melle-belle's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- m:\\god\question I have struggled so long against resolutely saying I do not believe in God. I am still unwilling to outright own that belief, not out of a fear of damnation either on Earth or elsewhere, but because skepticism remains � skepticism of anything. I do know that my main stalwart against atheism has been toppled: the absence of a god does not mean the absence of beauty or wonder or poetry from life. Under the terror of living in a stark, cold world, I persevered, hoping for a little of this blind faith for myself. Holding out hope for him felt a little ridiculous, because wanting there to be a god would not save me from a hell. In Order of Discovery: I�ve recently been introduced to the idea of humans, and all other organisms, as merely the atom�s way of replicating itself. Or, the universe�s way of observing the universe. We are host for parasitic DNA. I can, and eventually probably will, add quotations from a beautiful novel, The Gold Bug Variations, which speaks to this point. My sensibilities find this precept more poetic than the illegitimate birth or conflicting gospels. My Tony, when I read him a few excerpts from Gold Bug recommended Richard Dawkins� The Selfish Gene. It is currently in my possession, though I have yet to read it. Purely based on his impressions and on Wikipedia, I see The Selfish Gene as a possibly source of inspiration for Richard Powers, author of Gold Bug. Real, established, respected scientific figures and authors of scholarly works, rather than my preferred novels and poems, are defining and redefining this gene idea. Darwin�s 200th birthday just passed and various stories were done on NPR, which I listen to daily at work. Darwin�s daughter died when she was ten years old and while he had developed his theory of evolution much earlier, he did not publish On the Origin of the Species until after her death. Lyanda Haupt, a Darwin biographer, stated that even after the pain of losing his child, Origin of the Species is �affirming over and over this circle, the endless unfolding of life.� Darwin�s work ends: �There is grandeur in this view of life�from so simple a beginning, endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.� Annie�s life was not meaningless; I hear the story now, I read this sentence now, and I find meaning. My Tony � the type of person who owns all of these books, who would want to name a beagle Darwin and who lists the Galapagos Islands as a must before he dies � had me listen to an audio version of Julia Sweeney�s Letting Go of God. Lest you think he is leading me down the path to hell, the books he�s recommended and the ideas he has discussed with me are things I brought to him first. I didn�t know he had a library built for my current questions � just one more way we simply fit. In Letting Go, Julia humorously relates the series of events leading to the separation inherent in the title. I completely relate with her argument that simply pretending to believe for the sake of her family would not save her from hell, so why should she? If there is a God, he knows what she is thinking, and what I am too. (So, God, I�m sorry I can�t force myself to believe in you. I hope you are sorry that my open-mindedness towards the possibility of you wouldn�t be enough to save me from your hell.) That brings me back to Agee: And we are back to the makeshift �religion� I invented for myself a decade ago: Literature and James Agee. If I were certain in a god and certain in a heaven, I could see spending my life working in Finance in Corporate America. I could see biting my tongue to keep peace with people I don�t even like. I could see marrying the first person I �loved,� which I now realize I never truly loved so that wouldn�t have turned out so hot, would it? I could see having an appropriate number of children with that person and taking those children to church and instilling good, wholesome simplicity into them. But I am not certain. I may or may not have an afterlife, but I definitely have this life. I should probably live it tremendously. I want to be slapped by new ideas, not just listen to reiterations of the accepted ones. I want to experience people who bring stockpiles of those ideas. I want to cry and scream, and laugh too � lots of laughing. Whether I have children is not based on a biblical call to be fruitful, is not based on a rote filling of my female role; it is based on a physical desire to replicate with the best possible match. To borrow from Gold Bug, I want my cells to �fuse up, intermarry.� I want to leave something of myself and an un-named him in another beautiful (and chance and sacred) being who I will encourage to live, not like there is no tomorrow, but instead like there might not be a forever. 5:33 p.m. - 2009-03-10 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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