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Throwing stuff out

As a child I was always a bit of a hoarder. I kept a weird collection of things I refused to throw away. It's hard to remember what I kept but it included baby teeth, broken toys and random crap that I thought would be useful someday. I kept it all in a stash in my room, ensuring it remained hidden from my very tidy mum.

It was a difficult habit to get out of. At first was the problem of realising what was worth keeping and what was rubbish. It took time to convince myself that empty batteries should just be thrown away. However, many things I kept I knew had no value. I realised I placed a lot of sentimental value on the silliest things. I became attached to clothes that I wore a lot and found myself extremely unwilling to throw them away when they became too old or useless. It made me really sad when I outgrew my pajamas and my mum cut them up and used them as rags.

I guess I anthropomorphise inanimate objects too much. Just yesterday I had to replace my worn out toothbrush. (I will take this opportunity to once again promote oral hygiene. Replace your toothbrush every three months, people!) As I threw it away, I felt bad about disposing this toothbrush which served me well for three months in such an unceremonious manner. Of course, I quickly realised how absurd my feelings were and that inspired me to write this.

I had a few ideas about why I found throwing stuff away so difficult. Perhaps I just feared the passing away of things. Even throwing away an empty pen or plastic bottle, it crosses my mind that I will never see it again. That really worried me. As a child, I was always aware about the transience of life. Even while holding my mum's hand, I imagined that her skin and flesh would one day be a pile of bones underground. Everything inevitably has to go and that was always hard to accept.

Well it seem that what started with a whimsical recount of my hoarding as a child has turned into me shooting the crap about the transience of life. I feel I must apologise for trying to be so d&m all the time for fear of seeming pretentious. But I realise that writing openly can make for more interesting reading. So I promise to stop apologising next time I do this. Thanks for reading.

[Edit: Just realised this is my 300th post. Hooray!]

Pointless Update

I don't know what to write about after writing so much last time I posted. So as the title indicates, this update was made for the sake of an update.

Firstly I want to say that the response to my last post was pretty cool. I was a little surprised that everyone had such strong opinions about religion. It was also very comforting when I saw that a lot of people empathised with my fear of eternity.

Anyway, recently I rewatched Cinema Paradiso because I liked it so much. The movie is quite sentimental but it pulls it off and ends up quite touching. In particular the first act of the movie is very entertaining because it depicts the protagonist as a child and he's really cute. Unfortunately he grows up about an hour into the movie. I also have to say that Ennio Morricone is my favourite movie music composer. He also did the score for The Good, The Bad and The Ugly which has the best movie soundtrack I've ever heard.

Here's the trailer, though I don't think its a particularly great representation of the movie.


And here's Ecstacy of Gold, by Ennio Morricone. (From The Good, The Bad and The Ugly)


And that's all I really have to say. Also, look at what I built on Minecraft!

I will concede the tower is a bit ugly but the floating island is pretty cool.

High School Inception

Wow. I haven't posted in a really really really long time and now my comeback seems completely insignificant compared to Vincent's. I might write my thoughts on religion someday but I don't think anyone really cares and some points are the same as Vincent's. Anyway this is what I wanted to post:



Now that's mind-boggling! (High School Musical 3 was released 2 years before Inception) Maybe Christopher Nolan thought "Man this hallway sequence is cool but it sure is pussy".

On a final note, Steve Carell left the Office which makes me really sad to see him go. I don't know if I'll continue to watch the Office now that he's gone so this may be the last -

Office Quote of the Day: Well, I guess this is it. Hey will you guys let me know if this ever airs? Thank you.

That is all.

My Religion

I haven't blogged for about a week now, which is quite a long time for me. So I thought I'd come back with a bang and write about the mother of all contentious issues. Religion is something I've wanted to write about for a long time. My heart is actually beating hard as I type this, which is something I can't say I've ever experienced while blogging before. So here goes.

There is no doubt that nothing stirs up more heated debate than religion. The nature of the subject naturally brings up all kinds of dogma that makes sensible discussion quite dificult. All I really hope to convey here are my own experiences with religion, how it has changed during my life and what I think of it now.

(Note: When I talk about religion, I almost exclusively mean Christianity. Simply because that is the only religion I've ever dealt with.)

