many of my problems with religion are grammatical.
for instance, the question “does god exist?” is usually considered a fundamental theological or ontological inquiry. it’s always seemed more of a problem of grammar to me. it seems, that things that we talk about and mention all the time exist. perhaps i’m giving too much power to language, in supposing that speaking about things gives them existence. in the beginning was the Word, though, right?
i can’t even ponder the question “does god exist?” it turns into: how do we define the word “exists”? certainly ontological, but equally linguistic.
also, there’s a reputation to agnosticism that it’s a sort of solipsistic belief, a self-centered notion at worst, and an annoyingly coy intellectual excuse at best. i’m reminded of the passage in Watchmen where Dr. Manhattan says something like “I don’t know if there is a god, but if there is, i think he’s nothing like me.” an anthropomorphised god seems to me to be more solipsistic and self-centered than agnosticism. obviously there are many degrees of human characteristics attributed to god(s) in various religions. Islam strikes me as a religion which shirks an anthropomorphised god in some ways, but still says that god has needs and desires (for prayers, obedience) just as a human does. Bokononism and the Church of God the Utterly Indifferent riff on this idea.
Christianity has an infinite, 3 part god. he has three parts just as humans have a past, a present, and a future. the past will always be there (the father), the present is mysteriously malleable (holy spirit), and the future makes us mortal (the son). Jung saw Mary as the anima rearing it’s head to maintain some power in a religion which sought and continuously seeks to repress it. he found that 3 was an incomplete number, that a triangle can only achieve 180 degrees, while a square, like a circle, is 360.
my anarchism is me reining in that part of me that would recreate the world in my image.
writing about such unironic subjects makes me feel very vulnerable. i’m trying to be more appreciative of things in my life. i’m trying harder to reach 1000 artists in my last.fm music library, however.
