As I was writing my first blog post, I found that I had the fight the urge to ramble on about things that were not related to the question. So, for this free blog, I thought it would be fun for me to just rant "stream of consciousness" style and see what happens. So here goes:
I would not consider myself an extremely religious person. Actually, since starting college and distancing myself from my hometown church I would attend every Sunday as well as musically contribute to several times a week, I found myself in a little bit of a crisis. I really cannot say whether or not I believe there is a god or a higher power. I think I am at this point in my life where I don't think God exists, but that is a super scary and terrifying thing for me. There was one night when my friends and I were having a deep conversation and I started thinking about the concept of eternity. I started thinking about the fact that I barely remember 3 out of my 4 grandparents because they died so long ago. I thought about all my ancestors and how I didn't know any of them and how I would be forgotten pretty soon. That being said, I had this weird existential crisis that made me really upset. I just really think that we are no different from animals, and that scares me at times. I think one of the drawbacks to being super educated is the fact that it causes you to maybe question the existence of god much more. I have had many discussions about this with my best friend. She works at a bank with people that are very different from her and I. They are all conservative and religious, and many of them tend to just say "whatever happens in my life is God's will and I can't change that." To me, I just can't accept that as a reason for things. I believe that we control our lives. This may sound pretentious, but when people say things like that, they come off as ignorant and unintelligent. So at home in rural Minnesota, I am surrounded by people who blindly follow religion and attribute all things bad and good to God. I see them as unintelligent or ignorant, but the thing is THEY'RE HAPPY. Some of the most joyful people I meet are the most religious. So I am here, completely questioning the existence of god and unhappy at moments in my life when it seems like those people are not unhappy in the slightest. One of my closest extended family members died almost 2 years ago. I was really sad when she died, and when I am around my family and we are talking about her, I find myself saying things like "she is looking down on us" or "Judy would have really gotten a kick out of that." After I say things like that, I feel better in the moment, but then I always wonder why those statements came out of my mouth. I guess what I am trying to say is that religion comforts us if we let it. I took Astronomy last spring term, and I found the more I learned about the universe, the less I believed there is a god. We learned of the cosmological principle, which means that on large enough scales the universe is the same everywhere; our place in the universe is neither special nor unique, so why would a god be looking over us or controlling us. So I guess this could be the plight of the liberally educated fifth year senior, everything is up in the air and I have been trained to critically think of everything. I guess we'll see how it goes.
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