For many years I considered myself a good Christian. I prayed every night, mostly to say thanks and to hope for self-improvement. In times of distress, I prayed for strength and for faith. I tried my best to behave in a way that upheld the ideals of Christ. However, I never regularly attended church. At first this bothered me because that was the proper Christian thing to do. Later I worried about it less because I believed that God would recognize my sincere faith in Christ regardless.

I rarely had trouble holding onto my faith. As a child, I had no problem in believing the story of Genesis and all the Old Testament events like the Flood and the parting of the Red Sea. Growing up, I started learning about things like Evolution and the Big Bang that disputed these stories. But that was never an issue for me. Like most sensible Christians I know of, I simply altered my interpretation of the Bible. The seven days of Creation became seven metaphorical days. Adam and Eve's banishment from Eden became an allegory rather than historical account. Most importantly though was that none of these things really impacted what I felt was the crux of Christianity- the death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Thinking back now, I was never really concerned with the validity of the Bible. I did not find it hard to believe that the Son of God walked the Earth two thousand years ago. I was more occupied with the ideologies and teachings of Christianity. I was confident that my faith was unshakeable and so I devoted myself only into being the best Christian I could.

So I was once Christian. As good a Christian I believe, as any. I may not have studied the Bible all that intensely but I felt I knew enough. More importantly, I had sincere faith in the sacrifice of Christ for humanity's sins, which is really what Christianity is all about.

Now, however I am an atheist. Not even an agnostic or anything. Completely atheist and maybe even a little nihilistic. Ironically, sometimes I see my departure from faith as my true 'second birth'. So let me explain how it happened.

About last year I found out that my dad didn't believe in evolution. It really set me off. I told a friend about how much it bothered me. He promptly replied that I was completely overreacting. Which I was. I always knew that there were Christians who denied evolution. As I explained earlier, I found a way to accept scientific facts without hurting my faith. My opinion on those who could not was that they may have been ignorant but they had a good relationship with God and that was the imporant thing.

But it's one thing to talk about ignorance and another to witness it first-hand. To see it in my dad was hurtful. I guess that's one of my vices. Ignorance just really gives me the shits. Experiencing it at such a personal level tied to religion was enough to make me question my faith.

My 'conversion', if you like from Christianity to atheism was certainly not solely dependant on this event. But I have to say that this was the first domino in a long chain reaction. In the months to follow, I went through a very long process in which I gradually, almost painfully, let go of my religion.

I find it difficult now to recount my thoughts during these months. They're hard to remember. Little arguments against Christianity flew in from all sorts of directions. I became acutely aware of the historical context of Christianity. It started two thousand years ago as a branch of Judaism which differentiated itself by the acceptance of Christ as Messiah. Somehow it managed to spread over all of Europe and became the major religion it is today. Realising that the Bible (at least the New Testament stuff on which Christianity is based) was written only two thousand years ago made it seem less authoritative in my mind. (In comparison, humans have been around for 200,000 years. And that's not even including neanderthals and stuff. Which raises the question, if animals aren't subject to Judgement after death, then at what stage of evolution did humans begin to be judged for their sins? I have heard that some religious leaders have released official statements about when they believe the human soul was 'evolved'. (Okay, I realise I'm being kind of smart-alecky here but I thought that was a pretty clever thing to ask.))

When I say that these little arguments came from all sorts of directions I really mean it. Even at school, we happened to be doing 'The Cosmic Engine' for Physics. I thought a lot about the incomprehensible scale of the universe and how insignificant human life, history and culture is compared to say, the lifetime of a star. It seems like a bit of characteristic vanity on the part of humans to propose that we were made in the image of the creator of the universe. Also particularly valuable during this tumultous period were the videos of this particular Youtube channel. Lots of strong arguments opposing religion there. Unfortunately, he comes off a bit smug and arrogrant at times (especially towards Christians, who seem to be his main target) but that seems to be a trait of most atheist campaigners. I think its rubbed off me a little too.

The thing to note about all these little arguments against religion (except maybe the Youtube guy) I accumulated were that they appealed to my emotions rather than my sense of reason. That's what really tipped me over. Any sensible Christian knows that reason has very little to do with religion. Faith is what really holds religious beliefs together. So when my emotions began to react against religion, there was no longer anything that tied me to it.

