metapunk

Lately I’ve been spending some time over at Only a Game, a blog by video game designer Chris Bateman. Chris and I seem to have very similar interests: namely games, religion, and philosophy, and the intersection of all of the above. The main difference between us is that Chris really does his homework: he’s very well versed in the topics he discusses there, while I’m always winging it (Remember Mad Max 3?: “Plan? There ain’t no plan!”).

Anyway, a while back I read Chris’ piece on the meaning of life, and he reminded me of something very important. In a Western, post-existentialist context, the meaning of life often does boil down to creating your own meaning—your own religion. This echoes Nishitani, who points out in Religion and Nothingness that it’s pointless to ask the use of religion, because religion is the thing that helps you discover the use (or meaning) of everything else. It is your point of reference in an otherwise changing and confusing world.

So, while it’s true that traditional religions often fail for various reasons, it’s still important to have a religion, a way of making meaning, of some kind.

If you don’t already have one, such as the kind of thing you inherited from your parents, there’s a good chance you won’t think much about the issue of religion or meaning until you encounter a situation where life seems to lose meaning. But at that point, your quest will begin. Your only choice will be to rediscover (or reinvent) some framework for meaning, or succumb to despair.

In other words, you’ll have to create your own religion. There’s a lot of different ways to go about this. For some, it may be as simple as taking some existing religion and tweaking it… learning to understand it in a new way, or taking elements from another faith and incorporating it into what you already have.

For others, the process is more radical, and may involve combing through books on different religions and philosophies, and trying to distill out some commonalities; some collection of truths that makes sense to you.

Personally, I have found the latter path to be more rewarding. I’ve found it to be a lot like Worldbuilding (that is, constructing a fictional world for telling stories). Indeed, apart from language creation I find the creation of fictional religions to be the most enjoyable part of worldbuilding. You look at the way you want your culture, or your protagonist, or whomever follows the faith in question, to be. You want to look at the ways they get along with their faith or don’t, and in general what the religion you’re creating is trying to achieve.

I suppose it’s a little different if you want to develop a system of beliefs that you yourself are going to follow, but a lot is the same. You still want to figure out the ideal life you’re trying to live. Even if your new religion involves some notion of an afterlife, your focus should still be the kind of life you want to live—the person you want to be—while you’re waiting for that afterlife. Only by knowing this can you proceed to develop beliefs that will help get you closer to being the person you want to be.

I’ll give you a quick example of what I mean. I believe in an afterlife, and in reincarnation, and that life on Earth is a learning experience over successive lifetimes. An atheist might find such beliefs to be unfounded, not grounded in evidence. I certainly have no measurable evidence for reincarnation or the education of the soul, or anything like that. I have no evidence against it, either, but you’d still be justified in asking: why do I continue to believe in such things? Because I know that believing it gives me permission to be human. If I believe I get more than one shot at living a good life, I know I can make mistakes and still forgive myself. I’m a happier and more pleasant person because I believe in reincarnation. If I took the atheists’ view, that we’re here for a short time and then it’s over, and that all the major fuck ups of my life (which are numerous), were all for nothing… well, then I’d be miserable. So I don’t believe that.

Certain beliefs I hold simply because of the effect they have on me, not on the basis of either evidence or revealed “Truth.” I mean, for the most part these things can’t be proven one way or the other anyway, so why not believe in things that make me a better person?

It’s as simple as that: find or create beliefs (and practices, and art, and music, and rituals if that’s your thing) that make you and the people around you happy. A very good friend of mine once made a mix-CD for all his friends entitled: “Optimal Songs for Maintaining Awesomeness.” Well, that’s all religion is supposed to be—optimal beliefs (or whatever) for maintaining awesomeness.

Just remember in all of this that one person’s optimal mix isn’t necessarily going to work for somebody else. It’s not about “the one true way.” I mean, my belief in reincarnation works for me. Maybe for an atheist, the belief that he or she only gets one shot at life is an important motivation to get things right the first time. There’s something to be said for that, too.

The important point here is that no matter which way you go, you’re consciously exploring all of these different ideas aobut life, and understanding them for yourself. I think when people get really caught up in dogma and self-importance, it’s often because they have failed to really look at their beliefs objectively, and to look behind the words at the spirit of what is being said—WHY it is being said at all.

So, in my last post I promised homework. Here it is: If you aren’t already doing so, make up your own religion. Heck, make up three or four for kicks. Just because you decide to believe one thing now, doesn’t mean you’re stuck with it for the rest of your life. Religion should be flexible, always with an eye toward making people happy and healthy.

This isn’t an excuse to be a moral relativist—we can’t just do whatever we want and damn the consequences; that’s not meaningful or mature (and in the long run won’t make us or anyone else happy). Find good ethics and live by them—just leave yourself room to breathe.

I think I’ve rambled on enough about this. You get the idea.  Religion is something we ought to play with; not something we have to be grim about.