Beliefs

[synre]

So we started a surprisingly brief unit on belief pieces working off of the "This I believe" pieces, and while we're being forced to stay away (read: not mention at all) from religion and such when making this piece to avoid sounding preachy, I was kind of curious what I really thought about all this. I made a comment in class about how I thought

Comments

[honestlyamigo]

I just want to say that that line Lauren pulled out reminds me of the current situation with Barack Obama. you know, people believe that he is some kind of God and that everything will just turn around as soon as he has control and that they don't need to do anything for themselves or the common good. maybe I'm sort of guilty of that because I do have a lot of faith that he can change the country, but I know that he can't do it alone and nothing is fool-proof. he is a smart man, but he doesn't know how anything will end.

I know that's off topic, I just wanted to say it. :)

"Life is a team sport" - that's cute.

[synre]

I think Em hit pretty nicely what I meant by that line - not that there was weakness in the faith, but there is a weakness in expecting your savior, one of divinity or one that is human like Barack Obama (you could even lower this to something like a star athlete on a sports team), to do the saving for you. Regardless of there is or isn't anything after this life I think it should be pretty clear no magical entity is going to come down and save the world for us. It is our world to improve or destroy, and we have to take responsibility to do it for ourselves.

I actually just saw another This I Believe essay that sums up what I'm thinking pretty well...

Believing there is no God means the suffering I've seen in my family, and indeed all the suffering in the world, isn't caused by an omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent force that isn't bothered to help or is just testing us, but rather something we all may be able to help others with in the future. No God means the possibility of less suffering in the future.

[synre]

Double replying because I'm a tool - I think I'm actually going to make that cheesy "Life is a team sport" line my thesis just because it makes it really easy to slide into heavy metaphor and I found myself using it out of class twice so clearly it is something I actually believe. This could be funny! Or terrible.

Probably both!