Rambling on beliefs
I was responding to an email discussing beliefs and the afterlife. I haven't updated my blog in forever, so I figured I should probably post this rambling online. Wrong an incoherent as I most certainly am, I should make a point to upload these little states of mind. Feel free to tell me what an idiot I am in the comments below.
Anyway, here's my response to a question. Essentially "What's wrong with having beliefs?" on the subject of the afterlife.
I don't think it hurts to believe in anything. I mean, I do think people get carried away in their beliefs and it hinders them a ton. Bigot bible thumpers. Second amendment maniacs. ISIS. KKK. Nazis. People who think pickles taste good. You look at what people believe and how they use those beliefs and a lot of the time nothing good comes from it. People totally and completely lose themselves and wrap their hearts in stuff that's in all probability wrong. It's not the simple belief, I think. Maybe it's believing without questioning that gets me. Like how me and some stereotype in Texas can live in the same country but our comprehension of what it is to be an American is so vastly different. But that makes it hard to find a path for myself. I mean, who the fuck am I to believe in something when I clearly look down on so very many misguided hearts? Who the fuck am I to say anything is right when I so freely challenge the incorrect beliefs of billions of other people? Even if somebody out there has the right answer, how the fuck is anybody supposed to distinguish it beneath all the piles and piles of bullshit? It's not easy. And you're right. This is my fears talking. Maybe just another wall I've built. I see what people do with their beliefs so I struggle to allow myself any. Something like that? I don't know. At the same time, I know that Teemo, Franny, you, and everyone else is an absolute miracle made up of the utmost impossible set of circumstances. Life itself. The stars, moons, planets. The fact that all of this started a mixture of basic elements, atoms and molecules, and took to self replicating forms based on energy levels, gravity, accretion, heat, hydration and such simple, simple little principles. Carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, and sulfur. All mashed up to make self replicating RNA and DNA, and develop into increasingly complex structures. A bamboo plant and human being are made of a slightly different combination of the exact same stuff. On a chemical level I'm virtually identical to Donald Drumpf and couldn't be more far apart in every other sense. How the fuck can somebody not appreciate how much we are like individual snowflakes? To quote a song I like by Nahko, "I am a miracle. Made up of particles." The mind alone. The fact that our core functions as living beings beyond keeping ourselves alive is to observe and experience our existence should be sufficient evidence of a continued existence in some form beyond what we are now. The capacity for belief and wonderment are not at all necessary for survival but none of this would be possible without that. But every thing, every single little tiny thing happens for a reason. From your migraines to wind patterns to why certain bugs pollinate certain flowers. As awful as some of it is, everything exists in a perfect moment, at a perfect balance. That doesn't just happen. That's not an accident. There absolutely has to be a reason we interpret our existence to every conceivable and often wrong truth while experiencing an infinite gambit of beautiful and terrible possibilities. Shit. With computers and burgeoning AI we know that a mind and intelligence are perfectly possible without being tied to functions of life. So to say that a mind or soul can exist outside of life is perfectly reasonable. The form is currently impossible to comprehend. But we know data can be conducted via energy through space and transported. It's how we're discussing this right now. What is the mind but a collection of data? Energy cannot be destroyed but can take on other forms. And we run on energy. We know all of this stuff. We know so very, very much about our existence. And the more we learn the more we realize we only comprehend about 1% of our existence. For everything we're right about, we're wrong about so much more. To say we stop existing after our bodies expire is a little too foolishly certain. To say we're here at random without some form of intelligent design is naive. It's just that, you look at all this, you look at everything we do understand under the magnifying glass of everything we don't understand, and to say, "I believe in something with all my heart!" feels so small. Whether it's Heaven or nothing. Especially when those beliefs were made thousands of years ago by bigger idiots than us. I see and understand enough to know that an existence beyond our observable universe is certainly possible. I think our capacity to learn, grow, and experience shows function beyond survival. If somebody asks, "Why are we here?" The only answer that makes any sense to me is simply to be here. To experience this. To be wrong or right. To discover. To love, hate, enjoy each other. To grow ourselves. To grow together. To continue to be more than we were yesterday. To climb and stumble. To tend to, hurt, wonder, gaze upon, and question. To live. All of this, every bit of it is just as important to experience being hungry or tired. Physical sensations. We know that all behavior, all action, every single event occurs for a reason. So "Why are we here?" To do all these things seems reason enough. To what end though is the question I can't answer. And I just don't have it in me to place my faith in a belief that's probably wrong. It's not at all wrong to believe. We have that, we do that for countless reasons. And sometimes I can let myself go enough to feel the core reason we believe is because there is indeed something to believe in. Something in that vastness of shit we can't possibly comprehend. I guess I have no real way of knowing when I'm holding myself back and when I'm throwing myself forward. It's all so much and I always feel so incredibly small. I feel like I'm always wrong and terrible, but sometimes I take comfort in that. Like in some ways it's healthier than being someone who puts so much faith in the certainty of being right all the time. I think it stunts me from bridging that gap though. That willingness to look into the vast unknown and attach an absolutely certain belief to it. Does something more happen when we die? There are enough indicators in all the places we're not looking for it to say, "Yeah. There's probably something more to us than this moment." Can I comprehend what it is? No. Can I put any certainty of beliefs into it? No. Should I even be looking for a greater miracle than the fact that I have the privilege of existing against all odds in this, the absolute impossible? Fuck, that makes me feel like an asshole.
