Skip to main content

Get Your Priorities Right

By Carl S ~

There's a reason I haven't been writing so much lately. I've gone back to building models. No, they aren't the ones in kit form. I built many of those over the decades. These are different. They're oldies, rail cars, the type once used as a “touring bus” of its day. I bought the plans for it ten years ago, and have been imaginatively modifying it ever since. Once, at a train show, I had one operating. A man was watching it run and asked me, “You modified that, didn't you?” It turned out he was the original designer. (Years later, I remembered the source of my inspiration: a magazine article about third world children creating their toys out of industrial products washed up on their beaches.)

The wonderful thing about a hobby like this, as compared to writing about religious beliefs, is that I get a tangible result. Sure, there are responses to those commentaries, but they're not something I can hold in my hand, in three dimensions. There are perks in visualizing; even after it's finished, it has further possibilities. Plus, I've learned through trial and error, how to get desired results. You can even get satisfying results you hadn't planned. The problem about a hobby is, as a friend and I found out, the hobby can become obsessive, as you get involved in compulsive ideas of how to make your product more clever, satisfying, and functional. The hobby can take over your life, even to the point of neglecting the enjoyment of life itself, and to the extent of neglecting others you need to care about.

It's all about creativity, isn't it? Creating entails overcoming obstacles. Without obstacles, there wouldn't be solutions, or satisfaction. From our experiences, we can see that a creator who could make something without any obstacles would find creating just too easy, definitely unsatisfying. There wouldn't be any difference between something he or she created and something which created itself. There's no fun in that. The biblical flood story is about a creation the creator found unsatisfying, so he destroyed it, like any frustrated animal tearing apart its structures. So he does it, and leaves it up to whoever, whatever, is left, to re-create it as best it can. And that's the story. It's an old story with Humanity: destroying in order to rebuild, to re-create.

Without obstacles and challenges, there would be no pursuit of knowledge, no progress, and life itself would mean merely existing. For non-sentient beings, Nature doesn't work that way. Take, for examples, male bower birds, and all male birds, creating fanciful structures and plumage in order to mate, having the satisfaction of making something so attractive to the females that sexual gratification (usually) follows. Making babies is creative, and getting to that point means overcoming obstacles. So it goes with males of each species, whether we're citing their structures, bringing of gifts, showing off how strong they are, even looking and acting ridiculous, etc. But, whether male or female, we create for self-satisfaction, to impress others, or for pleasure. In doing so, we establish relationships. It's unavoidable.

Faiths and philosophies were built on the imaginations of those who wrote before them, who had more leisure time than work time.What does a creative imagination have to do with religion, especially Christianity? Let's take the Gospels, for example. They're a collection of tales and teachings. Since most scriptural scholars assert “Mark” was the first written, because of its simplicity, those following were elaborations on it. What of religious tales and teachings before them? Faiths and philosophies were built on the imaginations of those who wrote before them, who had more leisure time than work time. (Others, affected by opioids and/or brain abnormalities, created their own.)

You might say that philosophy and theology are really hobbies, open to vivid imaginations, while dealing with real and hypothetical problems. Each of them create a “what if ... therefore,” hypothesis. The difference between them is that each religion creates its own fictional reality, its own imaginary world separate from, yet acting on, the material world. It then makes its dogmas, and declares, “They're all absolutely true, therefore...” and tries to persuade or force humanity to agree.

Religions are immaterial hobbies created by minds free from working, free at leisure to enjoy and ponder. Every religion becomes a hobby for its most serious followers, a product to feel superior about, an escapist pleasure of self-deception and persuasion that takes over the lives of clergy and their followers alike. The obsessive hobby of religious beliefs takes precedence over caring about others. (Indeed, as Jesus asserted, it must, and that includes one's own family members.) The shaman hobbyists of religion have to be psychologists, to be acutely aware of the fears, hopes, and vulnerabilities of their listeners, to exploit them. They use established methods to accomplish alleviating fears and bolstering hopes, and they have to be inventive building on them. It isn't enough they are steeped in the ancient art of persuasion and spin-doctoring dogmas. They must also be personally clever in order to survive and make their livings. Their hobby is entertainment with the satisfaction of being believed.

For those who are still in religion, a warning: Let the hobby belong to you; not you to the hobby. After all, it's your human relationships that really matter.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Christian TV presenter reads out Star Wars plot as story of salvation

An email prankster tricked the host of a Christian TV show into reading out the plots of The Fresh Prince of Bel Air and Star Wars in the belief they were stories of personal salvation. The unsuspecting host read out most of the opening rap to The Fresh Prince, a 1990s US sitcom starring Will Smith , apparently unaware that it was not a genuine testimony of faith. The prankster had slightly adapted the lyrics but the references to a misspent youth playing basketball in West Philadelphia would have been instantly familiar to most viewers. The lines read out by the DJ included: "One day a couple of guys who were up to no good starting making trouble in my living area. I ended up getting into a fight, which terrified my mother." The presenter on Genesis TV , a British Christian channel, eventually realised that he was being pranked and cut the story short – only to move on to another spoof email based on the plot of the Star Wars films. It began: &quo

Are You an Atheist Success Story?

