A Matter of Faith
Oct. 16th, 2004 03:33 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
misscamI've been hesitant to bring this issue up, as most people I have on my flist I do not have this problem with, but here goes anyway.
As most of you probably know, I don't believe in God. Or the Goddess or Allah or any sort of Creator. I don't rule it out, but I don't believe it.
So don't ask me for prayers. I cannot give them. I have no address to give them to. I will offer sympathies and wishes and hope, but your prayers you will have to get elsewhere. This does not mean I don't care, but I cannot start believing just to give you that prayer.
Secondly, please don't talk about "saving" us non-believers. Don't assume all atheists live in ignorance and need to be set straight. And please, do not capitalise "Save". I find it offensive. I made my choice as others have, and who are you to say thus I'm somehow inferior and I need to be "Saved" from it? My life, my choices, my consequences. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong. But I cannot believe just to sort of be on the safe side. For better or worse, there is no organised religion for me.
So you might ask - what does the young Miss Camilla believe?
I believe compassion, mercy, justice and good deeds are human concepts, not Universal ones, but that this does not make them any less important to us. I believe in life and death and that you cannot have one without the other, but that life is so fragile we need not invent evernew reasons to bring it to an end. I believe we do not know everything and never will, but that searching for answers matters anyway. I believe simplicity can breed complexity and thus humans came to be. I believe my footprints in the sand will fade after I die, but they will still have been there. I believe the most important meanings in life you create yourself. I believe - that whatever your faith, it is what it gives you that matters. That will never be the same from person to person and none of us can know which is better (or even is there is such a thing as "better faith"). Nor can we know if any of us even needs to be saved. This I believe.
Of course, how well we live by our beliefs is another matter - perhaps one more suited for another day.
As most of you probably know, I don't believe in God. Or the Goddess or Allah or any sort of Creator. I don't rule it out, but I don't believe it.
So don't ask me for prayers. I cannot give them. I have no address to give them to. I will offer sympathies and wishes and hope, but your prayers you will have to get elsewhere. This does not mean I don't care, but I cannot start believing just to give you that prayer.
Secondly, please don't talk about "saving" us non-believers. Don't assume all atheists live in ignorance and need to be set straight. And please, do not capitalise "Save". I find it offensive. I made my choice as others have, and who are you to say thus I'm somehow inferior and I need to be "Saved" from it? My life, my choices, my consequences. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong. But I cannot believe just to sort of be on the safe side. For better or worse, there is no organised religion for me.
So you might ask - what does the young Miss Camilla believe?
I believe compassion, mercy, justice and good deeds are human concepts, not Universal ones, but that this does not make them any less important to us. I believe in life and death and that you cannot have one without the other, but that life is so fragile we need not invent evernew reasons to bring it to an end. I believe we do not know everything and never will, but that searching for answers matters anyway. I believe simplicity can breed complexity and thus humans came to be. I believe my footprints in the sand will fade after I die, but they will still have been there. I believe the most important meanings in life you create yourself. I believe - that whatever your faith, it is what it gives you that matters. That will never be the same from person to person and none of us can know which is better (or even is there is such a thing as "better faith"). Nor can we know if any of us even needs to be saved. This I believe.
Of course, how well we live by our beliefs is another matter - perhaps one more suited for another day.
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no subject
Date: 2004-10-16 10:52 pm (UTC)