I distinctly remember a time as a kid when I thought to myself that I was waiting for my parents, or other adults, or my friends to tell me that, like Santa, God wasn't real. And looking back on this view it certainly makes a lot of sense.
When you are little you are bombarded with stories, pictures, and television shows about stuff that isn't real...Fairy Tales anyone? It's a whole genre whose alternate title is "Lies to tell Small Children." As we grow up we slowly learn or are told explicitly that things like unicorns, fairies, monsters under our beds, the tooth fairy, and Santa Clause aren't real. We aren't told, "It's unlikely that they are real" or "There is no scientific proof of their existence but you can still believe in them if you want" we are told "ooh yeah all that was a lie... your parents are Santa, the Tooth Fairy, and the Easter Bunny. Oh and those bumps in the night aren't monsters in your closet it's your parents doing it." And with that our childhood dies.
And think of the arguments used when older kids are wrestling with their beliefs about Santa...
-Flying reindeer? That seems impossible...I've never seen a deer fly.
-The world is so big how could he possibly go to all the houses in one night.
-How does he know how we behave? Does he have spy cameras in every house...is the phone bugged? There is no way for him to just 'watch' us.
And parents expect their kids to be smart enough to reason like this and for their belief to slowly falter so that when they drop the No Santa bomb the impact is less severe. But at the same time Christian parents expect their kids to be able to have faith in God. Something that they learned about from their lying, untrustable parents. Something that they could easily could be questioned with the same arguments as Santa is..
-Flying angels? That seems impossible..
-The world is so big how does he hear all the prayers..
-Are we on candid God-camera?
To a child God and Santa also seem to serve very similar purposes which is to both scare and bribe them into being good and behaving for their parents. So it was only normal for me as a kid to question God as soon as I found out that I'd been tricked by my parents into behaving for Santa. I have to imagine other kids feel similarly, especially those like me who did not spend a lot of time at church. (We only went on Christmas for the most part, if at all, and I usually fell asleep).
My point is really that we teach kids not to have faith in anything that they want to believe in like fairies and unicorns or magic wizards so how can we expect them to have the capacity to use faith as the only basis of belief when it comes to God?
Now I don't mind that I questioned the existence of God because he seemed similar to Santa, I'm actually very glad that I reject the Judeo-Christian conception of God (and my parents never tried to make me believe in God and I don't think they'd see anything wrong with rejecting his existence on the same basis I rejected Santa's existence). I'm just saying it seems counter-productive and maybe even hypocritical for parents to break children's gleeful faith in magic and wonderment but then still expect them to believe in God. If you want your kids to be able to use faith as a basis for belief then let them believe in the possibilities of magic and fairies too, we don't all need to be so disillusioned with the possibilities of strange wonderful things (besides God) existing outside our realm of understanding. And as children grow up they can use their own reason to sort through their beliefs and decide what unknowable things they actually do have faith in and for what reasons.
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Monday, January 16, 2012
Maiden Voyage
For many reasons I've decided to start a blog..perhaps I am jumping on this bandwagon much too late and my words will be lost in the sea of the YouTube generations self-righteous ramblings, perhaps. Either way I am here and after many half-assed attempts at creating a blog in the past this time I've actually gotten to the writing a post part so that's promising!
So why start a blog? and why now?
1. peer pressure
2. boredom
3. sometimes I think I might be funny/interesting/insightful
4. New Year's resolution to actually start writing something, sometime, for some reason
5. I had a bit of a revelation today which I will detail here now because I guess that's the sort of thing you do in a blog...
My mind wanders all the time, since I've been little I've narrated my life in my head as if I was writing an epic novel. When the things I'm doing aren't very interesting then I just "write" things in my head that I'll never actually write down. Today in the shower that thing I was "writing" was a potential blog post about my thoughts on God and Santa Claus (now that I have forced myself to actually create a blog I will actually write this!) As I'm thinking and fleshing out ideas I end up in a place a bit far off from where I started and that thought was "There is no knowledge, we can't know anything. Who are we to claim what anything is or how reality works? We could easily all be living on a flower like Horton's whos...if we discovered that tomorrow I don't think I'd be surprised."
After coming to this conclusion I took a second to refocus on the world outside of my wandering mind. I was of course in the shower like I said, but would you like to know what I was doing while having these thoughts?
I was shaving my fucking pubes. And not just like my bikini line... all of my fucking pubes because like Patty Donahue I know what boys like. I was sitting their contemplating Life, the Universe and Everything while I'm in the middle of shaving my fucking cunt so that I can go have mediocre sex with a guy I sort of like. And I began to wonder.. How is one supposed to think in a metaphysical way when bogged down by the ridiculous physical elements of modern life? How am I supposed to be a bright, interesting, intelligent person with insightful opinions while straightening my hair or putting on mascara or even worse giving a blow-job? The Universe is a crazy, mysterious, fascinating place but I can't be bothered to think about it because I've got a dick tonsils deep in me.
I realized other people probably feel like this... not all geniuses are celibate or horribly ugly. People can't help but be caught up in sexting on their iPhones or getting drunk and having casual sex but that doesn't mean we have to be idiots all of the time.
This ridiculous shower incident perfectly illustrates my life right now and I assume a lot of other 20 somethings lives as well and realizing that gave me a character/a voice with which to start writing..and thus a blog was born. Also I realized I needed a creative outlet for my worthwhile thoughts and ideas so that they don't get washed down the drain like my unwanted body hair.
