I let Susanne in on the secret earlier, but the fact of the matter is this: I have been absent from the blog this weekend because it is hard to get someone to come install the internet up in heaven.
That's right, you heard me. I was the ONLY person raptured on Saturday. So it's just me and God up here, chilling. Truth be told, it's a bit boring. I'm apparently *not* allowed to smite people, in spite of having access to all the lightning and thunder one could want. Something about me being judgementally impaired or something like that. There's a lot of thee's and thou's in God's vernacular, so it's hard to translate. There's a reason I never finished reading the KJV Bible. Mostly I just nod and tune him out.
So, before I got sucked up here, and wasn't that fun, what with my fear of heights and all. All I'm saying is, phenomenal cosmic powers and he can't teleport people? Had to do that whole slow float thing? Meh.
Anyhow. I'm still reading VBV. The chapter I'm on right now is about the symbolism of the hijab. Not bad so far, but nothing new, so I don't really have anything to say about it.
My random thought for today has been this: would it be so bad if there was no God? No divine nothing. Just people and the universe.
Hahah! Obviously you were not cleaned up before you went up there! :-P The only reason you let me in on your little secret is because I came looking for you! I noticed no posts, no comments, no Amber checking in on Facebook since Saturday morning when you were getting ready to do yardwork so I deduced what happened! Yay me! They don't call me Captain Awesome for nothing! :-D
ReplyDeleteAnd in answer to your last question, for me, yes. I think it would be bad although I can see some good in it I suppose. Just hate it for the "non-fittest" who have ever lived. I'm curious why that came to mind... :)
Hey! Which one of us got raptured? Yeah. Who you calling 'unclean'? ;p Seriously. Very boring up here. I mean, how many rounds of Jeopardy can I be expected to play? And it's a rigged game, because He always knows all the answers!
ReplyDeleteJust hate it for the "non-fittest" who have ever lived.
Why? It's not as though their fate would be any different from the fittest.
Hahhaa....Oh,I bet Jeopardy IS hard for you against Him! :-)
ReplyDelete*ahem*
I guess I mean those people would never get any sort of justice. I think of the unborn children who never saw life because someone else snuffed it out for them. Those who died in wars and famines and who were raped and abused. No justice afterward. We all just live and die and some of us live better and too bad for the rest.
I guess what I'm saying is that thinking of God and an afterlife and justice gives people hope as they struggle through this life. It's a nice myth to have for many, I'd imagine.
He cheats.
ReplyDeleteNo justice afterward. We all just live and die and some of us live better and too bad for the rest.
Which is why it is incumbent on us to create as much justice as we can on earth. The view that because there's no divine justice afterward so it sucks to be one of the 'unlucky' is sort of fatalistic. If there's no cosmic scale, no divine scale balancer, then it is our duty to our fellow human beings and to society to make this world as just as we can. It will never be perfect, because perfect is an unrealistic and nonexistent benchmark, but it's the effort involved, the little victories and the improvement of society that make it worth it.
All that being said, life is not fair and it never has been. No religion ever promises that life will be *fair* - that's why there has to be the story of the fall of humanity, to explain how a perfect God could create and allow a world where inequity rules.
I would be so heartbroken if there was no God :(
ReplyDeleteYou are funny :) How's the weather up there??
Suroor,
ReplyDeleteWell, in that case, there most definitely is a God, because we can't have you heartbroken! It just won't do! :)
Windy. Reeaaallllyyy windy.
Hahahahahhahahahaha
ReplyDeleteCaptcha has the perfect response, I kid you not, it is.... rudest!
That's how captcha and I feel about you not letting us in on this little secret sooner!
:D
ReplyDeleteWell, I guarantee I'm the rudest person up here!
I told you, it's hard to get the DSL installed! You wouldn't believe the service charge...
"Which is why it is incumbent on us to create as much justice as we can on earth. The view that because there's no divine justice afterward so it sucks to be one of the 'unlucky' is sort of fatalistic. If there's no cosmic scale, no divine scale balancer, then it is our duty to our fellow human beings and to society to make this world as just as we can. It will never be perfect, because perfect is an unrealistic and nonexistent benchmark, but it's the effort involved, the little victories and the improvement of society that make it worth it."
ReplyDeleteOK, good point, O Rudest One, but how come many think the more civilized a country is, the more freeing it is, it gives abortion rights to women? I won't even argue when life begins or even the first trimester, but what about late-term and partial-birth abortions? Somehow we think we have done some good for women by allowing them to kill their own children. I'm for freedom of choice, but the choice ends for you when another life is involved except for rare cases perhaps. So even though I can agree with feminists on many points, this is one aspect where I disagree with the ones who say "my body, my choice." True. But there is another body involved so your choice is taking the lives of countless other little potential feminists.
