Crying and Religion

Milan Kundera (eventually I want to note about 50 things he pointed out) pointed out a character trait of dividing oneself in to two pieces where there is the person and then a part of the person off to the side just observing. I do that to extreme.

To the point that once long ago I was crying about some truly horrific thing and instead I started really analyzing what was going on within me, what made it possible to cry, etc. I realized that I was doing something akin to praying/begging before the altar/statue of some god. I was realizing the existence of some godlike entity and asking it for help, showing it how pitiful my life was, asking it to take my pain. It was a very strong feeling. I suspect it's the same for others but, as with so many things, people don't carry this objective/observing of themselves to such extremes.

They say what makes us human is the ability to recognize ourselves, to recognize our existence, and for that matter (partially related) to look in mirrors and realize it's us. (Disproven with elephants and in general I don't assign any particular special trait to humans.) Thing is, though, anyway, we aren't actually that good at recognizing what the heck we're thinking, IMO. I'm often amazed to what degree people can't explain why they feel the way they do about a given thing. For example, "I'm just feeling depressed and I don't know why."

Anyway, I realized what it was necessary to be thinking about in order to be able to cry. The result was I went ten years without crying (only partially true as that probably wasn't the only reason of course). Whenever I thought about possibly doing so, I was stuck with understanding the reality of what would be occuring in my head, that I was so clearly believing in a "god".

And I do want to believe in a god. But my logic crushes my faith. (Except when it absolutely can't. I'm still bothering to live for example.) And so when close to crying, I'd instead think about the absurdity of god, the absurdity of the process it takes to cry and instead usually just laugh. It's funny the endless people calling themselves atheist who logically believe and don't believe all the same things as me who yet can cry up a storm utterly unaware of what the essential element it is that it takes to manage pulling that off at all.

What a ridiculous predicament we are in with the most intelligent occasionally crying up a storm to some unseen all powerful being who will then turn around and say, "Flying sky fairies? How ridiculous!"

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Also it seems generally, that focusing on the absurdity behind emotions can make it hard to still feel emotions. But eventually one can overcome this. I have reached the point where I can understand the absurdity and still go with it at least with crying. Well not so often.

Also of religion I think there is a huge difference between what people logically believe and how they live and the important thing is how one lives. If you're bothering to live at all, then you must not think it's in vain. If you really believe that you shall cease to exist and all memory of your existence shall simply disappear than you are living in vain. To logically face this would mean not bothering. Instead people say that's what they logically believe, yet, they keep getting out of bed most days. Thus they aren't living as atheists. There is no such thing actually.

And boy what an annoying thing pointing this out to atheists considering how I used to make fun of religionists. Very annoying to get the same ridicule in return now. The assumption of stupidity and the hate, etc. But yes, organized religion has been a horror in this world. No doubt of that.

But morality (acting in a fashion that doesn't clearly benefit the acter) is largely based on focusing on the very long term. Quite often well beyond any amount of time the person could still be alive to even potentially benefit from the action. This certainly doesn't mean theists are more moral as, again, what atheists logically believe and what they act like they believe often have nothing in common (same as with everyone else). And so a given atheist can go his whole life logically being atheist yet committing all these "altruistic" (to get technical beyond what I've done so far, real altruism doesn't actually exist, which isn't to take some ghastly Ayn Rand line) acts that can't possibly benefit himself in this life and never really understanding why he's doing so.