There was one final obstacle I had to overcome before I could let go of religion and that was fear. I feared eternity. Lying in bed at night, sometimes I think about how time is infinite. When I think about it hard enough, it gets really fucking scary. Time never ends. Does that mean everything exists for ever? Forever is a very scary word. Even as a Christian, I would think of eternal happiness in heaven and even that would unsettle me. Who wants eternal happiness? I don't want eternal anything. But time is infinite, so everything goes on forever whether you like it or not. Who can deal with such terrifying truths? This might not sound powerful now but thinking about it in the middle of the night, it drives me crazy. Fear of eternity has plagued me for a very long time. As a small child, I would end it by imagining the embrace of my mother. In adolescence, I took comfort in the hope of heaven, where the Bible explained that eternity was a good thing. For a while, I held onto religion solely because of this security it gave. I resolved I was too weak to be an atheist. My solution in the end was to avoid the question of eternity. I did so for at many months. Doing so, I was able to well and truly became an atheist and I finally ended my prayers to God every night.

Just last week, I thought about eternity again. As always, it drove me nuts. I sat up in bed and stared at the wall for a while. Then I went back to sleep. The fear of eternity that almost kept me religious reflects a comment made by Cardinal George Pell last year. He claimed that the lives of people without faith have 'nothing beyond the constructs they confect to cover the abyss'. To this, one disgruntled newsreader replied, "It seems to me that the Cardinal is just upset that nobody wants his lollies."

As a final note, I would like to say that I am very content now in terms of all this metaphysical stuff and I cannot imagine myself returning to Christianity. My mind remains open, as always, but it has taken a long journey to reach where it is now. It would please me greatly if this post provoked some kind of discussion. There are other opinions I have on religion that I did not have time to touch on.

Well, that's all that I have time to write about religion. I'm a little tired now because I just spent almost two hours writing this (didn't even realise that time was passing). I would like to apologise to anybody who came to this blog and expected some movie/flash game recommendations. The truth is I haven't been getting much of either lately because of schoolwork/Minecraft.

Once

I watched Once yesterday and I really liked it. I heard about it a while ago because I some people in our grade performed Falling Slowly last year or something. I looked up the song on Youtube and really liked it and then I Wikied the film and saw that a lot of people like the movie too. But I forgot about it for until a few days ago I decided on a whim to download it. Probably the best decision I made all week.

Here's a music video for Falling Slowly using clips from the film:



I don't know what else to say except that if you liked this video, go watch the movie.

My House

This was a post I wrote last week but I didn't publish it because I thought it was kind of stupid. But I'm publishing it now because I haven't posted anything for about two weeks, which makes me feel bad. My life needs consistency.

I had the sudden inspiration today to write about my house.

Compared to its neighbouring houses, my house looks a bit big. That's because its a single storey house that's had a level added on top. So really its the size of two houses. Its a pretty nice place but there's a few things about it that occasionally piss me off.

If you look closely, there's lots of little bits of dodgy construction around the house. There's big cracks on the walls around our front lawn because the soil has either eroded or sunken. The light switch for the toilet is outside the door. The doors don't shut properly in extreme weather because the wood contracts/expands. Our house was built by a construction crew owned by a family friend, whose crew mostly consisted of untrained apprentices. However, I think just a little more common sense and thoughtfulness from the builders would have been enough to make our house better. The toilet in the en-suite is squished in a tiny corner between the wall and the sink despite the huge empty space in the middle and the presence of an enormous bathtub we have never ever used. If you saw it you'd laugh.

I think my dad put a lot of thought into this house. He designed its layout and everything (though he had to get some developer guy to look over it) so I feel a bit bad when I think critically of it. Because of this, I've tried to change the way I think about my house. While I frustratedly tried to slam the bathroom door shut this morning I thought that all the annoying little things in the house give it a bit of character. It still pisses me off that my face is pressed to the wall when I take a shit but I imagine that someday as an adult I'll get all sentimental and nostalgic thinking about this house and all its little quirks. It kind of embodies some of the qualities I see in my parents. It's quite noticeable, a little dodgy and kind of tacky. But in the end, its my home which is always a good thing.