Personal: Road of Faith and The Second Apocalypse - Part 1

This is about my Road of Faith and the things that go with that, and ultimately, finally, in the third part, how my religious upbringing influenced my reading experience with Scott Bakker's Dark Epic Fantasy Series; The Second Apocalypse.

Along the way I will be talking about my personal views, depression, nihilism, christian doctrine and some of the religious fiction inspired by it (that I've read). I've tried to keep it down where I diverged too much from what I originally wanted to talk about and I've kept it in check for the most part, but forgive me if I sometimes ramble.

You might get annoyed at what lies ahead and I urge you to please not take any offense, as this is quite personal and probably isn't even really meant for people outside of my personal circle. If it does happen to leave an impact in unknown, likeminded souls; good, it might help somebody.

Some people need the bad, in order to feel like themselves, and I've begun to fear I might be one of those people. In response to this I will be trying to condense the negativity that has threatened to de-rail the blog at several times into this one huge post (now three), so I can figuratively and literally leave it behind me here, in case of future reference, or in case somebody might be interested.

After this post it'll be a slow climb back upward into positivity, I hope, but Long is the way, and hard, that out of hell leads up into light.

The Road Of Faith

As a kid growing up in a christian household, having to go to church on a weekly basis and not much liking the congregated mass of people desperate to show their devotion; standing, singing, raising hands, forcing everyone else to join in though sheer eye-balling pressure and despite being very honest in my faith, I did not much like all the effort and being a very shy, uncertain and introverted kid, the public displays of worship smacked (true or not) of posing, of liars and deceivers.

It bears stating at this point that my native language is Dutch...I know, I'm sorry.
Original copy presented here in its very well-read condition (read: falling apart).
'Groot Nieuws Bijbel' translation.

Always pushed into bringing and reading my Bible, I began to do just that; I consistently, almost exclusively, began to read it in church, but to bury my face from the sight of the older churchgoers frowning at the kid sitting in the back when the proper form would be to stand up in front, raising your hands in the air and showing the Lord you were praising Him, shouting your devotion, singing songs of eternal love, asking forgiveness for all your horrible sins because you are not worthy you small sinful child nothing without his grace.

With humans at large generally of the opinion that more knowledge is always better, few people would feel the need to admonish the small boy reading in the ultimate book of wisdom and they would leave me be. Also, for myself, I figured I might as well learn something by reading and learning more in and of the Bible during this time of forced devotion, give or take about 2 hours on sunday morning.

As to the belief that more knowledge is always better; No, looking back over the years, it really is not...: ironically I can paraphrase the Bible here, via the rather amazingly good tv-show Vikings;

 Ecclesiastes 1: 17-18 via the 1917 Tanakh translation (I think)

He that increases Knowledge, Increases Sorrow.

 "I have seen all the works that are done under the sun. And, behold, all is vanity and vexation of the spirit. I communed with mine own heart, saying, Lo, I am come to great estate. and I gave my heart to know wisdom and to know madness and folly. I perceived that this also is vexation of the spirit. For in such wisdom is much grief, and he that increases knowledge, increases sorrow."

It is the cautionary tale of a man in torment because of his accumulation of knowledge.

As usual it's one of those passages that encourages closed-mindedness and to take the good book as the sole measure by which to view, understand and interact with the world. 

That doesn't make its core truth any less true though. More knowledge, and it's a specific type of knowledge meant here of course, leads to a soul in turmoil. This isn't about knowing how to start a car or how to build a rocket capable of space-travel.

Anyway, when I opened my book, I almost always read the Old Testament.
The dark, the violent and very much the bloodiest part of the Bible, barring the unrestrained madness that is Revelations, of course.

Tales of a God of blood sacrifice and horrific plagues, apocalyptic floods and columns of fire, of a God so petty and so sadistic that he'd send 2 she-bears to tear apart 42 children because they dared call an old man "Baldie". Of ascendancy by fiery chariot, wild visions in the dessert and of a whole people getting preferential treatment by dint of simply being the first on this blessed, blighted earth.
Of a man spilling his seed on the sand rather than granting his late brother's wife children and of God murdering him for it, because he is a voyeur who likes a happy ending.

You know, the fucking horrific tales.

Now that I'm older I wish I could say that I was fascinated by these tales because I noticed the incongruity between the bloodthirst of the First Testament and the forgiving message of the New. But that'd be a lie: It was definitely the violence, the tales of war and forced marching in deserts and God's horrific supernatural interventions in the affairs of men. I've matured enough to appreciate the difference between the two, though.

Somewhere in the years of endless questioning why, the continuous heaping up of misplaced guilt and shame; I inevitably lost my faith. This did not come down to one moment, but it was rather the consequence of alot of things. Too many things to mention or to go into really. I'm not even sure when it happened.

We can never really know all the influences that led us to make a decision, or even assuming we are capable into making a decision that is not already determined based on every influence that we are made up out of. The decision of a puppet held up by a million strings of influence is not really a decision made by that puppet.

And you know what;
maybe I still believe and this is just a protest. A refusing to acknowledge, a refusal to give credence that a being so horrifically arbitrary could or even should have this much power over me. In that case, I suppose I would be one of the people thrown into the eternal pool of fire who even in their agony, knowing the truth, would still renounce him. Helplessly, endlessly, railing at the dealt injustice.

Today

As someone who grew up inside what is probably some subsect of protestantism, I once devoutly believed in a personal, caring and loving creator.

These days, I might believe that the God of the Old Testament was a spoiled and bloodthirsty child. That the New Testament demonstrates the actions of a more mature God; still dabbling in his creation, still convinced of his own moral superiority, but with a more lenient, less blood-drenched hand.
Of these days, I might believe that God has finally attained wisdom enough that he knows better than to take an actual hand in his creation. He lets us run rampant because nothing he does can alter the wild abandon that is humanity's urge for self-mutilation.
That or he is dead. Or he has taken his bags and left in utter frustration. leaving behind an aimless, warring humanity that is sat like a bloated leech on what was once a garden Paradise, but now a dying husk. Aimless, pointless, and utterly without redemption.

In the next part I talk about nihilism and the exact opposite of believing in God and where that leads me. Oh, joy.