Just a few random thoughts.
People always look for ways to see the grass as greener. This seems like an incredible oversight when you take a moment to realize, "Holy shit! There is fucking grass!"
I read a thing recently discussing evolution in The Bible. Jesus was considered to be tall at the time, and him and I were the same height when I was ten. For some reason this got me thinking about how a fish will grow to fit his environment. Any archaeological site of past civilizations will show you that people are getting bigger over the ages. We're still so tiny, but we're also currently trying to extend our environment to Mars and beyond. Dumb thoughts. But fun to play with.
Anyway, I know I'm full of contradiction and hypocrisy. I'm just trying (and probably failing) to illustrate why it's so hard for me to put faith into something. Why I don't think it's wrong to believe in something but why doing so on such a grand scale is too much for me. There's absolutely nothing wrong with it. I wish I could. I feel insane most of the time without it. I know I have a hole in my heart because of it. But I suppose I can't fill it until I've exhausted every reason as to why it's there in the first place. Hopefully there's some little thread of logic in my incoherent rambling.
Anyway, here's my response to a question. Essentially "What's wrong with having beliefs?" on the subject of the afterlife.
I don't think it hurts to believe in anything. I mean, I do think people get carried away in their beliefs and it hinders them a ton. Bigot bible thumpers. Second amendment maniacs. ISIS. KKK. Nazis. People who think pickles taste good. You look at what people believe and how they use those beliefs and a lot of the time nothing good comes from it. People totally and completely lose themselves and wrap their hearts in stuff that's in all probability wrong. It's not the simple belief, I think. Maybe it's believing without questioning that gets me. Like how me and some stereotype in Texas can live in the same country but our comprehension of what it is to be an American is so vastly different. But that makes it hard to find a path for myself. I mean, who the fuck am I to believe in something when I clearly look down on so very many misguided hearts? Who the fuck am I to say anything is right when I so freely challenge the incorrect beliefs of billions of other people? Even if somebody out there has the right answer, how the fuck is anybody supposed to distinguish it beneath all the piles and piles of bullshit? It's not easy. And you're right. This is my fears talking. Maybe just another wall I've built. I see what people do with their beliefs so I struggle to allow myself any. Something like that? I don't know. At the same time, I know that Teemo, Franny, you, and everyone else is an absolute miracle made up of the utmost impossible set of circumstances. Life itself. The stars, moons, planets. The fact that all of this started a mixture of basic elements, atoms and molecules, and took to self replicating forms based on energy levels, gravity, accretion, heat, hydration and such simple, simple little principles. Carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, and sulfur. All mashed up to make self replicating RNA and DNA, and develop into increasingly complex structures. A bamboo plant and human being are made of a slightly different combination of the exact same stuff. On a chemical level I'm virtually identical to Donald Drumpf and couldn't be more far apart in every other sense. How the fuck can somebody not appreciate how much we are like individual snowflakes? To quote a song I like by Nahko, "I am a miracle. Made up of particles." The mind alone. The fact that our core functions as living beings beyond keeping ourselves alive is to observe and experience our existence should be sufficient evidence of a continued existence in some form beyond what we are now. The capacity for belief and wonderment are not at all necessary for survival but none of this would be possible without that. But every thing, every single little tiny thing happens for a reason. From your migraines to wind patterns to why certain bugs pollinate certain flowers. As awful as some of it is, everything exists in a perfect moment, at a perfect balance. That doesn't just happen. That's not an accident. There absolutely has to be a reason we interpret our existence to every conceivable and often wrong truth while experiencing an infinite gambit of beautiful and terrible possibilities. Shit. With computers and burgeoning AI we know that a mind and intelligence are perfectly possible without