So maybe I am just fatalistic..hmmm.
Yeah, life isn't fair. I see that and realize it by just looking around. So maybe that IS why we have those religious myths. They help us feel better.
"Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of a spiritless situation. It is the opium of the people."
Hope you are enjoying the wind up there! Go fly a kite for me! :)
I'm with Suroor-- no God would be sad.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I don't believe in Hell in the traditional sense so I'm not looking for "justice afterwards" but I had been looking forward to Heaven as a kind of reconciliation of souls after we've all been washed clean.
...Although if God cheats at Jeopardy, perhaps there's less reconciliation than I thought!
but how come many think the more civilized a country is, the more freeing it is, it gives abortion rights to women?
ReplyDeleteDo you think that, before abortion became legal, an industry, that women never had abortions? They did. They've been having abortions since they started having babies. There has always been knowledge of which plants will kill life in the womb. 'Surgical' abortions are also nothing new. I'm not arguing for abortion, understand. I believe that life begins at conception - any other point is arbitrary. What 'modern' society has done is try and make the thing safer. Many women died because they got an abortion in the back of some dark alley. That whole clothes hanger trope? Truer than many think.
Somehow we think we have done some good for women by allowing them to kill their own children.
Maybe we think we've done good by giving women control over their own bodies. For millenia women were property - like breeding cattle and their output, their offspring, belonged to their husbands. Women have always had the right to do with their own bodies as they will, but they were denied that right for most of history. Now, does that right extend to taking the life of another? First you would have to convince everyone on the planet of when life begins. What makes a person a person? I don't believe that we have the right to take an innocent life in order to make our lives easier. But outlawing abortion won't change the mindset of the people. Education is the key, I think.
Religious distress is at the same time the expression of real distress and the protest against real distress. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of a spiritless situation. It is the opium of the people. The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is required for their real happiness. The demand to give up the illusion about its condition is the demand to give up a condition which needs illusions.
There. That's the whole quote. It's not so negative as we usually think, is it? Religion gives people hope, the illusion that at some time they will be made happy because all the unfairness in the world will be balanced out. Bad people will get what's coming to them and good people will get what they deserve. But the end of the quote is a call to abolish religion - not because it is inherently evil, but because if people don't look for things to get fixed in some nebulous 'next life' then they will see what is around them and work to make happiness possible here. And now you've made me argue for Karl Marx. How dare you! :p
Oops. Too windy for the kite. I really need to get tv up here.
Allie,
ReplyDeleteI'm with Suroor-- no God would be sad.
But why? Why would it be sad?
I think that you believe we all get to heaven eventually, yes? And you're looking forward to that. But if there is no god and there's nothing after we die, then we won't know it anyway.
...Although if God cheats at Jeopardy, perhaps there's less reconciliation than I thought!
He totally cheats. I can't prove it, but I'm certain He rewrote the laws of physics just so He could be right on one of these questions.
posted for Susanne:
ReplyDelete". Many women died because they got an abortion in the back of some dark alley. That whole clothes hanger trope? Truer than many think."
Yes, I realize that. I recall even in modern day America where abortion is legal a stupid "doctor" giving unsafe abortions not long ago.
I see your point, however, it seems the way some people are abortion is peddled as a God-given right. That women aren't free until they have the right to kill their children safely and easily.
You know - or should - how much I detest the mentality of women as property. (My husband knows...;)) That said, I still can't abide the thought of my freedoms meaning a child has to be killed.
That's what I am referring to. I'm all for safer medical practices and like I said, I'm not even debating when life begins, but am speaking more of late term abortions when most educated people know a child is growing inside them. And don't get me started on partial-birth abortions. Even if they are fairly rare, they are cruel and inhumane.
People say we should not fight for the rights of others. Muslim women should fight for their own rights to drive and wear the niqab or not, but this is one group that cannot speak out for themselves so I think we should.
I'm not for back-alley, unsafe abortions. But neither am I for us putting a pretty face on it as if it's the right of a free society of women to destroy life if it's not convenient for them.
Just my opinion. I know there are plenty who disagree and I'm laughing that your question about God's existence lead to this! :-P
What do you think about your own question?
Also, thanks for putting the Marx quote into its context. My point for using what I did was to show religion IS helpful to many...that's why we perpetuate the myths. They make us feel better...or they do for some of us. hopefully. :) And you pointed this out so we agree.
But I see your continuing point too. Thanks for taking time to argue the point for yourself and Marx! hehe.
