So I shouldn't give a shit about eternity. But, of course I do. It makes me wonder if I have been giving religion an unnecessarily bad rap. Religion's purpose is to provide purpose. It hides the existential emptiness inherent to self-consciousness under a pillow of soft, warm bullshit. The bullshit bothers me. It enrages me. It blinds me to the actual value: the ritual. Through ritual, religion provides purpose by eliminating purpose. The genius of Hemingway, Picasso, Matisse, Neruda was not the actuality of their creations, but the ability to commit to their ritual and give it direction. One cannot expect everyone to possess this genius. It may come as shock, but I am not a genius. I can't commit to my passion. Hell, I don't even know what my passion is. Maybe I need a helping hand, someone to provide me with self-effacing ritual. Maybe if I had a passion for Christ or Mohammed or Buddha, I would have eternity. Not the 40 virgins in heaven type of eternity, but the eternity I could hold in my hand now like Matisse did his paintbrush. Maybe religion was meant to give us passion and ritual and not dogma. Maybe religion was meant to make us all forget about ourselves.
And maybe we should think about this next time we use religion to create counterfeit pedestals from which to judge the "non-believers" and thus individuate ourselves that much more.
Religion is the teat of the frightened.
ReplyDelete- D Shaw