I recently got into a debate with my mothers friend about religion. It was "a friendly conversation" I did not want to have at that time. She had been drinking and I just got home from a long day of work.
It all started when she and my mother were convinced that they had seen a ghost in my living room while they were sitting in the kitchen; and me being the SUPER wuss that I am, tried to get them to stop telling me and began to rationalize it in my mind. During my personal rationalization, my mother's friend, we'll call her, Dana, noticed I am a wuss and began to console me by tell me that not all ghosts are bad and sometimes they are angels. (at least this is how I remember the convo, it wasn't super recent) ANYWAYS, this conversation took a crazy turn, which I really don't know how it ended up in this place, but it began to be a "debate" about religion. I put debate in quotes because it was really just her aggressively questioning my lack of faith in GOD.
NOW, let me just say, I in NO way have a clue what I believe, ALSO, I am completely respectful of the way other people think and am open to their beliefs.
Now that I've said that... I currently do not believe in a God. I don't believe in heaven and hell, the devil or angels, the after life of any kind. My currently beliefs are based on many philosophy classes I've taken, many history classes that discuss the beginnings of organized religions, and also the years I've spent going to my own church and the churches of my friends.
I DO BELIEVE that when we die we go out of existence, just as we had before we were born. I believe in evolution, coincidence, the mind is the brain, that we do not have souls/spirits, and I also believe that their is life on other planets in the universe.
SO while I was having this "debate" with Dana, I was half hartedly defending my case (because it didn't seem worth it to fight her at that moment) I said something that I believe is pretty profound. She asked if I believe in miracles, that people can be blessed, and that sort of thing. I responded with this...
...I BELIEVE IN the power of the human being. The idea that we have a certain strength within ourselves to create moments that seem as if we had been blessed or a miracle has happened. We tend to give credit to a higher being, because we ourselves are stunned and don't know how else to explain it. WE DON'T GIVE OURSELVES ENOUGH CREDIT. There is always something deep within us that can even shock ourselves. There are soo many things about the human body and the brain we have not been able to discover yet, these things may be the reasons for the events that we can't explain.
We as humans are typically humble and we tend to doubt our own power and strength, or deny we have it at all. Also, we always have someone to blame when something bad happens. So, how perfect it it that there is this all powerful being that controls everything, who is kind yet vengeful.
There is a saying that religion is for the weak, well maybe it is. Maybe when we are most week we look towards this being and beg mercy on us and bless us. But why can't we just believe in our own human power to get ourselves out of sticky situations. Maybe if we begin to trust ourselves and use our own inner strengths we can become more powerful and come to an understanding of how the human body/brain works. (I dont know, just a thought.)
Dana said well what about the cases where (and Im completely paraphrasing) there's a bad person and they "see the light" and become good when there is NO reason for them to have "seen the light" in the first place. And I said, "I believe that even in those extreme cases, there is something DEEP within the "bad guy" that made him change his evil ways." There may have been a chemical imbalance in the brain, or a childhood recollection of something good someone had done for him, or even the way he was raised, ect... But regardless this change wasn't an act of a necessary being, God, but something deep within that came to the surface and began to change the way the person acts, feels, and thinks. And vice versa for good guys becoming bad, or obese people who suddenly want to lose weight, a career change, an urge to do anything! Its all within us.
She also, mentioned miracles where people shouldn't have survived certain instances like cancer, or a natural disaster. I responded with coincidence, chance, maybe during a tornado a person is picked up in the wind and should have died but landed a certain way on the ground where there was a huge pillow of some kind that kept them from landing on a hard surface, or just a small little instance where they're arm landed and broke but saved their spine from breaking. Cancer, maybe the chemicals in their body were strong enough to wipe out the cancer, or they reacted a certain way to treatments, or even their was no treatment but they have a certain diet, or live a certain way that just so happened to cure cancer. All of these reasons don't need a God, they just depend on the power within ourselves and the way our world works.
But I really do believe in the power of the human being. I'm going to try to dig deeper and practice this myself. I think going to church is great, I think there are good morals to be learned in church about how to treat yourself and also how to treat others, but I think people depend too much on the belief that there is this all powerful being, God, that they forget to read into those lessons and focus too much on pleasing this God. They forget to please themselves and some end up going crazy to please this being that will never be pleased.
just be happy and love yourself. After all, you are SUPERMAN!
kro*
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