I do not believe in God. I have no reason to. My parents didn't raise me as religious, except going to a church on Christmas Eve, and telling me what they knew about many different beliefs from around the world. In fact, the only one who was raised religiously is my father, who went to Catholic school. The nuns put him in a box because he was distracting the other students in his first-grade class. (He spent the whole time poking holes in the cardboard with his pencil.)
The thing about people is that we are matter, and we like to think we matter. The questions we constantly ask ourselves and each other only serve to make people afraid. Even people who who claim to have the answers. We are all terrified. The Puritans were afraid, and because of that they turned to dislike of those who they felt threatened their beliefs. Winthrop's animosity towards William and Hutchinson was fear, because they were different. Death is an especially frightening concept to many people throughout existence. The idea of having made it as far as possible though this often ruthless world only to have it halt suddenly with... something. Something being something or something being nothing. Either way, it’s hard to make it seem worth anything at all.
Religion is a medicine. Many people saw the questions, and each set about making their own cures for them. Each is different, but they are all aiming to cure the same thing. Some medications have been deemed successful. Others show unfortunate side effects. It even seems as if all of the education we put ourselves through is to try and become knowledgeable enough to start to answer the questions that no worldly facts and ideas can fully encompass. This is perhaps the reason why the Puritans loved to read and write so much. The attempts we make serve to better us, and our understandings of ourselves; that is the first step to getting anywhere at all. We must ask the questions of ourselves, but we shouldn’t expect to find the answers.
It boils down to acceptance. Acceptance is a synonym of belief. That could be what the Buddha found when he reached enlightenment: Acceptance. His main idea was the cessation of suffering through forsaking desire: accepting what you have. Acceptance is something the early New Englanders did not understand, considering their attitude towards women, Native Americans, and anyone who did not share their beliefs.
In Sufism, a belief is that all religions are equal and do good for humanity. They are all different, but that doesn’t matter because they all strive to make people and the world better. I think that some religions are somewhat better or worse at this than others -- that some medicines are more effective. The thing is, they do all have a common goal for good, which can be difficult to see.
I do not feel that Vowell understood these things. She seemed too caught up in grappling with the petty struggles of Winthrop and his cohorts to understand why they acted the way they did, and what their religion truly meant to them and the nation they began. The shining city on a hill is less important to me than who lives there, and how we can get to visit them.
To me, God is no more than a big placebo. But if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Right?
It's interesting that you picked this up from how Sarah portrayed everything that was going on in the novel. I remember somewhere near the beginning she mentioned how the "Puritan Work Ethic" was somewhat derived from their incessant desire to move to an afterlife, or whatever they believed, but the way you connected it back out to the modern world is magnificent. I've never been very religious myself, but I understand people's need to create answers for themselves, as the world without purpose and endgame is daunting and terrifying. For that purpose I find that if it works for some people in order to fill their void of wonder about the universe then great, I have no problem, I only take issue when this religious belief overflows into how people act and contribute to society. This overflow is particular observable in places like the Westboro Baptist Church, or occasionally in the Republic Party. Religion for one's own satisfaction is fine, but attempting to force it on others and control how they think to align with your own beliefs is not.
ReplyDeleteAnna,
ReplyDeleteIf you believed in the kind of God the Puritans did, wouldn't you be terrified?
I agree with you that we must ask the questions about life, and I even think we can expect some kind of answer. The tricky part is that we have to accept the answer we get, whether we like it or not. That last part is difficult, extremely difficult, because it requires one to be open to any possibility, which means that our cherished notions may be nothing more than dust.