This week I started re-reading my favorite book of all time — the 1992 novel Ishmael by Daniel Quinn. It has given me a strange sort of peace.
It's like after all these years I'm finally starting to understand the "big picture" and I have a good feeling about that. Whatever happens to either me or humanity as a whole, I'm cool with it.
I still want us humans to win, but I am no longer so perplexed at why humans are so non chalet about their demise — the book Ishmael helped me to understand.
I also have peace in having the courage to finally say that religion is a collection of stories. I was on to this at age 15, but who wants to be struck down, so I kept quiet about it most of my life.
As for Darwin, he nailed it. Many people are taking a long time to accept it. I imagine the same thing happened when folks finally had the balls to say that the Earth rotates around the sun. I know that was a shock and probably took a few decades to swallow, but people are okay with it now.
To get people to understand that we are like any other animal species and that we could very well go extinct, well, that is going to be a reality shock for a lot of people. It's funny that when I bring this little problem up to people I know, they just zone it out, and they even zone ME out.
Christian fundamentalists are not surprised that the World is going to end. They've already been given the story line. The shocker is that the end is not going to follow their script. The World is NOT going to end, only our Culture. But maybe we will screw things up so badly that the World WILL END. The only problem is that the good Christians will have to ride it out with the rest of us — the Almighty doesn't do rescue missions, especially for irresponsible people.
Well, I've entered a new level with all of this thinking, but I think I'm okay with it. And yes, most of the ideas above come right out of Ishmael.
Oh don't we wish that life could just go on the way it has been — like a long episode of Leave It To Beaver. Sorry.
3 comments:
Hey Goose,
Thanks for stopping by and for the positive support. I'm glad you're out here, in this, too.
I was listening to my family over the holidays, and did chhose to hold my tongue during all the "We're pludering the Earth by the Will of God" talk. They already know my position, and what I'm doing, and if I end up helping to save their sorry butts while I do the work I feel that God has given me to do, namely, restoring humanity as stewards rather than plunderers, well then, they can thank me later.
Or not. That's one outcome that I'm not attached to.
I can't say how many times I have read Ishmael. No matter where I'm at, or what I'm thinking about reading that puts my head on straight - or at least facing a new direction.
Dom
http://dominic.ebacher.googlepages.com/
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