Guerrilla Nature

Friday 20^th March

Why do people feel drawn to religion? Is it because that’s what they perceive as giving them a sense of purpose in their life and reassurance about their inevitable death, motivating them to adhere to a set of moral principles that they perceive as important, reasonable and irrefutable?

It seems that the material advantages of choosing this way can be summarised as not having to worry. The whole point of having faith is not feeling the urge to question one’s existence. All of the answers are there. The burden of proof is removed from the manifestation of consciousness, rendered unworthy of further investigation.

And yet, so many ask so many questions and get such different answers; from the accepting, altruistic, peace-loving worshippers at one polarity of this spectrum to the adamant, aggressive, even dictatorial practitioners at the other polarity. This simple observation is offered as a brief overview of the systems that use scripture and indoctrination to spread their messages. It is not the intention here to analyse religions individually, or even go into detail about commonalities between them, save the occasional general comments or examples to illustrate a point about humanity’s attempts to explain existence.

In this instance, the mention of religion is included with the intention of simplifying humanity’s motivations for feeling that they need to identify as belonging to one group or other. Remaining as open-minded and open-hearted as possible, it seems that there are three broad categories of possibility that encompass most people’s theories. We can call these something simple like “belief systems” or “existence theories”.

The first is that one theory is correct and all the others are incorrect, in which case only the followers of the correct theory who have followed in the prescribed way (whatever that is) will “live forever in paradise” (or whatever the supposition might be). The second is that they’re all correct in their own way and as long as we have faith we will all reap the benefits (whatever the promise from the respective deity). The third is that none of them are correct and it doesn’t matter what we believe because we’re all just a collection of physical matter and when we die that’s the end of it.

Of the people whose belief systems fall into these categories, there are three broad divisions of how insistent they are about their own existence theory. There are those who believe that their own theory is necessarily more true than others and that anything that appears to contradict it is by definition mutually exclusive. There are those who are comfortable enough with their own existence theory but realise that to criticise theories held by others is generally unproductive. Then there are those who accept all theories as equally valid, or choose not to hold fast to any single traditionally recommended theory, so have no opposition to any other theories.

As with most systems of categorisation, these labels are not sufficient to comprehensively cover all people. Do you think these categories relate to your perspective?

This day’s featured creator: Iris the cavalier King Charles spaniel is the canine companion of yesterday’s featured creator, Samsdabblers. Whether at home creating dream catchers and other delightful items, getting grounded whilst growing the garden at the allotment, or on walks, these two are a comfort and an inspiration to one another. Sam insists that Iris is at least as powerful a creator as she is. If diamond’s are a girl’s best friend and dogs are man’s best friend, maybe dogs are also women’s best friend. Iris could well be the best possible name for a being with so much vision, too!

A track for this day: Twenty One Pilots – Heavydirtysoul (Blurry Face 2015, Fueled By Ramen Records). This track blends influences from several genres with devastatingly emotive conceptual lyricism to create a truly stunning journey through sound which feels cathartic and inspiring.

Above: Sunny This Position entry 2020-03-20

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