Inspiration

Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.
Buddha

Nothing leads so straight to futility as literary ambitions without systematic knowledge."
H.G. Wells

If a book is not alive in the writer's mind, it is as dead as year-old horse-shit."

No, it's not a very good story—its author was too busy listening to other voices to listen as closely as he should have to the one coming from inside."
Stephen King

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

God is Dead

                Everyone has their beliefs, their ideology, even passion towards some kind of system that has been laid out in books, and passed around the world. They preach of a higher power, something that brings them closer together, but in my reality I see it like this.  The bible has many flaws, it contradicts it self in so many view points, and ways that it flaws its own belief. Plus they say god is perfect, if god is perfect, why are his writings so imperfect?
                The bible has lots of immorality, it fills its pages with many socially degrading stories of injustice, genocide, war crimes, assassination, murder, hatred, deceit, lust, incest, drunkenness, and a host of other crimes that would be unacceptable to society today. Many of the followers of Jesus were supposed to be preachers of peace, but many were not. Look at Mohammed; he was a war lord, that just screams peace for me.
                They even hid the fact that the Virgin Mary was unfaithful to Joseph, saying she got impregnated by the Holy Ghost, another author thought it was too unbelievable, so he said that "an angel came in unto her" by the name of Gabriel (who was really some man staying overnight). The book shadows ideas that disprove itself, it is ultimately like a psychic, it tells you great, amazing things, everything you want to hear, and believe, but it uses bad things as a way to pull you in when you question things. If you heard your son was going to be a wealthy man some day, or you were going to gain some large wealth, wouldn’t you be filled with happy feelings, and ultimately believe them in the hopes they would be true. It is only when they say a horrible thing like; if you don’t follow these codes you will you not have wealth and fame, that it is an adverse effect brought onto make you follow them. To trust their every word, as if it was the last you would hear.
                Friedrich Nietzsche was a great philosopher from Prussia. In his book, The Gay Science, he talks about the phrase; God is Dead, not meaning he ever believed In a god by the Christian sense, but by the means that the Christian god is no longer a viable source of moral principle. When one gives up the Christian faith, the rights and beliefs of Christian morality come out from underneath their feet. The problem is the retaining of any system of values in the absence of a divine order. One of his passages starts out like this:
Have you not heard of that madman who lit a lantern in the bright morning hours, ran to the market-place, and cried incessantly: "I am looking for God! I am looking for God!"
  As many of those who did not believe in God were standing together there, he excited considerable laughter. Have you lost him, then? said one. Did he lose his way like a child? said another. Or is he hiding? Is he afraid of us? Has he gone on a voyage? or emigrated? Thus they shouted and laughed. The madman sprang into their midst and pierced them with his glances.
       "Where has God gone?" he cried. "I shall tell you. We have killed him - you and I. We are his murderers. But how have we done this? How were we able to drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What did we do when we unchained the earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving now? Away from all suns? Are we not perpetually falling? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there any up or down left? Are we not straying as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is it not more and more night coming on all the time? Must not lanterns be lit in the morning? Do we not hear anything yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God? Do we not smell anything yet of God's decomposition? Gods too decompose. God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we, murderers of all murderers, console ourselves? That which was the holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet possessed has bled to death under our knives. Who will wipe this blood off us? With what water could we purify ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we need to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we not ourselves become gods simply to be worthy of it? There has never been a greater deed; and whosoever shall be born after us - for the sake of this deed he shall be part of a higher history than all history hitherto."
        Here the madman fell silent and again regarded his listeners; and they too were silent and stared at him in astonishment. At last he threw his lantern to the ground, and it broke and went out. "I have come too early," he said then; "my time has not come yet. The tremendous event is still on its way, still travelling - it has not yet reached the ears of men. Lightning and thunder require time, the light of the stars requires time, deeds require time even after they are done, before they can be seen and heard. This deed is still more distant from them than the distant stars - and yet they have done it themselves."
       It has been further related that on that same day the madman entered divers churches and there sang a requiem. Led out and quietened, he is said to have retorted each time: "what are these churches now if they are not the tombs and sepulchres of God?"

1 comment:

  1. Really strong opinions. But it is so much more than that.

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