Darkoshi

There's a TV in Qiao's room at the rehab center; it always seems to be on and tuned in to some news channel. The room has 2 beds, each with a hand-held speaker gadget that can be turned on and off, for listening to the TV sound. Qiao's is usually off, but the other patient's speaker is loud enough to be heard in the whole room.

The channel seems like Fox News to me; it sounds more like a conservative talk show than actual news. Qiao said it was CNN.

One segment discussed a recent survey which indicates that more young people today are "doubting the existence of God". This was presented as if it were a bad thing. Two atheist college students were on as guests, and they were asked the question, "How can you not believe in God?" (or something similar to that).

The phrasing bothered me. It seemed to exude a presumption that it is normal to believe in a god. It seemed like they were saying, "You're weird and illogical; explain to us normal people why you're so weird".

Apparently, most people do believe in one or more gods. Even many people who don't, still believe in (and/or feel) some other kind of spirituality. So I think that something must predispose most humans for that. However, likewise, I think there must be something that predisposes or causes other humans (like me) not to believe.

It's no easier for people like me to explain why we don't believe, than it is for believers to explain why they do. Or rather, we can both try to explain it, but we can't make the other person really understand.

My thoughts were going along those lines, and I said, "They should ask how anyone *can* believe in god." Ie., the one question is just as valid (and useless) as the other.

Qiao replied that he believes, and that he thinks he is still alive because of God.

I know that he believes, and that he's Christian... he's taken comfort in being visited by the priest of his church, and in praying together.

However, I usually don't pay much attention to that fact. I'm completely aware of it, but it's also in the background of my mind rather than the forefront. I tend to ignore it. The same way I do his conservative politics, and the fact that he enjoys listening to those kind of talk shows. And sort of like how I ignore that we aren't very sexually compatible.

Qiao's words brought it back to the forefront of my mind for a bit. It's a downer; that is why I usually ignore it.

It made me think about how superficial our relationship is. When I visit him in the hospital, we hold hands. It's a very comforting feeling. I'm comfortable with him. He makes me feel good. He's my "sweetheart", as one of my co-workers phrased it.

We live together, we eat dinner together, we watch some TV shows together, we sleep in the same bed together, we show each other good internet videos that we've found...

But when I really think about it, it is all rather superficial, in the same way that life itself seems superficial to me. It's just something than I'm going through / living through... there's no deep meaning in any of it.

If he were agnostic, and if his political leanings were more like mine... That might make us seem better matched, but I don't think it would make the relationship seem any "deeper".

If his sexuality were more like mine... if there were an ongoing spark between us, rather than there only having been the occasional sparks I felt in the beginning... I'm not sure how that would affect my feeling of the "deepness" of the relationship.

If I felt an ongoing spark with someone, I suspect that might make me start believing in something, though I know not what. If I believed in something, then maybe the relationship wouldn't seem superficial.

It's not that people like Christians and my brother are crazy; they aren't particularly irrational compared to me, but that they are drawn to believe different things from what I'm drawn to believe. They have a different outlook on things based on the things they believe, and based on the things they are drawn to believe, and based on the things they are drawn to disbelieve. I'm sure many other people would perceive me as "crazy" based on my reasons for being vegan.

I have a hard time reading/watching/listening to the things that Bro provides in order to share his beliefs with me. I have a hard time, because I am inclined to disbelieve those things. Instead of reading/watching/listening with an open mind, and then deciding whether I agree or disagree, my mind fights the information from the get-go. I am skeptical, and my mind disputes the input as it receives the input, constantly looking for ways to disprove the input. That is why it feels stressful.

There was a time a few years back, where I thought it would be useful to have read the Bible, to know exactly what it says, to be able to respond in an informed manner to other people who quote it or claim to believe it. But there didn't seem much point in reading the whole thing, and being left with an overall impression of disbelief, without being able to explain to others the details of why I disbelieved. So I took notes and wrote down my reactions to every bit I read... it was tedious, and I didn't like the stuff I was reading, so I soon lost interest and decided it wasn't worthwhile to continue.

I have the same approach when reading/watching/listening to things which I'm drawn to disbelieve. I want to take mental notes on which parts don't make sense to me, and why, so that I can argue or at least explain my position.

