Originally Posted by
Elliette
Thanks, Tony Miller, I appreciate the response. I think I see what you're saying here.
I know people have been there for me in ways big and small through life (some very very big ways). I think for me it is a matter of attributing their actions to them, rather than what some would call a higher power. I believe very strongly in the capacity for good in people - because I have seen it repeatedly. I have never felt that God was there - for me or at all. I know that will strike some as sad, perhaps, but I am not sad about it now - because of the people who have been there, mostly.
Don't get me wrong, I have been to a LOT of services and ceremonies, and many are quite moving (I even still like certain parts of Mass, and most of a Yom Kippur service) and even enlightening. But the belief in god part just never came. I tried to beckon it, so hard, but it was not there. I always had questions, and wanted answers. I was called arrogant by a couple of people for "daring" to ask questions, but I have a mind and I will not silence it.
I look at a church or a synagogue or mosque or whathave as a place for people to gather. Some are very beautiful, and some of the simplest are the most beautiful, and while I know that is meant as an offering to god, I take it as testament to the beauty that is inside of human beings and finding concrete expression through architecture. I also really like a good library. I am in awe of human achievement. I am also in awe of human failure - o, we fail spectacularly sometimes! But we do survive, and we pick up and build from literal rubble.
To me, to lay the successes of humanity at the doorstep of god/s is to sell ourselves short. It seems that this happens a lot - and to be fair, if the successes we create are attributed to Him, why then are not our failures? All that is good comes from god, but all that is bad comes from us? I do not think so. That just seems mightily dysfunctional.
Erm....was I rambling there? I think I was....