Thinking about religion

[andrewducker]

I'd been thinking about religion and its origins (something which occasionally springs to mind, and was pushed thataway this time by Douglas Adams in one of the essays in Salmon of Doubt). I was, as per usual, writing an LJ entry in my head as a background task.

And then I bumped into this, which obviated any need for me to write anything at all:

I finished reading VALIS by Phillip K. Dick last night (which I neither loved nor hated, despite predictions) and formulated my own theory of myth (which I’m sure has been formulated by others many times over). Western myths, it seems to me, assume the following:

1) Death is scary.

2) The world is horrible and imperfect.

3) Humans are special.

4) Since humans are special and the world is horrible and imperfect, something has clearly Gone Wrong.

5) Someone who isn’t us will fix this.

That’s the 200+ pages of revelation of VALIS, pretty much in a nutshell. Oh, it’s a pretty entertaining time getting there, but that’s the gist of it. In all its talk of pink lasers, rock star messiahs, living information, escape from time, and such, the driving theological/mythological idea is, “Something is Wrong and someone needs to fix it.”

You can find the rest here, if you're interested in VALIS, or the myths people create to make themselves feel better.

Comments

[drjon.livejournal.com]

I dunno. The reviewer seems confused, and I kinda massively disagree with his conclusions.

You want a better breakdown? Here's my analysis of VALIS:

1) Weird Shit happens
2) You can go Crazy trying to work that Shit out.

[adders.livejournal.com]

I find it fascinating, because religion really isn't about life after death and Christianity certainly isn't about things being someone else's problem. Quite the reverse in fact.

Still, uniformed pontificating about things people, at best, half-understand is what the internet if for, right?

[andrewducker]

Religion (including Christianity), to many people, is about the comfort of life after death. And also about the fact that there is someone out there, above us, who we can turn to. That being, after all, what both prayer and hymns are about.

[octopoid-horror.livejournal.com]

Plenty of hymns are about celebrating life, yourself and each other.

Item five is often predicated on things being fixed only for those who believe and do everything right, so it'll still suck for those damn unbelievers.

I don't know many people who say "I believe in God, so I'll be okay". I do know/have known some who say things that can be summarised as "I believe in God and do/don't do X, Y and Z so I'll be fine"

[andrewducker]

Well, duh. Just because there _is_ someone who can sort everything out, it doesn't mean they will. Or that _everyone_ will be ok. God (or whoever) has to be able to do so, for the religion to work in the first plce, but if the religion is going to (a) work as a force for social control and (b) fit with people's moral beliefs then salvation has to only be for those that act within prescribed rules.

[octopoid-horror.livejournal.com]

Also, I didn't like the tone of the brief discussion of VALIS in the linked article.

He did not, for example, like that the skeptick became a convert. VALIS is a book, to all intents and purposes, written from the point of view of someone who believes. Would you expect, halfway through the Gospel of Matthew, the writer to add a verse saying "Actually, religion all sucks a bit, doesn't it? God, eh? What a weiner.". VALIS is a book about theology (among many other things), written essentially autobiographically, by someone who believes or is at least exploring their beliefs. It's not fiction, and the writer of that article accepts that, yet some of his complaints sound like he is still treating it as pure fiction.

His treatment of the phrase "million to one" as a literal probability is just irritating too, since it is not (well, not by anyone I've ever met/read things by) used as a literal chance, but as a shorthand for "really really really unlikely"

I'm also aware that someone is probably going to quote Terry Pratchett at me here.

[laserboy.livejournal.com]

I both liked and disliked VALIS and I'm not sure why. I seem to remember the woman with cancer being fairly amusing. I also don't necessarily agree with the reviewers take on the book. To me it's more like drjon says.

At least it's unfilmable.

[channelpenguin.livejournal.com]

I am more inclined to think it's a bit more basic - that because we spend so many years basically helpless and dependent upon powerful other beings to supply our needs etc. that it can pervade our mindset into adulthood.

I find the kind of book you seem to be describing always a pointless waste of time - nothing new or interesting despite how it may seem to the author (hey we all think we have something great to say in a new way sometimes, but often we are wrong).

Hmm, I think I just fundamentally don't basically care very much what people believe these days - whereas it used to wind me up.

Suppose my take would be - "Just *feel* better here and now, and fuck the myths..."