being tied to functions of life. So to say that a mind or soul can exist outside of life is perfectly reasonable. The form is currently impossible to comprehend. But we know data can be conducted via energy through space and transported. It's how we're discussing this right now. What is the mind but a collection of data? Energy cannot be destroyed but can take on other forms. And we run on energy. We know all of this stuff. We know so very, very much about our existence. And the more we learn the more we realize we only comprehend about 1% of our existence. For everything we're right about, we're wrong about so much more. To say we stop existing after our bodies expire is a little too foolishly certain. To say we're here at random without some form of intelligent design is naive. It's just that, you look at all this, you look at everything we do understand under the magnifying glass of everything we don't understand, and to say, "I believe in something with all my heart!" feels so small. Whether it's Heaven or nothing. Especially when those beliefs were made thousands of years ago by bigger idiots than us. I see and understand enough to know that an existence beyond our observable universe is certainly possible. I think our capacity to learn, grow, and experience shows function beyond survival. If somebody asks, "Why are we here?" The only answer that makes any sense to me is simply to be here. To experience this. To be wrong or right. To discover. To love, hate, enjoy each other. To grow ourselves. To grow together. To continue to be more than we were yesterday. To climb and stumble. To tend to, hurt, wonder, gaze upon, and question. To live. All of this, every bit of it is just as important to experience being hungry or tired. Physical sensations. We know that all behavior, all action, every single event occurs for a reason. So "Why are we here?" To do all these things seems reason enough. To what end though is the question I can't answer. And I just don't have it in me to place my faith in a belief that's probably wrong. It's not at all wrong to believe. We have that, we do that for countless reasons. And sometimes I can let myself go enough to feel the core reason we believe is because there is indeed something to believe in. Something in that vastness of shit we can't possibly comprehend. I guess I have no real way of knowing when I'm holding myself back and when I'm throwing myself forward. It's all so much and I always feel so incredibly small. I feel like I'm always wrong and terrible, but sometimes I take comfort in that. Like in some ways it's healthier than being someone who puts so much faith in the certainty of being right all the time. I think it stunts me from bridging that gap though. That willingness to look into the vast unknown and attach an absolutely certain belief to it. Does something more happen when we die? There are enough indicators in all the places we're not looking for it to say, "Yeah. There's probably something more to us than this moment." Can I comprehend what it is? No. Can I put any certainty of beliefs into it? No. Should I even be looking for a greater miracle than the fact that I have the privilege of existing against all odds in this, the absolute impossible? Fuck, that makes me feel like an asshole.
Just a few random thoughts.
People always look for ways to see the grass as greener. This seems like an incredible oversight when you take a moment to realize, "Holy shit! There is fucking grass!"
I read a thing recently discussing evolution in The Bible. Jesus was considered to be tall at the time, and him and I were the same height when I was ten. For some reason this got me thinking about how a fish will grow to fit his environment. Any archaeological site of past civilizations will show you that people are getting bigger over the ages. We're still so tiny, but we're also currently trying to extend our environment to Mars and beyond. Dumb thoughts. But fun to play with.
Anyway, I know I'm full of contradiction and hypocrisy. I'm just trying (and probably failing) to illustrate why it's so hard for me to put faith into something. Why I don't think it's wrong to believe in something but why doing so on such a grand scale is too much for me. There's absolutely nothing wrong with it. I wish I could. I feel insane most of the time without it. I know I have a hole in my heart because of it. But I suppose I can't fill it until I've exhausted every reason as to why it's there in the first place. Hopefully there's some little thread of logic in my incoherent rambling.
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