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08-14-2007, 01:15 PM
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I think religious ambiguity is right on. Though I don't think it's so much a matter of wether Herbert "believes" or not. Maynard obviously "believes", otherwise the time and energy wouldn't be spent on the subject. I think its more of an internal struggle he has with his own faith. The awesome magnitude of the existence we experience, had to be created by something for some good reason. But why then would his mother own her particular fate? The age old question of "if there is a God, how he be letting little babies die and sht?" Then one must also presume that James is plenty intelligent enough to understand the "everything happens for a reason, wether we understand the reasoning or not" bit. However, he obviously holds great resentment in the case of Judith. Moving towards his general distaste for orthodox religion, it is much more a matter of "think for yourself". Probably best put by Chris Rock as the Apostle in Dogma, that people should stop "believing" so much, and just have "a pretty good idea". People die over beliefs, people kill over beliefs, but people having a good idea seems to only spawn intelligent conversation and the evolution of that good idea.

Atheism is a far cry in this case, again, if there were no belief, there would be no use in referencing. I would lean more toward Agnosticism which simply "believes" that we are not provided with enough information to even form an accurate hypothesis regarding our existence. Therefore, we can only continue to gather and question the available information on our evolutionary journey. However, this even seems to fade as Herbie expresses his obvious resentment towards the Judeo/Christian faith which in turn, validates its existence and his belief in it.
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Old 08-14-2007, 01:15 PM   #8
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Re: The religious ambiguity of the great Maynard

I think religious ambiguity is right on. Though I don't think it's so much a matter of wether Herbert "believes" or not. Maynard obviously "believes", otherwise the time and energy wouldn't be spent on the subject. I think its more of an internal struggle he has with his own faith. The awesome magnitude of the existence we experience, had to be created by something for some good reason. But why then would his mother own her particular fate? The age old question of "if there is a God, how he be letting little babies die and sht?" Then one must also presume that James is plenty intelligent enough to understand the "everything happens for a reason, wether we understand the reasoning or not" bit. However, he obviously holds great resentment in the case of Judith. Moving towards his general distaste for orthodox religion, it is much more a matter of "think for yourself". Probably best put by Chris Rock as the Apostle in Dogma, that people should stop "believing" so much, and just have "a pretty good idea". People die over beliefs, people kill over beliefs, but people having a good idea seems to only spawn intelligent conversation and the evolution of that good idea.

Atheism is a far cry in this case, again, if there were no belief, there would be no use in referencing. I would lean more toward Agnosticism which simply "believes" that we are not provided with enough information to even form an accurate hypothesis regarding our existence. Therefore, we can only continue to gather and question the available information on our evolutionary journey. However, this even seems to fade as Herbie expresses his obvious resentment towards the Judeo/Christian faith which in turn, validates its existence and his belief in it.
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