Have to have faith in something...
21 May, 2003 :: 4:34 a.m.
Here's something I said I was going to write about a looong time ago...
Lacey and I were talking a while back and I mentioned Karma and how I felt like I had finally paid back my Karmic debt...this was before the whole Andy thing and me realizing that I hadn't known what it was to be on the other side of the whole ex-boyfriend/new boyfriend thing...
Anyway, I believe in Karma...I believe that what you put out there and make other people feel, you get back in some similar fashion. I don't, however, really believe in God...I believe in a higher power, but I choose not to call it "God" because of the Christian association that most people have with that word...I don't believe that the Bible is a literal documentation of things that really happened (at least not all of it), but rather something that we can read and take lessons from...I believe that most Christian faiths have bastardized this. I believe that all the crap about the meek shall inherit the earth and all that crap was put in there by those in power to keep the commoners complacent...if you think that living a good life and not rebelling against those in power or even questioning them is the key to getting your rewards in the afterlife, you'll leave them alone. I mean why the hell else do those in the highest positions always abuse their power? I know, I shouldn't say always because I'm sure some good people make it to those positions...but I know what I mean. If those people who profess to be such good people really believed all the stuff the Bible says, then they wouldn't be committing acts that go against the very things they preach. I think personal faith and all that is fine...I think that whatever you believe is fine since pretty much all major religions have the same core messages of not harming others and basically trying to live a good life...nothing wrong with that...I just can't stand the hypocrisy of people who do "face time" in church to look good in the community when they are basically bad human beings the rest of the time... So be you Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Wiccan, Buddhist, what have you, I respect that if it's what you truly believe and how you try to live your life and you don't try to preach to me about how I should live...
Back to the conversation...Lacey said that she's done shitty things to people and never felt like she's had any sort of Karmic payback for it...but she doesn't really believe in Karma, she is Christian and believes in the Bible and Heaven and Hell and all of that...so maybe that's the key...what you believe--what you TRULY believe.
If you believe in Karma, Karma pays you back...if you believe in a Judgment Day with God, maybe that's what you get. If you're Catholic and you believe telling some douche bag all the little bad things you've done and saying some prayers absolves you, maybe it does (sorry, but a whole entry on faith without Catholic bashing??? I couldn't do it)
--aside that I was reminded of by mentioning Catholicism...I love Dogma, and I know I'm surely not the only person to make note of this, but the movie centers around dogmatic law and stopping the two angels from being absolved of their sins...I've not boned up on religion as much as I probably should...but the whole thing centers around God being infallible and if the angels are absolved they can get back into Heaven proving God fallible...doesn't the mere fact that they could prove God fallible and wouldn't the movie be over before it got going since that would rip apart everything?
Okay, but back to the main point...I believe in the power of the human mind, I believe that while 99% of humans suck monkey balls, there are good ones and that we have the potential to be a great race...I believe that there is SOMETHING and maybe minds are wired differently, but all are searching for the same basic thing. So maybe our mind manifests this in different ways with each one being valid to the individual. God really exists for those that really believe; Karma exists for those that believe; maybe atheists really do die and there is nothing when they die if it's what they truly believe... Of course then I'd probably have to extend this to idiots like the Aryan nation who believe that only whites are God's chosen race and what have you, but if that's your personal belief and you don't harm anyone else, why not have it be true for you in your afterlife? If you harm those of another race, that goes against the whole not harming others that Christianity and other religions preach, so you get punished accordingly... I don't know, I haven't thought this all the way through...this is all just conjecture on my part and I may be totally off base or forgetting some major detail that will make me feel like a schmuck...