Reply To: My problem…is youtube

[Kuba Adamów]

Hi Doc,

Just to make sure we’re on the same page—I don’t know what you should do and I’m not even going to try to attempt to convince you that I have a faintest clue that I do. I’m not going to patronize or preach, because I’ve been through some similar doubts over the years of my journey. All I can say is you are not alone—I, and quite a few other people here and in other places, do feel your frustration and understand it—judging by what you’ve written, I gather you may be relatively young (we all are, right? :)) and, from my own experience, it is vital that you do not get discouraged from seeking and questioning just because there are people who are capable of making valid counterpoints. It’s good, and very important, that they are there. Avoiding confrontation with facts and thoughtful mind is exactly what’s wrong with religion—a fixed, petrified dogma that is so very often so rigid and impregnated that it must fight any thought that questions its validity, just because its foundations are usually so frail and illogical that any attempt of touching them with reason may lead to their decomposition and chaos. If it takes a few questions to make the giant on clay legs fall and crumble—does it deserve to exist?

You may be familiar with this quote from Timothy Leary:

“Throughout human history, as our species has faced the frightening, terrorizing fact that we do not know who we are, or where we are going in this ocean of chaos, it has been the authorities, the political, the religious, the educational authorities who attempted to comfort us by giving us order, rules, regulations, informing, forming in our minds their view of reality. To think for yourself you must question authority and learn how to put yourself in a state of vulnerable, open-mindedness; chaotic, confused, vulnerability to inform yourself.”

My late grandma was a very devout Christian—raised in the spirit of culturally and socially sanctified patriarchy, total subjection and unquestionable trust in the words of the Bible. I just could not, as a teenager—and a son of blasphemous parents who dared not to have cared about going to any sort of church, having more important things to do in life—subscribe to all that and felt it was my duty to ‘enlighten’ her. ‘Despite’ her religiousness, she was a very good person—no matter how confused she seemed to me then—and now I feel trying to shatter her world was a really bad idea. And a very arrogant one. I was very arrogant then, and, quite likely, I still am, but at least now I am capable of recognizing it and making sure that I do not impose what I’ve tried and failed at onto my son, for example. And he may have it a bit easier because of that. Now, being 40 and having struggled with my thoughts for some 25 years, I have come to the point of accepting that, faulty as we may see it, religion, and its very existence, is far from perfect but it is because it is the product of imperfect ourselves—but, luckily, we, as our needs and fears that underlay our being and our need of some sort of order, do evolve and dissolve—slowly, even if not as dramatically as many of us would like them to. A few hundred years ago we’d be burned for our thoughts, a few decades ago—we’d be universally ostracized, now—we can gather and discuss, exchange ideas, and the thought is growing stronger as never before. So do not give up. Just be peacefully resilient.

There is a nice, and rather suitable Buddhist proverb:

“When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.”

We’re all students, and we’re all teachers as well, but usually not in the way our confused ego would like us to see it. Trying to shove our ‘teachings’ and ‘enlightened wisdom’ in the faces of those who aren’t ready for them is neither wise nor enlightened and will only make things worse, both for us and them.

There are plenty of stupid people, but there is a plenty of wisdom around there as well—and we have access to all that! Rejoice! Learn and evolve :).

I just thought you might like this talk (on youtube—it is, or may be, a very useful platform, indeed):

Alan Watts – Myth and Religion [1hr42]

Enjoy your journey—this is a wish, not a piece of advice :).