, reading and living within a civilised (barely) society and if, after I die, I find out there is a higher power and how I've lived is not good enough for it, then so be it.
Good afternoon, the interwebz.
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