The improbability of deities.

I've been thinking about life and death and the alleged immortal soul today. I've always bounced between really spiritual and atheist like between two walls, and I suppose hovered in mid-air between the two (I guess that makes me agnostic..) But today I'm leaning toward atheist, not in the we'll all be worm food in the end sort of way, but more like I've been thinking about these concepts in a more rational way. Today. This might change tomorrow.

But I just got to thinking, the whole idea that our consciousness goes on after we've died, i.e. our "souls" keep a conscious and functioning state of mind, and thinks and feels and remembers and whatnot, the whole idea of reconciling with your loved ones in some sort of paradise as a reward after the turmoil of life a good seventy-or-so years which is a considerable amount of Time in relation to Eternity, of course. I mean it doesn't make much sense, does it? First of all, the soul. This is, I believe, the term we've invented for that part of the energy that our bodies are made up of that isn't the actual organic shell that decomposes and turns into fertilizer one way or the other, those notorious 21 grams that leaves the body. Let's say those 21 grams are the immortal soul, let's say that is 21 grams of converted energy that leaves the body as it switches off and goes to join the rest, I'm thinking of the world as one big energy field, that makes up the entire Universe, and that's what the afterlife is, becoming one with your maker, i.e. that fundamental source of energy, the starting point and end point, the core, because energy cannot be destroyed, only converted, right?

So that is a form of eternal life, sure. But consciousness and God and Heaven and Hell, those are all man-made concepts and they're not very logical when you think about it, considering we're all part of the same substance, the same energy, and whose to say our thoughts and feelings aren't just the bi-products of different chemical reactions or energetic collisions or something? (I know nothing of science, so I'm just going to leave this here.)

Because our conscious minds, our thoughts, are products of our brains, I don't know exactly how it works, but it's brain activity, electric charges or something, I'll have to look into it, but suffice it to say, and I think we can all agree to this, the brain is what creates our thoughts, right, and when we die, our brains shut off, they stop working, they start to decompose. So how can our immortal soul float to the next life carrying the memories, or characteristics or way of thinking of the previously inhabited body?

So can there be ghosts?

See, this is where we go from me merely brooding and me having a crisis of faith... because I've always believed in ghosts. I've seen and heard and felt ghosts. I've talked to ghosts. Don't I feel like an idiot...

And the whole idea of a loved one that's passed on is still watching over you like some divine second shadow or a guardian angel, it's a very comforting notion, but makes just as little sense as anything else we people believe regardless of our religion's details of the particular thing... but I guess that's the point. Comfort. Isn't that the whole idea of religion anyways? That, and power. Because apparently it's not enough to know that we'll no longer have to worry about this and that and make tough choices and suffer the consequences because we'll forever be one with each other and the Universe. No, it's not enough. Because each one of us want to believe we're special, unique little snowflakes. That we have a complex, one-of-a-kind personality. That we're individuals and in control of our own lives. Because the idea of being controlled by someone else terrifies us (even though that's the whole idea of believing in a God in the first place, to have someone all knowing watching over us and taking care of us so that heavy responsibility is not on our own shoulders -- but at the same time we want that get-out-of-jail free card, even though it's meaningless, just to fool ourselves that we do actually have a say in our own fate, in case we shouldn't like what the Great Divine is cooking up, we can pull out of Free Card and say "No, No, I'm not liking this, I'm going to have to decline on this one..." or something, hence the invention of Free Will -- the human spirit is so contradicting..)

It's like we want our lives to mean more than they do. But isn't it enough to have lived one. To have experienced things in a completely unique way. To have learned certain things. To have felt all sorts of pains and pleasures. To have passed on not just your genes but your wisdoms and love to another person, and if you don't have children, you've passed on something else to someone else that you have met in your life, be it for good or bad. Isn't that enough? Do we have to know that there is a particular cloud with our name on it the minute our hearts stop, figuratively speaking of course.

Maybe there is nothing super about the supernatural, maybe science still has discoveries to make. Maybe the concept of sin is doing anything that sends out negative energy into cosmos and prayer or good deeds or meditation is sending out positive to balance the negative. Maybe Heaven or Paradise or Nirvana is becoming one with the energy that All is made of and Hell is becoming one with a negative part of it. Maybe there's no real mystery to life and all we have to do is learn to take it for what it is...


I want to believe in ghosts in magick though!

yay, easter. pah.

I logged onto Facebook to watch my friend Cesar's latest video blog, it's the 3rd one he's done and I think he'll be posting them daily, it's just really nice to hear his voice and see him and everything, because I miss him a lot, those of you who know him will appreciate that, and just imagine, I used to live with him. So I think it's understandable that it's leave a void.

And as I was logged into Facebook I saw that I had a new mail or message or whatever as well, so I went to check it... and imagine my surprise when it was a reply from my little brother to a message I ever sent!

You're the best!

