candle: some further insight into me.
OK, candle, Iâll try to anticipate your questions by giving you my views on God in a nutshell. To anyone else reading, please understand up front that there is absolutely no intent to offend. I have Christian friends who devoutly believe and I was married to a Jewish man for many years whose extended family practiced and believed. I respect them. I just do not share their faith.
Also to anyone reading, I respect your views, so please have the common decency to respect mine. I do not seek to convert anyone to atheism. Please do not attempt to convert me to your own religion. I appreciate that you see such a conversion as being for my own good, but understand up front that such an attempt would be akin to the old adage of teaching a pig to sing. It only frustrates you, and annoys the pig.
The first reaction people often have when confronted with my lack of faith is: âHow do you explain
– how life first arose from non-living things
– the creation of the universe
– the laws of nature
– the inexplicable coincidences that fill our lives
– miraculous recoveries and other unexplained phenomena
– fill in your own favorite here.”
Why do these things need to be explained in the immediacy of now? I do believe that there are explanations out there that can be researched and discovered. It doesnât bother me that we havenât discovered them all yet. If the explanation is something that Manâs mind can wrap itself around, then weâll get to it, sooner or later. If it doesnât happen in my generation, then the next will tackle it, or the next after that. Every answer brings with it a host of new questions, and the questions are what make life an adventure worth living. As a species, we will discover these answers, and all the new questions these answers uncover. I find beauty and wonderment in that.
Another question Iâve had posed to me: How can I face death if I donât believe in a hereafter? When I was a child, death bothered me. I was an avid believer in God through my mid-teens because it was easier than believing in my own mortality. Death was something that scared me so much that I spent a great amount of time thinking about it. And, in thinking about it, I found my way out of the fear. I did not exist before my birth. That does not bother me. So why should it bother me to not exist after my death? It is a perfect symmetry, like so much else in nature. What happens after I die shouldnât matter. How I live my life is what is important. Those of you who have read my previous diary entries know that I almost died four years ago. I knew, when it was happening, that I was dying. Iâd had enough medical training in veterinary school at that point to know that the dizziness, the fatigue beyond description, the bloody froth coming out of my lungs, my ears shutting down making me effectively deaf, all pointed to the fact that my heart had stopped working correctly. The immediacy of death did not bother me. What bothered me was the unfinished business I was leaving behind me. The saying that there are not atheists in foxholes is wrong. If you have thought things through and are comfortable with your beliefs then you do not need a God to see you through crisis and death. You have the strength within yourself to do that.
I have been challenged once or twice: Prove there is no God. To that I answer that you cannot prove a negative. I cannot prove there is no God, any more than I can prove that there is no Easter Bunny or Tooth Fairy or Elvis walking around backwater towns in Oklahoma. This failure to provide proof does not make me an agnostic, as one person has tried to argue with me. I do not believe in the Easter Bunny because there is no evidence. I do not believe in the Tooth Fairy because there is no evidence. I do not believe in God because there is no evidence. I guess Iâm a bit of an Elvis agnostic â some of those pictures in the tabloids are damned convincing. (Thatâs a joke to lighten the atmosphere a bit, people.)
Once I was told that I must be immoral since I do not believe in God. After all, what defines good and evil for me if I donât abide by His word? I have a personal code that I live by. I abide by the laws of the land I live in because they are, for the most part, good laws designed to protect people and promote fairness for as many as possible. When I see a bad law, or a bad application of a law, I protest it. I see that as my moral responsibility. I believe that if I expect to be treated well, I must treat others well. I do not necessarily believe in âturning the other cheekâ, and I certainly donât believe that justice will come to all in the end. If there is an injustice, a wrong, an inherent unfairness, then a way must be found to make it right. I am a moral being, and I believe in good and evil. I do not need a God to define good, nor a Satan to define evil.
Again, this is not meant as disrespectful to anyone who has found faith. If you have a credo you are comfortable with, then by all means stick to it. I am incapable of blind faith in a God, though, and am comfortable with that fact. I certainly canât say believers are wrong, and I am right. I just wish theyâd treat me the same way.
Your lucky you can walk as well as you can. Times have changed, yes indeed, and its going to keep changing, forever on. Even if we dont like it, it’ll happen.
As for a 15 year old with Relfex Symapthetic Dystrophy Disease and Juvenile Rheumatoid Arhtritis, I can walk, well I call it gimping. I have trouble walking, running, jogging, anything using my legs. Its hard, I’ve had it for nearly 3 years. Destroyed my dancing career in the future and my tennis career. Both of these diseases are incurable.
Just be lucky for what you have. Also, even if the world gets you down, hold you head up high, look the world in the face and smile.