By Avangelism Project ~ F acts don’t spread. Stories do. It’s how (good) marketing works, it’s how elections (unfortunately) are won and lost, and it’s how (all) religion spreads. Proselytization isn’t accomplished with better arguments. It’s accomplished with better stories and it’s time we atheists catch up. It’s not like atheists don’t love a good story. Head over to the atheist reddit and take a look if you don’t believe me. We’re all over stories painting religion in a bad light. Nothing wrong with that, but we ignore the value of a story or a testimonial when we’re dealing with Christians. We can’t be so proud to argue the semantics of whether atheism is a belief or deconversion is actually proselytization. When we become more interested in defining our terms than in affecting people, we’ve relegated ourselves to irrelevance preferring to be smug in our minority, but semantically correct, nonbelief. Results Determine Reality The thing is when we opt to bury our

So Just How Dumb Were Jesus’ Disciples? The Resurrection, Part VII.

By Robert Conner ~ T he first mention of Jesus’ resurrection comes from a letter written by Paul of Tarsus. Paul appears to have had no interest whatsoever in the “historical” Jesus: “even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, we know him so no longer.” ( 2 Corinthians 5:16 ) Paul’s surviving letters never once mention any of Jesus’ many exorcisms and healings, the raising of Lazarus, or Jesus’ virgin birth, and barely allude to Jesus’ teaching. For Paul, Jesus only gets interesting after he’s dead, but even here Paul’s attention to detail is sketchy at best. For instance, Paul says Jesus “was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures” ( 1 Corinthians 15:4 ), but there are no scriptures that foretell the Jewish Messiah would at long last appear only to die at the hands of Gentiles, much less that the Messiah would then be raised from the dead after three days. After his miraculous conversion on the road to Damascus—an event Paul never mentions in his lette

ACTS OF GOD

By David Andrew Dugle ~   S ettle down now children, here's the story from the Book of David called The Parable of the Bent Cross. In the land Southeast of Eden –  Eden, Minnesota that is – between two rivers called the Big Miami and the Little Miami, in the name of Saint Gertrude there was once built a church. Here next to it was also built a fine parochial school. The congregation thrived and after a multitude of years, a new, bigger church was erected, well made with clean straight lines and a high steeple topped with a tall, thin cross of gold. The faithful felt proud, but now very low was their money. Their Sunday offerings and school fees did not suffice. Anon, they decided to raise money in an unclean way. One fine summer day the faithful erected tents in the chariot lot between the two buildings. In the tents they set up all manner of games – ring toss, bingo, little mechanical racing horses and roulette wheels – then all who lived in the land between the two rivers we

Morality is not a Good Argument for Christianity

By austinrohm ~ I wrote this article as I was deconverting in my own head: I never talked with anyone about it, but it was a letter I wrote as if I was writing to all the Christians in my life who constantly brought up how morality was the best argument for Christianity. No Christian has read this so far, but it is written from the point of view of a frustrated closeted atheist whose only outlet was organizing his thoughts on the keyboard. A common phrase used with non-Christians is: “Well without God, there isn’t a foundation of morality. If God is not real, then you could go around killing and raping.” There are a few things which must be addressed. 1. Show me objective morality. Define it and show me an example. Different Christians have different moral standards depending on how they interpret the Bible. Often times, they will just find what they believe, then go back into scripture and find a way to validate it. Conversely, many feel a particular action is not

I can fix ignorance; I can't fix stupid!

By Bob O ~ I 'm an atheist and a 52-year veteran of public education. I need not tell anyone the problems associated with having to "duck" the "Which church do you belong to?" with my students and their parents. Once told by a parent that they would rather have a queer for their sons' teacher than an atheist! Spent HOURS going to the restroom right when prayers were performed: before assemblies, sports banquets, "Christmas Programs", awards assemblies, etc... Told everyone that I had a bladder problem. And "yes" it was a copout to many of you, but the old adage (yes, it's religious) accept what you can't change, change that which you can and accept the strength to know the difference! No need arguing that which you will never change. Enough of that. What I'd like to impart is my simple family chemistry. My wife is a Baptist - raised in a Baptist Orphanage (whole stories there) and is a believer. She did not know my religi