I am what humans call an atheist. I don't think that any religion or superstitious belief accurately describes the true workings of our universe to an acceptable degree. My friend is a christian and he's invited me to his church a few times. He invited, invote,? me to go with him this week because he was part of the program. He sang a beautiful song written from the point of view of one of the thieves crucified next to Jesus. I'll talk about it later in this blog post. Anyways I took some interesting notes throughout the service and I wanted to share them so, here they are.
During the opening songs and prayers I started thinking about the Matrix Reloaded character The Merovingian. He talks about the idea of purpose by asking "why?" Here were my thoughts on that.
Why. A mysterious why is very powerful because it is unknown. It can inspire fear, love, hate. It's romantic. I think the mammilian part of the brain is a big part of what encourages the survival of religion. From what I've read this area of the brain is responsible for our deep felt feelings. Compared to our most recently evolved frontal lobe which is able to work out and make sense of complex observations in a more efficient way than we've been able to do before.
Certain ideologies have alot of appeal to human beings. I think humans are drawn to churches and religion because of our ancestors' pack mentality. It feels good to be surrounded by people of like mind. Most of the time it makes it easier to survive in this sometimes hostile environment called earth. Not only the survival of the group, but also their ideology.
Jesus Christ's story could be looked at as a metaphor for human self consciousness. Even if the creators of the story didn't intend this interpretation, I think it is an intriguing one.
The service begins...
During the sermon, alot of thoughts raced through my mind. What I say here is not going to be all the preacher said or even the ideas he was trying to express. This is going to be what I was thinking during the sermon. Many of these thoughts had their source in the sermon, but many didn't.
Some beautiful song lyrics (modified from personal to ideological or phylisophical): "Righteousness is like the mighty mountains, Justice flows like the ocean's tide." Righteousness is always changing, very slowly, and hardly noticable. Justice is based off of and flows from righteousness. Rivers flow from mountains. A good way to find out what righteousness is in one's mind is to look at what justices one carries out and holds to. Working backwards through space-time by studying the effects to find the cause. That, I believe, is a wonderful and beautiful human effort.
Another song:"He grew the tree which he knew would be for the old rugged cross." Chilling, hauntingly beautiful lyrics. Ultimate and deliberate irony.
Luke 19:28-44
Sieze every moment.
Add in: Yes man is a great movie. I'd like to see if there's any real literature about the concept of yes.
These verses illustrate the idea of an inumberable amount of options for each speciman of time. Do not let yourself be smote down, even your children hedged before enlightenment.
Romans 3:9-18
carnal sins are illustrated to be those of the weak.
Romans 8:7-8
Personal carnal mindedness is enmity. Exra. Pastor's Interpretation: Fist toward God. I think most matured thinkers would not raise a fist for the reasons most believers think they would. Rather, they might raise their fists against the support for the lack of informative, observable evidence for the truth of religious beliefs.
Exodus 32
Possibly the most popular piece of Biblical scripture. The Hebrews at the foot of the mount watch moses ascend the mountain side. Once he's out of sight they have a rave. Sidenote: Some believe this is where the first glowstick was ever broken. Golden calf, all that shinaniganian stuff you need for a proper festivus. This story is pure sex on paper. By that I mean it's damn good poetry. "The truth will always remain"
John 8:21-58
The truth will remain. Our complexity is a manifestation of truth. The truth shall set you free. Verse 59- Took up stones against him. His sermon comes back to truth. How can one know truth? They must observe it. The enemy within is the monkey mind. The enemy to the furry lil mammals.
Isaiah 52-53
Jesus is mangled by us, and the only way to heal Jesus is through him. Here Jesus is a metaphor for observed or unobserved knowledge. The Unobserved compells the Observable. I'd like to see what sort of research has been done into the likelyness of the 5 trials of Jesus being true history.
It would be interesting to study the evolution of the mind.
Luke 23
I'd like to write a poem from the thief's point of view:
I am.
I am crushed.
Beneath my lungs, I am.
A forced stretch allows breath's manifestation.
I observe,
Who is this? I snear,
But when the thunder rolls I know.
This is the one
The one of fare and riches,
The one of deceit and corruption,
The one of passion and hate,
The one of myth.
The one of romance.
This is the one to save us all!
This is the one to save me.
I am broken and he is all.
We are.
He says to me,
Fear no more your mind is mine,
And for you now,
My kingdom thine.
Wow I've gotta do poetry more often! I love that. Wow. I really enjoy writing. I can see now how the Bible could be used for literary teaching.
The closing song was a classic: "Jesus loves me, This I know" (for the Bible tells me so). This song circles back to the acountability and observability of the Bible. There simply isn't sufficient, elegant evidence to support a fine feathered, potent, rational belief in the mythologies of any religion. Let alone Christianity.
So those are all the thoughts I was able to capture on paper during church today. I'm actually pretty intrigued by some of the ideas that seem to be begging me to explore them.
stay with me,
Travis Allred
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