an atheist speaks . . .
le maestro de malrboro leets (craig.king@cwcom.net)
Thu, 17 Sep 1998 03:04:16 +0100
halloo the halloo . . .
been reading f & z. zooey's speech always gets me, the one just
before he calls up franny pretending to be buddy. talks of christ and
how she shouldn't sentimentalise him into a st. francis. after that
he says that christ didn't have to speak when pilate asks him a
question because he didn't have to, god was there, inside him, and
that his silence makes him the greatest of the biblical figures,
proving his unity with god, more so than moses, or solomon, all of
whom would have had a couple of 'pithy comments' to make.
now then, after that little narrative . . .
i'm an atheist. but i'm fascinated with religion. i think you have to
be, really. so i agree with zooey's little rant on christ but can't
connect in the way i would if i believed in the christ/man
connection. if the god never existed but the intensity of feeling
always did, what does that say? well, it seems we pretty much
said goodbye to god when art and church waved their farewells, so
all that spiritual passion is channelled off into aesthetics, fuelled by
the sense of loss, perhaps, the sense of division caused by the
god/man separation with a pleasurable sense of independence at
being human thrown in too. so the god was always the human,
they write, paint, sculpt and think away, realising the possibilities
of it all. all of those sublime ethics, the occasional beauty of the
bible, paul, even christ! that was all US? we'll ignore the sillier
rituals back in some of the older books, they think, but the new?
and some of those commandments? WE DID THAT? well, who
would have thought it . . .
i veered away, i think. well, forgive me, it's 2.48 am and my eyes
are closing. ah, so for me god was always a conception but oh my
SUCH a conception. i share zooey's respect for christ, even
reading about him as an atheist but the effect is the same. zooey
marvels at the man and his wonders and i marvel at the creation of
this man and his wonders. the aesthetics of christ, fragments from
four different people, each seeing, hearing with slight difference. the
ethics of the man, the humility. all done by people. i can never
quite click with zooey, feel that harmony of thought from idea to
understanding (though always from author to reader), but i connect
with the strength of feeling. me, i prefer the creation of beauty
through people than beauty through god. god in man or just man?
we have art! and thankfully we have salinger.
this is no doubt all over the place, making little sense and i am
exhausted, in that just-finished-franny-and-zooey way and also in
that go-to-bed-you-silly-silly-man way and i apologise. think of it as
a smiling and enthusiastic monologue by a distant relative.
and a good night to you all . . .
craig king
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