I was thinking about addicts and jesus again…
Yesterday I heard someone say that they would pray for a certain person who was an addict. Pray that they would “find jesus and eternal life” and I wrote the following in a fit of coltrane induced sleeplesness.
A belief in eternal life betrays this one. If you believe that this existence is just a test or practice or precursor to another, better, longer lasting, AND MORE IMPORTANT life than this one (which by the way is the only provable and empirical life that any human has ever known) than you will act in a way that treats this life like it ultimately means nothing. If you believe there is a better life for you and yours afterwards than why put any thought or effort into making life better now. If you believe that your neighbor, the infidel, is bound for hell after this life, then it seems ultimately hypocritical that you would want him to meet his doom sooner than you meet your fate. Yet this is the dichotomy and hypocrisy that all christians and muslims and jews find themselves in. If you truly believed that your neighbor is going to hell and that perhaps your words or actions could change this you would act different. If you believed that the only thing your neighbor needed was faith like yours which came by an acceptance and knowledge of your holy book then you would want to keep them ALIVE for as long as possible to get them to read it, or learn it, or accept your savior into their hearts. And yet, the christian and muslim live their life in an opposite fashion distancing themselves from their neighbor with no regard for the collateral damage and death of the person in the next temple, state, country, or culture. Our faith sponsored countries and governments inflict or ignore the gross suffering and death of their neighbors in the name of faith, god, or a capitalism extrapolated from a holy book.
It seems rather obvious to me that if one had no conception of religion or no belief in an abstract idea of eternal life. If one believed that the present existence of birth to death as determined by the beating of the human heart was the only true and knowable definition of existence then, and only then, is an abstract idea like acting out of love possible. It seems that what most would define as a loving act is performed not for a god, guilt, or compulsion but rather genuine compassion and empathy for a fellow passenger in all too brief existence. If one lived and acted based on the notion that ‘This is all there is” the idea of the death of a fellow human being would be truly tragic and of the utmost importance. The sickness or suffering of another would be a “burden” which would awaken a guttural human emotion hardwired from the evolutionary ooze that required action to heal and ease this suffering and sickness.
Is it possible then that the most moral and loving path to walk is the one free from any religious faith or abstract spiritual pitfall? Is it possibile that the only jesus, mohammed, prophet or priest that anyone needs to meet is YOU.
comments?????
Lydia says:
But what if u never shared what you leanred in that “holy book” of yours. What if ur actions and how u presented urself, made people wonder whats different about that person. They still care about me even though I’m hurting them or mistreating them. Even though a friend may have OD and well that freaked the heck out of me…cause you know what all i thought about was how much that friend meant to me. Not o i should share god or whatever with her. But to let that person know, who is hurting their ownselves, that they are loved or they do matter. I feel like im going on and on…but maybe just maybe if that person saw how much u cared about them, they would wonder themselves about faith. And u know what maybe i am a christian, but u know what everyone matters, even that church or government office or that shelter where people are abused can go and feel safe for once in their lives. That shelter can maybe say its ok, i dont care if ur doing drugs or your drinking, its not ur fault…I still love you, even though i dont even know you. Those things all matter…but what matters the most is maybe making a difference in someone else’s life, who may think there is nothing else, but drinking or getting high, or hurting their own selves…everyone in this world matters because tonight as i sit here, someone else is dieing for ODing and no one was there to tell them they matter, cause everyone else is to afraid to step out of the box and be a little uncomfortable, to make a difference in this world, country, state, city/town, their own home. So whats the point?? well cause everyone has something to offer, but will they be open and do something about???
October 8th, 2006 at 1:38 am