Of Beliefs and e.e. cummings

A mix of prose poetry and verse. Hope you enjoy. As always, please offer critiques on anything you can.

Of Beliefs and e.e. cummings

 

Why am I a Christian? The more I think about it the less it makes sense because honestly it’s just a geography-based faith since I really only believe that way because of where I was born and what I was taught, and so if I’m going to follow a geography-based faith then why shouldn’t I convert and be Jewish or Muslim or a polytheist like Ancient Greeks instead and believe in Zeus but no I can’t believe in Zeus because no one has seen him up on Mount Olympus with his children, but hey no one’s seen God or Allah either except in visions but that’s just in their head or is it because some people have seen Hell instead and they even wrote books about it and we all know that books don’t lie, but wait that’s not true because the Bible can’t be trusted anymore since it’s been translated too many times and also who the hell is King James and why does he decide what I read in my holy texts plus you must consider that maybe the Qur’an is right or even the Torah and besides they really have better claim because their holy texts haven’t been raped into fallacy over the years by manipulation of translation, but they can’t prove anything either so maybe I should just not believe in any god at all but then again science hasn’t been able to disprove that there is a god that guides our existence and wrote the laws the universe obeys, and I also beat cancer once and that’s a miracle I think even though actually it’s medicine but what if some god gave man medicine and fire and showed us how to make a wheel and talk to each other which honestly makes sense to me because I don’t see how else could we just figure that out, and when I think about all of this I get lost and just STOP.

 

I decided to take

all the religions I can think of,

and strip the petty bullshit off them.

Once I finished, the only thing left

was love. It unified every belief

at the core, which makes me think that

maybe I’m not a Christian and

e.e. cummings was right when he said something like

“love is the only every god”

Author's Note

Tell me anything and everything you see about this. Please?

Reviews

[Moebia]

I love this so much, like I cannot honestly see anything wrong with this. I like the combination of prose and verse. It all flows so nicely, even the prose part, which is tricky to do right because a lot of writers have been known to turn it into some sort of annoying run-on sentence. But, no. This was perfect. This is my favorite of what you've posted.

[Shawn M]

Yay! I'm so glad that you liked it! The prose was tricky, but I think that it is exactly what I needed for the poem to be what it wanted to be.

[Baby Ricochet]

Didn't like this review either ey? That's okay. You don't have to agree with me and it is your page so you can delete whatever you want

[Shawn M]

I wasn't doing it because I wanted to be mean, they were just highly unproductive. I do appreciate you coming to read though. Thank you for understanding.

[Baby Ricochet]

You are most welcome

[Rose Diamond]

I absolutely adore your thoughts and message! The way you almost rant about your beliefs, how you say what you're feeling, showing no signs of remorse or regret for doing so, it's just so wonderful!

The only thing that sort of makes me uncomfortable is that huge first piece. I like the angry, expressive rant, but I'm not sure how I feel about such a big, awkward piece. Of course, this /does/ make it unique and your own, so I applaud you!

[Shawn M]

Haha, yeah prose poetry isn't for everyone. But, as you may have seen if you read my other one called Absences, I am a fan. It's especially useful in this instance because I want to force the reader into reading this at the right pace. If I start adding line breaks, the reader gets to go at their own pace and the piece really loses its magic. I actually originally wrote it with tons of line breaks, then figured out what it was actually trying to do. :P But I'm so glad you liked it! Thanks for reading!

[Girl Friday (Sarah W.)]

I like this as a pure and unadulterated expression of your heart...the emotions were bright and raw and gritty and beautiful. Sure, there is chaos in this, and the lack of a "format" might be off putting to some, but I enjoyed the stream of conciousness. I agree with you; all of the religions of the world can be stripped down to one thing, love. As they were intended, I believe they all began this way, but when "people" get their hands on things, they have a way of muddling up the soup, you know? I enjoyed this.

[Shawn M]

It means a lot to me that you liked my work, yours is so lovely! Agh! Yeah, I like playing with formats. A lot of people don't seem to like prose poetry but I think it's a LOVELY way to get this kind of racing, can't stop thinking poem out, and then switching to verse allowed me to slow it back down. It was fun to write! Plus, I love e.e. cummings, so added bonus. :) Thanks so much for reading/commenting!

[ríða andlit]

All hail Mighty Odin! Well, why not? He's just a figment, a mere reflection of the men who created him as Jesus, Zeus, Mohammed, Ra, Krishna, Yahweh, et al. are.

You are correct in that belief is geographic. Rather pathetic, isn't it?

For myself, I am a near militant atheist. I don't take superstition lightly and I find it to be the antithesis of intellectualism. Why are logic and reason so easily dismissed when it comes down to the almighty? The only answer I've ever been able to come up with is because of mankind's innate fear of the unknown, i.e. death. However, with technology and science hurtling us all towards enlightenment, the act of dying has actually been deconstructed, logically explained and proven. There is no afterlife but I take comfort in the fact that my brain will release a flood of chemicals in order to reduce the trauma of dying and allowing a kind of peace to come over me.

Why do gods always reflect the views and characteristics of those who believe in them (the belief by geography question)? Easy. Because each and every single one of them are a product of man's imagination. God did not create man in his image. Quite the contrary. Man created God in his. Ask three different Christians their views on a certain bible passage and you'll get three different answers. Religion is used to justify warped viewpoints and bias that come from the self. Faith allows the blinders to be put on -- I don't know about you but I'd rather live in reality than in some plastic, opaque bubble with only a small window to view the outside.

/rant

Yes, I agree with Princeps. There is little punctuation, however, it could add to the idea that you're writing a breakneck trail of consciousness with little care as to the general rules. Read Cormac McCarthy. He does something similar.

[Shawn M]

Yeah, all the punctuation is done on purpose. Initially it had almost no punctuation, but after a few workshops and trying to present it out loud I realized that we needed a few places to have a rest. Thanks for reading/commenting, and I'll be sure to read some of his stuff!

[icelandicblue]

Respectfully, I believe in spirituality, made of man's inner spirit not in organized religion. If there is a God, any God I think he or she will respect that.

[Daniel Sala]

A high-speed reflection on the nature of religion and religious faith, which comes to a wise conclusion, nice work.

[Shawn M]

Thanks so much for reading and commenting! I'm really glad that you enjoyed it. :)