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On the Turmoil of Many Religions
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11613 |
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Section : |
BOOK WORLD
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| Issue
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9 / 1986 |
1,814 Words |
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Czeslaw Milosz
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God is dead.
- Nietzsche.
Nietzsche is dead.
- God.
Inscription on a poster in Berkeley, California
Only God can save me, because in ascending to him I rise above myself, and my true essence is not in me but above me. Like a spider I am climbing a thread, and that thread, beyond any doubt mine alone, is fastened at the point I came from and at the point where a Thus resides addressing me as Thou. What is called the rebirth of religion in America is not subject to the rules that apply to pre-industrial agricultural communities; neither would it be much understood by those cheerless atheists, religious fanatics turned inside out, who in so many countries oppress simple people for wanting to teach their children to make the sign of the cross. Besides, the ambiguity of the secondhand ideas now in circulation is so great that their very chaos should invite analysis; there are, however, obstacles, and such analysis is rare, so, in keeping with my purpose, I am venturing into the unclear, where one can move only by blind feel.
God everywhere, like the products for daily hygiene and medications, God on the dollar, In God We Trust, the national God, guarantor of the established order, helping those who believe in him, multiplying their sheep and camels, or their machines, punishing non-believers, demanding a choice: either with him or against him, and favoring a division of people - we the decent, they the godless. The wealth of nations and individuals is the external proof of a proper relation to God, their obedience and virtue; poverty betrays an inner defeat and attests to grave transgressions. By attending church, a person shows his neighbors he is trustworthy, for either he has grounds for being grateful to God or the very fact that he is there to partake of the ritual means that divine protection will spare him from ruin. Unfortunately, the substance of that God is withering away; his name uttered from pulpits and public tribunals, is as empty as the names of the gods in the Roman Empire and serves only s a demonstration of loyalty to traditional values. This is, moreover, a God hated by an ever-increasing number of people. A God being turned into a laughingstock a retired Jove with old-fashioned ways, whose existence is taken literally by no one.
Religions are totalities with structures of their own, and they resist the changes occurring
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