Between Simon Johansson and You

Ida Nieninque Thomasdotter

09 April at 22:40

Simon, i don't know how you do it, but you are SO cool and good.
Everything i, or some other amateur does, you do it SO much better.
It looks so easy when you do it. You are SO cool and awesome, and I would be SO happy if you would answer.
Maybe i could get your autograph? See, that would be so great.
I like Backstreet Boys you know, AND WESTLIFE, they are so cute, aren't they?
I and LOVE to watch friends!

Ok, have a good time!

Ida!

Simon Johansson

09 April at 22:42

Okej?? Ida, haru tråkigt eller?? Jag vet att du ser upp till mig, o att du tkr jag är bäst men jag trodde aldrig du skulle det på facebook??

Simon


...My brother, the Facebook Hacker.

I've been looking into student housing in Stockholm. Not as easy as I thought it would be. But then again, nothing ever is, so why am I surprised... You have to wait in line for these shitty student bachelors that cost a fortune for YEARS... that is insane. Ridiculous. Really.

So I think my mother has decided to be a closet easter celebrator this year as well. She's given my brother an easter egg, under the table, figuratively. And she's cooking. Easter type food. I am not impressed. This is not a holiday we celebrate, on her initiative. Why is it that when normal people have a midlife crisis they get a tattoo and porche, my mum becomes a closet christian? I guess she already has two tattooes, and I don't have the money for a porche, but if she's going to be secretly religious, then what's wrong with buddism, she was saying only yesterday how much buddism makes sense and how out of all the religions she sympathizes with that the most... well, buddists don't chickens to commemorate the crucifixion of jesus christ. Oh no. They eat parsley and meditate and, and... well, I don't know exactly what they do, but they, yeah... I'm a witch. That's as close as I'll get to religious sympathy, it was either that or atheism, and that thought is kind of a downer.

and it's raining

I went to Ana's after work. Her and Luis were helping me pick pieces for my portfolio. And then Ana and I watched the movie "Priest" (one of a bunch of brilliant movies I lent her because I wanted to redeem myself after forcing her to watch the embarassment that is "Devour" just because Jensen Ackles is far from hard on the eyes, I'm bad, I know...)

After the movie all three of us, well the two of them more so than I, I kind of soaked their words in for most of it as I'm wont to do, entered into this discussion about religion and the Catolic Church, and as I was walking between buses on my way home just now I got to thinking...

How do you challenge a system of belief that seems to allow or overlook Evil when the belief is in Good? How do you seperate the belief from the structure? And for that matter, who decides what's good and what's evil in the first place? Man makes the rules obviously, society, religious institutions, even history as a learning example, and we change the rules as we go along, each time more passionate about them than the time before, desperate to believe that this time we got it right. And we reject, hurt and kill one another in the process of this recreation, or redefinition, or whatever you want to call it, and for what exactly?

And then I got to thinking... Is it anarchy that we fear so much? To have no guidence, no higher power be it devine or another human being in power to look to, that looks out for us, that knows our own good, that overlooks our flaws and forgives us and loves us anyway, that walks alongside us holding our hand so that we don't stray and get lost? Are we that unsure of ourselves? Are we that terrified to be alone? To accept the fact that we entered into this world alone, and when the time comes for us to check out we'll do so alone, and if we do the math, if we really stop to think about it (putting aside society, friends, family, whatever souls happen to be walking this earth at the same time as us) what you do with the time in between is entirely on you, so essentially... you're on your own. Alone.

So is that it? Are we just scared, lost and lonely, waiting for the angels to land, for Peter Pan to take us back to Neverland with him?

Religion fascinates me. My family is not religious at all, my parents left the church of Sweden (which is protestant christian by the way) and let us kids decide for ourselves when we were at the age of confirmation whether we wanted to join or not, so I don't have that in my luggage from home the way most people do, so for me religion is a very foregin concept, but it has always intrigued me. I actually was christian for a whole week, but that's when I was seven so it was way before I had to make my decision and when the time came it was an easy one, but yeah, I prayed every night before going to bed for seven days. I don't remember this, but my mum has told me, well mocked me rather, about it.

My spiritual journey was fairly simple in a way. I could see the pros and cons of each religious practice, but it didn't make sense to me that the structure for faith or belief would even have a pros and con system, so it didn't add up. At one point I thought maybe I was an atheist, but then that didn't make sense either, because it feels like there should be more outside of the frame and like I'm just missing a piece of the puzzle. But the piece wasn't religion, because as far as I was concerned you can't pick and choose what details you like and dislike, it's a package deal. And as with everything in life, you just go with what feels right, that's the only thing you really can do, right?

Now it makes perfect sense to me. I refer to my instincts the way others might refer to their faith, and as far as I'm concerned I'm meant to be missing that piece. We all are. Think about it, why would you enter the world with a complete puzzle?