I guess if you are twiddling your thumbs and it's too windy to fly kites, what better thing do you have to do? It beats losing at Jeopardy again, right? :D
I see your point, however, it seems the way some people are abortion is peddled as a God-given right. That women aren't free until they have the right to kill their children safely and easily.
ReplyDeleteIt's true. People will always take things too far. I in no way want to sound like I'm endorsing abortion, because I'm not. It's a terrible thing and it is the killing of another human being. Not even to save your own life (though those cases do happen, rarely), but because you screwed up and this other person existing is *inconvenient* for you.
am speaking more of late term abortions when most educated people know a child is growing inside them. And don't get me started on partial-birth abortions. Even if they are fairly rare, they are cruel and inhumane.
Some people don't believe that the life 'counts' until the baby is outside the womb. They're in the vast minority, I believe though.
What do you think about your own question?
Which one?
But if there is no god and there's nothing after we die, then we won't know it anyway.
ReplyDeleteBut we need the hope now. That's why religion exists, I think-- for hope. Also, rules, but we manage to create plenty of those on our own. Hope (whether for justice or reconciliation or whatever) is very hard to create without an afterlife, at least.
Some people don't believe that the life 'counts' until the baby is outside the womb. They're in the vast minority, I believe though.
At risk of getting in to an abortion debate (and I hate doing that because it seems I manage to piss off everyone), I think that's not a minority-- anyone who is fully pro-choice believes this and I think the recent statistic said that's at least 40% of Americans.
Me, I believe it starts at conception. Biology is unclear and I've heard many biologists say that it starts when the fetus would be able to survive outside of the womb. I might buy that. It's not about the biology, though, for those of us who consider it a moral issue. It's about the soul, right? So when does the soul arrive inside an entity? Conception? Birth? Somewhere in between? Later? (This was a commonly held belief up until even the 80's, that the soul or something like it didn't occur until much later in life, like 2 or 3 years old.) Anyway, my point is only that there is no one answer on this yet. We don't know-- none of us remember it, so the other side may be right. :)
He totally cheats. I can't prove it, but I'm certain He rewrote the laws of physics just so He could be right on one of these questions.
But is that cheating if you're God, or just par for the course?
Amber, I meant the question about it not being so bad if there were no God. Do you really think so or was it just some random thought you had?
ReplyDeleteThanks for posting my other comment. Not sure why I was having problems on my parents' computer. I enjoyed reading your thoughts.
Allie,
ReplyDeleteIt's true that it does give people hope, but plenty of people have hope without having faith in a god, or an afterlife. I guess it's just a matter of how people view life, maybe?
I think that's not a minority-- anyone who is fully pro-choice believes this and I think the recent statistic said that's at least 40% of Americans.
I think the statistic is correct, but I'm not sure that even the majority of people who are fully pro-choice would say that the baby is only a baby once it's born. I know of people who only 'count' the baby once it's viable outside the womb with or without artificial aid, and others who place the point of 'life' at other developmental milestones. But very few that I have run into make it hard and fast at - once the kid has drawn air on it's own, it's alive. I could be wrong, and as far as I'm concerned all points are arbitrary, so we might as well say that the child is a human being at conception.
But is that cheating if you're God, or just par for the course?
Changing the rules to make yourself right when you were previously incorrect? Cheating. No matter how deity-like you are. :)
Susanne,
ReplyDeleteWell, it was a random thought. But really, I don't see that it would be that bad if there wasn't a God. I believe that there is, but if there's not...I just don't see it as being such a big deal.
Right...I got ya. If all we do after death is sleep for eternity that doesn't sound bad. I like the HOPE I have of possibly seeing loved ones again, but who knows if it's true? I can hope in this life and sleep in the next. :)
ReplyDeleteAmber, you are so funny!
ReplyDeleteRe hope... I feel that hope comes naturally and can come from nearly anything. For humanists it can come from the belief that we can create a better and more just future.
Re abortion... I would be very surprised if many (or any) people thought that life only became precious after birth! The point at which it becomes precious is debatable, of course. For me I don't have a problem with very early-stage abortions, but I am very uncomfortable with later-stage abortions. I think the fact that those abortions are so traumatic to undergo shows that life has become precious by that stage. Just my two cents. :)
Sarah,
ReplyDeleteI feel that hope comes naturally and can come from nearly anything.
I agree. That's what I was clumsily trying to say, earlier.
I know there are a few who take that point of view, that life is only life after it's born. Like I said, I believe that they are few and far between, but they do exist. For me, I can't see a mark where the baby is a baby, but before that it's not, so I just assume that it's always a baby. But then, I also can't condemn women who have abortions because they were raped, or victims of incest, or the rare case where the child is endangering the mothers life.