thread: 2006-08-31 : I think my expectations are screwed
On 2006-09-06, Clinton R. Nixon wrote:
Sydney,
Hey! I love the fact that you are so passionate about this stuff. Religion gets into you. As a long-time Baptist (yes, really; of course, not now), I have those pathways engraved in my head, and I love reading what you're writing, even if, of course, I think it's not correct.
Tangents first: you know The Shadow of Yesterday should include you making your own religion at some point, right? The game is about the complete destruction of tradition in order to make a new way.
Ok. Here's what I've really got to say that I doubt I'll be able to articulate. We regard tradition in many fields, like science or our local IT department, well because it's proven. I regard the scientific method as a good thing because I know that I will be able to have better experiments with it. I regard Joe the IT guy as someone I don't want to lose because I can verify that he is willing and able to fix my network at 2am.
Neither you, nor I, nor anyone else, will ever have a verifiable religious experience. Religion is personal. I am not arguing for or against the existence of God or the truth of religions here, by the way: that question is, and always has been, irrelevant. What I do argue is that the nature of your religious experience is not observable in a replicable fashion by anyone. The only true observer of your own religious experience is you.
We treat religion differently, because it is different. Tradition is fine, if that's what your religious experience calls for, but to say it's necessary or even prudent indicates that the religious experience of my forefathers is in some way connected to mine: it is not, except by shared cultural values taught to me. Again, this does not preclude the existence of a God; it does preclude that only I am aware of my relationship with the divine.
