Stanford students possess an intellectual vitality. Reflect on an idea or experience that has been important to your intellectual development.
I went to church a couple times when I was younger; a few of my friends were Christian so they would sometimes take me to Sunday Mass. I can remember not being totally sold by the idea of the world being created in seven days and felt like a total outsider when it came time to sing hymns and pray; my parents are both non-religious, so I had never practiced these things before. But still, I wondered about Jesus and liked the idea of having a God, someone who is omnipresent and watching over us, protecting us.
As I grew older, my idea of God began to change. He wasn't really so much a guardian anymore as he was an experimenter. He played us like puppets, making decisions for and occasionally throwing disasters at us, just to see how much we could handle. Sometimes I imagined that when it rained, God was taking a shower, and when the wind would whistle loudly through the trees, I said it was because he was blowing his nose.
These days, I don't think his name is God; in fact, I don't think this superior being is even male. No, I've come to the decision that the manager of this world is a woman called Mother Nature. I can't prove that assertion with hard facts, but still, I like to see it that way. She is the guardian, the architect, and the mother that watches over us. Her actions, whether for punishment or reward, are always dictated by reason. She is also an environmentalist, a recycler of sorts; just like matter cannot be created or destroyed, I believe that lives, when lost, reemerge as a different being to carry out a new life. For example, I myself might have been a dinosaur in a past life.
My progression from exploring Christianity and Atheism to establishing myself as a Neo-Pagan has been an intriguing journey so far. Even now, I find the changes that my ideology has undergone rather curious and mysterious; why was it all necessary? Whatever the reason, I'm sure that everything in my life has a purpose and all I have to do is live it out.
1977/2000
What do you think?
I went to church a couple times when I was younger; a few of my friends were Christian so they would sometimes take me to Sunday Mass. I can remember not being totally sold by the idea of the world being created in seven days and felt like a total outsider when it came time to sing hymns and pray; my parents are both non-religious, so I had never practiced these things before. But still, I wondered about Jesus and liked the idea of having a God, someone who is omnipresent and watching over us, protecting us.
As I grew older, my idea of God began to change. He wasn't really so much a guardian anymore as he was an experimenter. He played us like puppets, making decisions for and occasionally throwing disasters at us, just to see how much we could handle. Sometimes I imagined that when it rained, God was taking a shower, and when the wind would whistle loudly through the trees, I said it was because he was blowing his nose.
These days, I don't think his name is God; in fact, I don't think this superior being is even male. No, I've come to the decision that the manager of this world is a woman called Mother Nature. I can't prove that assertion with hard facts, but still, I like to see it that way. She is the guardian, the architect, and the mother that watches over us. Her actions, whether for punishment or reward, are always dictated by reason. She is also an environmentalist, a recycler of sorts; just like matter cannot be created or destroyed, I believe that lives, when lost, reemerge as a different being to carry out a new life. For example, I myself might have been a dinosaur in a past life.
My progression from exploring Christianity and Atheism to establishing myself as a Neo-Pagan has been an intriguing journey so far. Even now, I find the changes that my ideology has undergone rather curious and mysterious; why was it all necessary? Whatever the reason, I'm sure that everything in my life has a purpose and all I have to do is live it out.
1977/2000
What do you think?