But the thing is, that I either tend to believe, or tend to disbelieve, things, before I even get into their details. It doesn't matter what the details are, because my beliefs are set already. My mind has to be receptive to believing something, before it will accept things as plausible.

In order to get past that barrier, you have to be exposed to the ideas many times... I recall reading about that. You can't expect people to change their beliefs the first time you tell them something; it has to get past their internal resistance, and sometimes it takes being exposed to a foreign idea many times, until it becomes more familiar and until the person is receptive to believing it.

But how much of that is a careful analysis of the input data? Is belief only a matter of what someone is drawn to believe / instinct, and/or a matter of being familiar with an idea, as opposed to actual analysis of input data?

Walking along, lost in random thought. Something catches my attention momentarily, and I decide to stop, go back a few steps to look again... and I stand still. Noticing things. Listening. A little fly walking on the wood railing. Sunlit leaves on a sapling. A repetitive chirping noise from a cricket to the left. A more constant higher-pitched noise from a cricket (?) to the right. The roaring noise of the highway in the distance. Each one of these things comes into my attention, then fades as I focus on something else. The birds singing. How my body feels, balanced on my feet. Is there any scent in the air? Not really. Trees, leaves, the water in the stream flowing. I am standing still, with all this surrounding me, all this happening around me in the world. So much going on all the time, which I do not notice, except when I focus my attention on it. What things may exist, which I have never noticed, because I have not focused on them? What things may exist, which I don't know how to focus on... maybe there is something out there, but I have not learned (or have forgotten) how to sense it?

.

Religion. Were my random thoughts about religion? I was thinking about how it is not wrong for someone to believe in a religion (or anything), just as it is not wrong for someone not to believe it. How can one be wrong for believing something? Belief simply is. Just as non-belief simply is. And religion is about things which cannot be proved nor disproved. As much as I find some beliefs, religious and otherwise, to be strange or unbelievable, or even offensive, still, how can I think that people are wrong to have those beliefs? They simply do, for whatever reasons. Their brains simply are that way.

The idea of a God creating the universe, creating humans, does not make sense to me. The idea of a God, existing alone in emptiness, before it decided to create the universe, does not make sense to me. What would such a God have been like? Did this God have thoughts? What kind of thoughts could a being have, without a universe to give those thoughts context? If nothing else existed yet, what kind of thoughts could a being have? It does not make sense to me, and so I cannot believe it.

But many people do. So... supposing there was a God... it must have created some people with a belief in a God, and it must have created other people like me, without such a belief. Or it must have left whether or not any particular person would believe in a God, to chance. Either way, in doing so, it was affirming the rightness of both ways of being. Otherwise, why create both?

Or perhaps there was one god (or several gods) who created the people who believe in religions, and there was another god (or gods), who created the people who don't believe.

Anyway. Why would a god create the universe? One cannot fathom a god's thoughts or a god's reasons, some say. The god was lonely, and wanted to create humans who would adore and worship it, others say.

So. Suppose there somehow was this God, alone in a vast emptiness, before the universe existed. And suppose that this god was bored and/or lonely (supposing that such thoughts/feelings could exist in a void). And suppose that this god had a power of Creation. And so it Created Something, to stave off the boredom and/or loneliness. (How does creating a universe stave off boredom and loneliness? How does having beings believe in you, and worship you, and pray to you, stave off loneliness?) If I were God, and had created this world, would it not have been in order to experience it? Would I not choose to be every piece of my creation, experiencing every facet of it? I would be every rock, every tree, every atom spinning in the void.... I would experience every person's experiences, sense every being's senses... Perhaps that might stave off boredom. Perhaps.

It still doesn't make much sense to me though. Not enough for me to have any belief.

My own existence doesn't make sense to me either, and yet I exist. So I do not deny the possibility of a God or Gods, or something magic and special and unknown, which exists outside of my senses. There just hasn't been anything so far, which has made enough sense to me, for me to be able to believe in it.

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Another reason I am not able to believe in a God which created the universe, is that it doesn't answer the question about how the God came into existence. If everything that exists must have had a creator, and if God exists, then who was God's creator? In contrast, if it is possible to believe in a God that has always existed (and had no creator), then why is it so different or difficult to believe in the possibility that the universe has always existed? Why do people believe that the universe must have been Created, but don't believe the same thing about the Creator?