The Library of Babel (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
libraryofbabel) wrote2021-08-27 03:26 pm
libraryofbabel) wrote2021-08-27 03:26 pm
Religious Perspectives
It is certainly true that I am religious; when I say I believe, though, I find I must explain to some that religion for people in my world is a matter of faith and practice, rather than interacting with a god or gods themselves. For us, one might quote the line from Saint-Exupery: "It is only in the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye." While we have tales of old of gods coming down from on high to change the world, that age seems to have passed, if it was more than metaphor or fable.
The faith that I have claimed and continue to choose is one of love, service, and kindness; of one that works toward an ideal world, a heaven-on-earth. The way Gnostics tell it, there is a true creator, who created a perfect world, and a Demiurge who usurped it, and is responsible for the pain and sorrow that exist as part of life. One could consider that as metaphor (the Demiurge as a collective embodiment of human selfishness and cruelty that can be exercised as a part of free will) or as the literal, with an invisible agent of evil causing humanity to struggle.
From my perspective, whether it is literal or metaphorical matters not; it also doesn't matter if it is false. What I have faith in is the rightness of these beliefs—that what I ought to do for the world and the universe is to try and spread goodness, be kind to others, and fix or remove that which is harmful.
If it turned out there was no god—no Demiurge, no Creator—or even that a god existed, but one who demanded the opposite of me, to subjugate and control... I would not stray from my path. Even to damnation, I have faith in what I believe is good and right, and should the powers that be prove me wrong, then I will fight them tooth and nail until I am right.
The faith that I have claimed and continue to choose is one of love, service, and kindness; of one that works toward an ideal world, a heaven-on-earth. The way Gnostics tell it, there is a true creator, who created a perfect world, and a Demiurge who usurped it, and is responsible for the pain and sorrow that exist as part of life. One could consider that as metaphor (the Demiurge as a collective embodiment of human selfishness and cruelty that can be exercised as a part of free will) or as the literal, with an invisible agent of evil causing humanity to struggle.
From my perspective, whether it is literal or metaphorical matters not; it also doesn't matter if it is false. What I have faith in is the rightness of these beliefs—that what I ought to do for the world and the universe is to try and spread goodness, be kind to others, and fix or remove that which is harmful.
If it turned out there was no god—no Demiurge, no Creator—or even that a god existed, but one who demanded the opposite of me, to subjugate and control... I would not stray from my path. Even to damnation, I have faith in what I believe is good and right, and should the powers that be prove me wrong, then I will fight them tooth and nail until I am right.