The Discordant Opposition Journal Issue 11 - File 11
my beliefs (tentative title)
by fwaggle
introduction
it's my own personal beliefs that there is no single entity controlling our fates. sound like your atypical DALNet/#atheist member? perhaps. i don't consider myself to be atheist though, as most people don't know the full definition of the word. right now, i don't know it either, but i had it explained to me once and it made perfect sense that the majority of people who call themselves atheists aren't actually atheists - they're something else. regardless, we're not here to discuss that.
i believe that the only entity governing what happens in our world is us. so why - try as we might - can't we decide our own fate? well it's my theory that the world's "timeline" is made up of billions of tiny events all colliding into each other and influence each other. due to the massive amounts of calculation required to predict what's actually going to happen, it's impossible for our tiny brains to do the math required.
that's basically the outline of my beliefs, so let's expand.
rebuttal of common religions
it's my opinion that people should believe in whatever religion, story, or entity they like in order to get themselves through life in any kind of order. as long as your religion doesn't intrude on others, and you don't try to force others into your religion (as many have done with me, honestly i don't think i will ever "find god" so you really need to give up trying).
i firmly believe that - and this is proven, throughout history - people have this undying need to understand. what we don't understand, we make up - or "theorize". this has been proven time and time again. we're also egotistical enough to think that our theories are the way things work - we used to think the world is flat! ancient civilizations believed the stars and planets to be gods - we disproved this and now the very idea is laughable. what's to say that the beliefs you hold dear won't be disproven in a few millennia.
it has also been proven that magic and religion - faux as they may be - when used correctly and in an illusionary manner, are excellent tools for manipulating the general populace. "don't do this or you'll go to hell" probably had a lot more effect on people's actions 1,000 years ago than "don't do this or you'll go to jail" has today.
do you really think that the world's kings, queens and emporers held their religious advisors so close because they were scared of going to hell (or their religion's equivalent)? more likely in my mind that they did so because religion is an awesome way to keep their subjects in check. the wrath of a king in a peasant's mind is nothing compared to the wrath of a god that they've been told all about by the very same people who oppress them.
jesus and the bible
jesus huh? well from my (admittedly very limited) understanding of the bible and the stories of jesus and his buddies - jesus was basically a religious renegade. the vapours from manure could have wofted into his nostrils one night and bestowed upon him a hallucinatory dream - something which it's also been proven can lead people to believe even the most cracked out things.
he ran around, recruiting people into his new "religion" and ended up being persecuted by the majority religion in the same way whackjobs like david koresh (read: waco, texas) did. not that i'm advocating the actions of david koresh -OR- the authorities in that situation, but can you see the alarming similarities? david koresh knew he was going to die and wanted his people to basically come with him. jesus said it himself that he knew he was going to die - he was just a little more polite and didn't ask his friends to come with him.
religious control
this - of course - is if jesus even existed. as i've reflected to above, never underestimate the power of fabrication and the convinced mind. if you can convince someone whole-heartedly of what you're telling them, then you basically control them. for instance, the terrorists in the september 11th attacks on the world trade center. what would motivate these people to hijack a plane, and drive it straight into a building - killing themselves in the process?
a single word: religion. those jerkoffs probably whole-heartedly believed that in doing what they did, they would be favoured on by alah (i believe that's their god, although i am not sure of the spelling) and get an instant ticket into heaven (or their equivalent). now if i'm right, those guys were in for a nasty surprise when they didn't go anywhere - they just died. personally, i hope it was pretty painful too - considering the number of people they took with them for something that was essentially pointless, except to those who controlled them.
hopefully by now you can understand the point i'm trying to make. set aside your beliefs, and worry about whether or not they are true or false later. for now, simply take a look at exactly how much your beliefs control YOU.
back to the calculations thing
ahh yes. hopefully by now you have a pretty open mind about your religion - whatever it may be. i don't want you to have an open mind so that you'll accept my beliefs. that's definitely NOT the plan. the plan is that if you have an open mind, you'll get the points that i'm trying to make. if you go back to believing whatever you believed before, i won't mind one bit. that's your right, and i'm not about to try and force you into believing something.
now. take for example, this little scenario. you're leaving your home at about 6:30 in the morning. no let's make that exactly 6:32am. as you're walking out the door, you drop your keys. fumbling for them, you kick them across the floor. you take a second to find them in the dark. this means you're leaving home at precisely 6:34 (after starting your car, letting the heater warm up, etc).
you're driving down the interstate, at exactly 64mph (the angle of your head, as well as the distance between the needle and the indicator AND the inaccuracies of analogue speedometers lead you to believe that you're really doing 65mph). suddenly, a car swerves in front of you. you jerk accross to the other lane and SMACK! you plow straight into the front of a mack truck. you, my friend - are dead.
now think for a minute. if you hadn't dropped your keys and spent two minutes trying to find them, you would have left home 2 minutes earlier. by my calculations, you'd be 2.167 (rounded to three decimal places) miles further down the road when the above incident happened. if you bashed your head on a table and layed on the floor like an idiot for another few minutes, you would have been pulling up to find some other bastards car poking out the front of a big rig and probably calling for an ambulance.
so, why did you drop your keys? did your god make you do that? was it his or her will? if not, then welcome to my school of beliefs - a hundred billion little incidents colliding together to from one giant calculation. if he did knock your keys out of your hand - then what kind of sick fuck is he? what kind of being - all powerful as god is supposed to be - goes around knocking people's keys out of their hands so they crash into mack trucks?
i'm sure you don't need another graffic example.
finale'
in closing, i'd really like to think that if you're a religious person, this text has made you take a look at your beliefs and decide how truly controlling they are. if you are, and you are deciding to keep your current faith - then i thank you for reading this and listening to my rant. to be able to read this, keep your current faith, and not get angered - i applaud you.
if you're about to fire up your email client and abuse me for talking shit about your religion - don't bother.
thanks for reading, and let's hope i don't drop my keys on the way out.
fwaggle
2001
