Good stuff and the concept of faith

[burntcopper]

rozk has a very good rant on the history of homosexuality, church and power over on her journal. Go read.

On a completely unrelated topic, she says she lost her faith because of disagreements with the general state of the church and so on. Which is... interesting. I was raised basically atheist, though going to schools that would have prayers and hymns in the mornings. On one level, I was told about this god, this all-powerful being, that you were meant to think of in the happy shiny way. On the other, I was raised completely and utterly without faith. So I saw this stuff being advertised at school, and went 'whuh?' Me and my family and religion are like oil and water. Faith, religious faith's basically an alien concept. The most we ever had faith in was football. Sure, I've read the mish-mash of texts and superstition and old legends thrown together that got called the book. I can argue the details, and have done, with religious studies teachers. Read a fair few sets of legends and things describing faith in all kinds of stuff. But it's still an alien concept. I don't get it, in any shape or form, and when I see people who have faith, I wonder. What they see in it, how they have it. Because I know damn well I don't have faith in anything, and don't see any point in the future, where I could ever, because I'll always be standing on the sidelines, poking holes in the articles. Even when I've written fic with characters with faith, they always have the only faith I could ever imagine having. Best summed up the Pratchett line 'I don't believe in gods, it would be like believing in the postman.'

Comments

[kitsune76.livejournal.com]

Interestingly though, that Prachett line still acknowledges gods as existing. It just refuses to worship them,

[burntcopper.livejournal.com]

Yeah. That's the line they usually take - the gods exist, but worship would be bloody weird.

[cangetmad.livejournal.com]

Interestingly, I feel just the same way about religion as you do - basically I Just Don't Get It - and I was brought up in a practising Christian family. I think it's a genetic quirk (actually, I remember reading somewhere that theism versus atheism (rather than your flavour of belief) actually does seem to be genetic).

[rozk.livejournal.com]

I really need to think some more about why the religion I don't have any more still matters to me so very very much. I've written about it a bit in my memoirs, so I will do a post real soon now.