It's taken a while to find the words to write this blog post. It's been a hard week, reading the news, and thinking of the lows to which humanity has sunk. I've felt the awful ice-in-my-heart feeling of depression creeping in, gripping hold.
And suddenly, I got it.
I really, truly, without question, understood in my heart just what it is that makes people need religion so desperately. The pain of realizing that so much evil can exist is beyond the measure of words. It's for someone far greater skilled than I, to try to write just how crippling it is to face that reality. How much easier to think it's something otherworldly that creates evil; how much more comforting to think that something greater and more eternal awaits those so heinously wronged in life.
The fact is, saying "Smite me, ya bastard!" is easy. There is no shortage of mockery of religion and religious beliefs, on the Net and off. What I do see a shortage of, is comfort. Someone to go to, when humankind just thoroughly disgusts every fiber of one's being. Someone to lean on when the world just doesn't make sense. A soft place to land, as it were.
And I think that's the direction I want to take CMAA in. I just don't quite know how, from here.
Of course you don't have "the answers" -- yet. But you'll make real headway, because you've asked the right question. Namely: how do we make it happen without self-deception?
ReplyDeleteIt won't be easy. But the right person is on the job.