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The Appeal of Religion

Started by Wechtlein Uns, December 14, 2008, 05:26:00 PM

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Wechtlein Uns

I have been working on a book. It's main character, whose name is Hidalgo Lei, is an interesting sort of fellow. He hungers for meaning in life, and for authenticity. You see, Hidalgo grew up, like so many of us, in a corporate consumerist culture: one with alcohol and meaningless sex, as well as crime and superficiality, and in this book, Hidalgo hungers for--well--more.

As I began writing this book, I felt it to be the epitome of the modern outlook. In a world recently freed of religion, man doesn't know where to go next. He is filled with cynicism, angst, frustration, and above all, loneliness. It really was a modern novel. The interesting part of the story, I might say, is that the main antagonist of the story, the one who supposedly keeps hidalgo in the darkness, is a priest.

This priest is a controlling, manipulative, yet socially agreeable person. Smooth talker. Respected in the community. You see, I was originally going to have this priest as a sort of character who Hidalgo thinks is trying to help, but is really only interested in keeping him shackled to religioin.

And so the priest pretends to understand Hidalgo's plight. He comforts Hidalgo. And then, he does something which completely destroys the integrity, the very fabric of my story. He suggests to Hidalgo to go to this special retreat.

*sigh*... Is this why religion is so powerful? The original plan was to have Hidalgo grow disgusted with the priest's religion, and realize the cold merciless wind of the cosmos. But that can not happen. It can never happen, not to Hidalgo. You see, throughout the story, Hidalgo had been searching for some type of meaning in life. Somethign bigger than himself. He had wanted authenticity, deepness, fellowship. But not truth. In other words, he had wanted all the things that, as I can attest, religion gives.

And so the story ground to a halt. Yet, even as the story went south, I began to think. The modern era of literature is an era of depression. It is an era of isolation, and frustration with not being able to connect to one's fellow human beings. Today, there is a growing youth movement of young adults who grew up from that modern era. These people are frustrated with corporate consumerism, superficiality, and the like. And they have all found their consolation, I'm afraid, in religion.

It would seem that religion brings a lot of good into the world. But it also brings a lot of bad. We atheists say that we can find meaning and fellowship without God, yet so many people still turn to those youth movements. This is the appeal of religion. And I'm afraid it's only going to get stronger in the coming years. It is far from dead, but actually undergoing a resurgence in popularity, at least in america. And when the most powerful nation in the world is fundamentalist christian-- no one is safe.

So much for my book.  :nerd:
"What I mean when I use the term "god" represents nothing more than an interactionist view of the universe, a particularite view of time, and an ever expansive view of myself." -- Jose Luis Nunez.