Religious Thought

Just read a long book by Neal Stephenson called Anathem. Though slow at times it had some very interesting insights in it. I won't go into the details of the book as it is quite complicated. But somewhere towards the end, there was a response to a person who had embraced an old religious thought and held that as true, despite evidence otherwise. They represented a faction of the world who just wants a belief to hold on to to have things make sense, much like the comfort many of our religious organizations give us. The response can be paraphrased this way.

"He decided to continue his studies because he said that the more he knew of the complexity of the mind, and the cosmos in which it was inextricably and mysteriously bound up, the more inclined he was to see it as a kind of a miracle - not in the sense that the religious use the term, for he considered it altogether natural. He meant rather that the evolution of our minds from bits of inanimate matter was more beautiful and more extraordinary than any of the miracles cataloged down through the ages by the religions of our world. And so he had an instinctive skepticism of any system of thought, religious or theorical, that pretended to encompass that miracle, and in so doing draw limits around it."

Allowing my mind to be free to explore the "miracle", seeking the ways that I am bound up in the cosmos, and creating meaning seems to be the single most important thing for me right now. I am not looking for an answer, for as the above quote alludes to, an answer is fleeting. It only puts boundaries on the beauty of the miracle, and therefore limits ourselves to how far we can go.

What I really want to do is free my mind from the burden created by my own ego. I want to act from a place within, a place that touches the cosmos. I guess that is asking a lot. Perhaps someday I can get there. I do feel better about not needing to embrace a specific dogma now when it comes to religion. The "miracle" means to keep searching. Draw no limits, see no boundaries.