Until Freedom

November 26, 2008 at 10:48 am qmonkey 10 comments

Until we can survive and thrive without the illusion that an all powerful and caring overseer is guiding us;

until we can accept the ups and downs of unsettling fortune without extracting meaning and message from above;

until we can address the dissonance of thanking our chosen deity for graciously granting every positive moment yet fail to apportion blame for any negative;

until we can debate and define our moral codes without reference and deference to the compromised and dated writings of the ancients;

until we can accept our mortality and that of our loved ones without the pacifying promise of eternal paradise;

until we can get by without burdening our offspring with the shackling myths we were in turn taught;

until we can stop eulogizing faith in that which we wish to be true, as a higher form of knowledge;

until we can freely re-asses our convictions without the debilitating circle of post rationalisation;

until we can learn to gather together as a community without collective worship, deference and affirmation of a shared delusional experience;

until we can give full credit to those that act for the good of others without praising an external spirit for allowing good to succeed;

until we can stop teaching our children that they are born filled with wrongness and unacceptable to their creator, before sharing the ‘good news’ that they will only avoid eternal damnation if they compromise their human reasoning and submit to the sum of their hopes and fears;

until then, our children will never be free to fully imagine our universe

Entry filed under: QuestionMonkey. Tags: atheism, christianity, poetry, religion.

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10 Comments Add your own

1. ubi dubium | November 26, 2008 at 11:02 am

Oh, very good. I think it would read better in more of poem format, rather than as a paragraph. Maybe a return before each “without” and after each semicolon, to start.
2. notreallyalice | November 26, 2008 at 12:08 pm

“The children of men”? Why not “we”? Women are the ones having children anyways… 🙂

Otherwise is well done!
3. qmonkey | November 26, 2008 at 12:12 pm

yeah.. but children of men has a ring to it 🙂

slow afternoon, sorry
4. LeoPardus | November 26, 2008 at 1:36 pm

Well done. I’m with Ubi in thinking it would read great in a poem-like format.

Until we can survive and thrive
without the illusion that an all powerful and caring overseer is guiding us;

until we can accept the ups and downs of unsettling fortune
without extracting meaning and message from above;

until we can address the dissonance of thanking our chosen deity for graciously granting every positive moment
yet fail to apportion blame for any negative;

until we can debate and define our moral codes
without reference and deference to the compromised and dated writings of the ancients;

until we can accept our mortality and that of our loved ones
without the pacifying promise of eternal paradise;

until we can get by
without burdening our offspring with the shackling myths we were in turn taught;

until we can stop eulogizing faith in that which we wish to be true, as a higher form of knowledge;

until we can freely re-asses our convictions
without the debilitating circle of post rationalisation;

until we can learn to gather together as a community
without collective worship, deference and affirmation of a shared delusory experience;

until we can give full credit to those that act for the good of others
without praising an external spirit for allowing good to succeed;

until we can stop teaching our children that they are born filled with wrongness and unacceptable to their creator,
before sharing the ‘good news’ that they will only avoid eternal damnation if they compromise their human reasoning and submit to the sum of their hopes and fears,

until then
the children of man will never be free.
5. ubi dubium | November 26, 2008 at 2:22 pm

Yes, that’s what I had in mind. Thanks, Leo.
6. qmonkey | November 26, 2008 at 2:51 pm

🙂 advise taken, i’ll amend the original
7. Josh | November 27, 2008 at 3:11 am

Wow!

All we need is and some really hard to undestand phrases using antiquated grammar and vocubulary that no one has any clue about, subject it to a series of scribal copyists for a few hundred years and then use a conglomeration of the final copies and claim they accurately represent the original, add “1:1” at the beginning, divide it into random verses (for easy memorization), drop in some modern English commentary, explain away the portions the scribes left out / added / miscopied / etc, then forget who it was written by and instead invent a legendary character as the author…

– and call it inspired!
8. bipolar2 | November 28, 2008 at 3:00 pm

** Nostalgia for xianity? No need! **

The power of myth — myths embody ideals — is emotive and non-rationally motivating. What “understanding” comes from mythological interpretations of nature, of human nature, or human action?

Mythological explanations explain nothing. They may be psychologically satisfying, but such satisfaction has nothing to do with truth. Truth, contrary to the lying line of xian thinking, need be neither beautiful, nor good, nor emotively satisfying.

Western minds moved from mythological pseudo-explanation to conceptual explanation — beginning with the skepticism of Xenophanes in 600 BCE, to Democritus 500 BCE, to the Sophists and Thycidides 400 BCE, to Epicurus 300 BCE.

The dominant source of “ideals” in the West for 2,000 years, xianity has from its inception hated empirical knowledge and rationality. (See 1 Corinthians1:1-30) It has attacked, demeaned and destroyed works of rational skepticism since 200 CE.

Xianity’s faith in the ideal — a distinct, supernaturally ordered realm of moral hierarchy intended to be imitated on Earth — is dead, just as Nietzsche announced.

Its vast metaphysical bulk slowly recycling into nescience through exposure to healthy derision and rational methodology.

bipolar2 © 2008
9. LeoPardus | November 28, 2008 at 3:35 pm

Re post #7. LOL … and OW! (That latter ’cause the sarcasm was so burning.)
10. Josh | November 29, 2008 at 3:20 pm

Haha, well, I did truly enjoy the poem. And I think sarcasm is my middle name 🙂