Tag Archives: god

Existentialism – Some Thoughts

First, guys, read my passion post from last week and answer a question or two about how I can make this blog into something a little more interesting, eh? (link here)

Second, before I even get started with all this, I want us to just take a second to really appreciate how quality all of Lizzy’s comments are. Like, she’s basically shown me the light of day for each paper we’ve written so far. After having gone through two of them at this point, I really gotta say thanks.

Third, this isn’t a grammy speech, so I’m going to get on with it before Kanye comes and interrupts me (I swear, if you were suffering from over-exhaustion too that would have been funny).

Anyway, all of that being said, this week I’m going to try something different because I’m frustrated with how things were going before.

So here’s a picture I found particularly relevant (not to mention both amusing and thought provoking at the same time):

Taken Straight from my Tumblr…enjoy

Let’s just take a moment to reflect on this.

When you get past the initial absurdity of the statement (which is actually rhetorically potent so far as grabbing attention goes…but this isn’t the blog for rhetoric is it?), the realization sets in that no, this is not some joke in poor-taste mocking religion. It is not saying that the person possessing the sticker thinks they are the one, the only almighty God.

This is actually the end result of an existential quest for religious identity. Bet you weren’t expecting that one, am I right?

And no, I’m not reading too much into it. The essence of this bumper sticker is that we are ALL God, in that we all contain God, we are all powerful, and we are all part of the same huge, super-awesome life force.

I don’t know about you guys, and I’m not knocking religion in any way, but for me the traditional religious theories just didn’t do it for me. I never swallowed the “God” formula – the heaven and hell and don’t do this, don’t do that because “HE” is always watching formula for religion.

That’s just Christianity, I know, but that’s what I was raised with, and that’s what 73% of Americans are raised with (says Wikipedia, so it must be accurate), so I don’t stand alone here.

How many of you are (or have considered yourself) atheist or agnostic? Questioned the religion you were raised with? It’s scary. Like I mentioned a couple weeks ago, uprooting and rejecting previously accepted perceptions of reality is no fun, easy stuff.

But I like the way this simple, absurd sticker puts it – “I was an atheist until I realized I was God.”

It goes along with the whole “existence precedes essence.” As in, before we can label something, it must first exist. And therefore labels are arbitrary and limited compared to whole of existence. So the label of “atheist” or “christian” or “buddhist” or “muslim” is really arbitrary – what matters is that we are all God, part of the same great entity, the same existence. The label comes from a flawed understanding of the existence.

You are not an atheist/agnostic/buddhist/christian/muslim/jew. You are God.