Let me tell you more about myself so that you can understand what I mean when I say the above story encapsulates me right now and so you know what type of stuff you can expect to hear from me if you ever read my blog again...
and let me do it in a quick non-boring way
Stats:
age: 22
gender: female
height: 5'5.5"
weight: 125
education: 3 years at College of Wooster as a Classic Civilization major. Two quarters at Ohio University as a World Religion major. Graduating this June.
career goals: Museum owner/founder, Mixologist, or college Professor. (If I'm real ambitious all three! "That's Dr. Bartender to you.")
What kinda stuff are you going to talk about in your blog?: Religion, Philosophy, sex, boobs, clothes, food, alcohol, bros, hoes, books, inventions...etc. Basically it'll be what you'd expect from a fairly intelligent World Religions major at the number one party school in America.) I'll also try to put in some pictures or something fun because I know people hate just reading text. We've all reverted back to childhood and we want picture books damn it!
Sum it up for us: I'm just a girl with big boobs and a bigger brain trying to balance my hormones with my existential anxiety while fighting the eternal internal battle of head vs. heart, brain vs. brawn, passion vs. reason, animal instincts vs. human intelligence, etc.
Also as a quick side-note I plan on being open, honest, and straight-forward. This may offend some people and others it will just gross out. So if you actually know me in real life do this test to see if you should read my blog: You walk in on me having sex.. how awkward do you feel afterwards? If it is anything from very awkward to extremely awkward you should not read this.. that should eliminate my parents, siblings, and ex-boyfriends. Everyone else you can stay.. I wouldn't really care if you walked in on me.. but please don't make a habit of it.
So why start a blog? and why now?
1. peer pressure
2. boredom
3. sometimes I think I might be funny/interesting/insightful
4. New Year's resolution to actually start writing something, sometime, for some reason
5. I had a bit of a revelation today which I will detail here now because I guess that's the sort of thing you do in a blog...
My mind wanders all the time, since I've been little I've narrated my life in my head as if I was writing an epic novel. When the things I'm doing aren't very interesting then I just "write" things in my head that I'll never actually write down. Today in the shower that thing I was "writing" was a potential blog post about my thoughts on God and Santa Claus (now that I have forced myself to actually create a blog I will actually write this!) As I'm thinking and fleshing out ideas I end up in a place a bit far off from where I started and that thought was "There is no knowledge, we can't know anything. Who are we to claim what anything is or how reality works? We could easily all be living on a flower like Horton's whos...if we discovered that tomorrow I don't think I'd be surprised."
After coming to this conclusion I took a second to refocus on the world outside of my wandering mind. I was of course in the shower like I said, but would you like to know what I was doing while having these thoughts?
I was shaving my fucking pubes. And not just like my bikini line... all of my fucking pubes because like Patty Donahue I know what boys like. I was sitting their contemplating Life, the Universe and Everything while I'm in the middle of shaving my fucking cunt so that I can go have mediocre sex with a guy I sort of like. And I began to wonder.. How is one supposed to think in a metaphysical way when bogged down by the ridiculous physical elements of modern life? How am I supposed to be a bright, interesting, intelligent person with insightful opinions while straightening my hair or putting on mascara or even worse giving a blow-job? The Universe is a crazy, mysterious, fascinating place but I can't be bothered to think about it because I've got a dick tonsils deep in me.
I realized other people probably feel like this... not all geniuses are celibate or horribly ugly. People can't help but be caught up in sexting on their iPhones or getting drunk and having casual sex but that doesn't mean we have to be idiots all of the time.
This ridiculous shower incident perfectly illustrates my life right now and I assume a lot of other 20 somethings lives as well and realizing that gave me a character/a voice with which to start writing..and thus a blog was born. Also I realized I needed a creative outlet for my worthwhile thoughts and ideas so that they don't get washed down the drain like my unwanted body hair.
Let me tell you more about myself so that you can understand what I mean when I say the above story encapsulates me right now and so you know what type of stuff you can expect to hear from me if you ever read my blog again...
and let me do it in a quick non-boring way
Stats:
age: 22
gender: female
height: 5'5.5"
weight: 125
education: 3 years at College of Wooster as a Classic Civilization major. Two quarters at Ohio University as a World Religion major. Graduating this June.
career goals: Museum owner/founder, Mixologist, or college Professor. (If I'm real ambitious all three! "That's Dr. Bartender to you.")
What kinda stuff are you going to talk about in your blog?: Religion, Philosophy, sex, boobs, clothes, food, alcohol, bros, hoes, books, inventions...etc. Basically it'll be what you'd expect from a fairly intelligent World Religions major at the number one party school in America.) I'll also try to put in some pictures or something fun because I know people hate just reading text. We've all reverted back to childhood and we want picture books damn it!
Sum it up for us: I'm just a girl with big boobs and a bigger brain trying to balance my hormones with my existential anxiety while fighting the eternal internal battle of head vs. heart, brain vs. brawn, passion vs. reason, animal instincts vs. human intelligence, etc.
Also as a quick side-note I plan on being open, honest, and straight-forward. This may offend some people and others it will just gross out. So if you actually know me in real life do this test to see if you should read my blog: You walk in on me having sex.. how awkward do you feel afterwards? If it is anything from very awkward to extremely awkward you should not read this.. that should eliminate my parents, siblings, and ex-boyfriends. Everyone else you can stay.. I wouldn't really care if you walked in on me.. but please don't make a habit of it.
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