Love,Alaina
HA! i just have to laugh…a close friend of mine in high school was a girl we’ll refer to as "distractingly enormous" in the chest area.
i recall her in gym class when we ran the mile. She walked it. Yeah, she failed that specific test, but told us that her only other option was getting black eyes.
You echo sentiments I’ve heard several times from my mother.
Seems exceptionally large mammaries run in my mother’s family. All the women on my mother’s side are very noticibly endowed, whether they like it or not.
My mother used to tell me how she remembers her own mother (my grandmother) constantly batting ’em out of way when trying to do something in front of her.
My mother has back problems, so she’s said, due to the weight distribution on her front. She talks about wanting to get a reduction done (she’s almost retirement age).
In any case, I am reminded of my old friend Carrie, who used to refer to her brassieres fitfully as "boulder holders." 🙂
I can imagine it must be difficult buying dresses, ensembles and the like, since one must fit both bottom and top. So I’ve been told by women friends.
In any case, I certainly don’t think that robustness is any sort of bad thing, lest I be misconstrued. Voluptous measure is also quite beautiful.
In the final analysis – any person worth knowing dates a woman for herself, not her "software" anyway. 🙂
Take care, hon. * Hugs *
Well, I have to say that the reactions to my entries yesterday surprised me. I didn’t expect to get so many people talking about boobs! LOL
I guess it boils down to this: the small-breasted women are teased in school for being "flat" and grow up thinking they’re inadequate, wishing for bigger boobs to suddenly appear. The big-breasted women are teased in school for being big & bouncy and all of that, and grow up wishing they were smaller. Is there a happy medium? I think so, it’s just that not many of us get to experience it without the aid of a surgeon. I am against implants, and I think we should learn to live with what we have. However, it seems more and more women (especially in the entertainment industry) are getting implants. It makes it hard on the rest of us who have to "measure up" to them (excuse the pun). It’s hard enough to compete in the music indusrty with all the others out there doing it, without having to be judged not only for our music, but our bodies as well. People like Christian Aguileria, Mariah Carrey, Janet Jackson, (the list goes on & on) make it difficult for us less endowed women to compete. We shouldn’t have to compete… we should be judged on our talents and merit and the things we say. But this entertainment industry is the most fickle and superficial of all. It’s been artists like Sheryl Crow and Shawn Colvin who have made it recently possible to have a successful career without being young and busty. They aren’t up there shaking their you-know-whats for attention. I suppose in past days it was artists like Janis Joplin. I take my hat off to them. They’ve given me a chance!
Anyway, I didn’t mean to start the war of the busts! I think beauty comes in all sizes and shapes, and really all that matters is who we are, not what we look like.
Other than that, I have to say that you surprised me with your remark that you don’t believe in God. As someone who’s been struggling with the question of God for some time, I find it interesting when someone feels free to come out and say they don’t believe. I may pick your brain on this later!
(not about entry…..but had to say hi, and…)
welcome back from the black hole… *giggles* Ive been there too.. NOT fun…
;o)
~*pNp*~
i was very impressed with this entry. i grew up with a few friends who were somewhat pagan in their bent, and they used to get accused of having no morals because "God" invented them. How irritating for someone to accuse you of that.
Anyway, i just wanted to let you know that i was really impressed with how you handled this entry. It was intelligent, thought-provoking, and tactfull.
You rock.
I thank you for your forthrightness and willingness to answer the questions I hadn’t even asked yet! You answered them beautifully, I might add. I go back & forth on the issue myself. I, too, find it difficult to believe in God because I see no proof. And yet I find myself believing in reincarnation… I can’t explain why. There’s no proof of either, but one seems to make more sense to me. I really don’t know what I believe where God is concerned. I do believe there is something with a higher power, I just am not sure what or who it is. I call it God for lack of a better word, but my belief in the words of the Bible is almost non-existent. I think I WANT to believe in God… I just have a hard time accepting all that the Bible says. I don’t know, I guess I’m really just undecided. I don’t know why reincarnation appeals to me so much, because I have not seen any concrete proof that it exists either. It is something that fascinates me, and the reading I’ve done on the subject makes sense to me, the whole karmic lesson theory. God, on the other hand, and the tales of Jesus… those seem less plausible to me. I’m no expert. I’ve read very little of the Bible and basically am basing my opinions of it on what I’ve heard about the words it contains. I pretty much live the way you do, I suppose, following my own set of rules for morality, trying to be the best person I can be.
my boss is a born-again xian. recently she had me place a job ad looking for a tutor for the son of a friend of hers. she wanted me to put in the line "must be christian". i told her i thought that was illegal, not to mention absurd!
personally, i only believe in the deities i invent.
xoxo,
* jen