Thursday, April 8, 2010

Religion Queries and WG,WG

Sorry for not blogging on Sunday. Oh, wait, I DID. Check bag and be duly amazed.

Anyway, lately I've been thinking about a label for my religious beliefs which seems like a pretty pointless thing to do but I've been wondering nonetheless. I don't think I subscribe to either atheism or agnosticism because my idea about deities is kind of different and stems from City of Bones.

Now, my mom read City of Bones recently because she likes to be in on my sisters' and my literary conversations. We kept raving about this book and how it was a great story with compelling characters and fantastic writing and maybe we were a little overzealous with our praise but still, it's a great book and I do recommend it. My mom didn't love it. She didn't think it was terrible but she also didn't think the story was gripping. She didn't like Jace, the tortured demon hunter who I am kind of in love with and I suppose that's more of an age and taste issue but still. She didn't really care about any of the characters or what would happen to them. And opinions will differ and everything but I was a tiny bit crushed. She even said Twilight is more of a page turner which I guess I sort of agree with. Sort of.

But anyway, the reason I brought this up is because there's this one scene where they're getting weapons from a church so they can go save the protag's friend who got turned into a rat at a party and Clary (protag) is questioning Jace (love interest) on religion because she wants to make him admit that he cares about one thing in the world and he says something totally profound. I guess Clary's logic is that if there's demons and supposed angels (who no one has ever really seen apart from stories) wouldn't there be a God? Then Jace responds saying "I knew then that I hadn't stopped believing in God. I'd just stopped believing God cared. There might be a God, Clary, and there might not, but I don't think it matter. Either way, we're on our own."

Which basically describes my own thoughts on the subject. I don't think it really matters whether or not there is a God. Maybe I will spend eternity in hell for believing that but I think it's the truth. I am leaning towards God not existing (atheism) but at the same time, I don't care. At all. Do we really want a God if all he does is condescend on us and supposedly love us while really giving us jackshit and floods and all this stuff we didn't need anyway? Humans are imperfect; you cannot fix that. Accept it and move on.

So I'd like to call this new branch of belief deity apathy. Because honestly, as Jace says, I think we are on our own.

On a somewhat lighter note, I acquired a copy of John's Will Grayson, Will Grayson yesterday afternoon and finished reading it this morning. I'm not sure if it will bump anybody out of my top three favourites and it's message wasn't as subtle and moving as any of his other books but I thought it was great writing, an awesome story and had some hilarious musical numbers. Also, it made me want to read everything David Levithan ever wrote simply because he captured depression, anger and hurt in a way that made me want to cry while simultaneously ripping New Moon apart. Stephenie Meyer should pay this guy millions for lessons on how to convey emotion. Obviously, the book was superb, not to mention funny.*

*maybe not as funny as An Abundance of Katherines or Paper Towns but that could be just my taste.

2 comments:

Renata said...

Ahhhh I must get my hands on WGWG immediately. Just because I haven't in a while I will probably blabber about religion a little, but it will probably turn into a 70s movies-about-religion trivia list...

Vita said...

Your religious beliefs remind me of a more apathetic version of the Deists from the 1700s! You're like a modern day female Benjamin Franklin! (Nerdish history references, HEY!) (PS, I am generally a fan of Benjamin Franklin, so that's a good thing as far as I'm concerned.)

Regarding WG WG (no spoilers since I don't want to ruin it for Rena/other potential readers), did you find yourself liking the book and also the characters more as you read further? I wasn't a huge fan of the second WG at first, but by the end of the book I thought he was AWESOME.