When I was younger, I fell prostrate in the corner of my bedroom, and I cried. I still believed in something. And I asked why but received no response. God was dead.
Perhaps the failure to respond was not a predicate of God’s inexistence, but rather I was at fault for asking such a question. God is as ignorant of the why as anyone else. But it saddens Him more, for we are convinced that He knows, for such are His ways after all.
Yes, εν αρχή εποίησεν ο Θεός τον ουρανόν και την γην, and his benevolence ceased not for He even learnt the lingua franca of the times to facilitate the proselytization of His Word. Yet His powers are slightly exaggerated. The timid and introverted demiurge of semitic extraction, having simply removed the abyss that covered the firmaments, a fantastic feat in itself, retired to the Italic peninsula. And here He has spent his time, contemplating for such act suits such a divine being.
I’ve nothing against God. He is a silly fellow, a bit naïf, from nomadic extraction but His simplicity is nowhere as picturesque as that of a rustic character of provincial extraction. The latter is a world unto himself, a world that is predicated on his particular speech, on his provincial dialect. And we crave to decipher it but if we are successful, if we are able to break through, we only encounter disappointment. This character may not possess the secret of his being for the mysticism may be an invention of our intellect; another cognitive illusion.
The world that exists outside of us is one thing (if it truly exists is of no real importance for we shall never experience it although we may experience it by being aware of it, for knowledge is a kind of experience). And the world that we form in our intellect is another. This one is more real to us, for we interact with it more directly.
Thus we assume, in our egocentric and egoistical selves, that the world cares. We want it to care, but our desires do not translate into reality. But it is no fault of our own, we are designed (the teleological implications this word evokes are problematic) to comprehend everything in reference to the self.
And proceeding from this, it follows that man is under the illusion that God cares for him, that God is involved in his life. To man is appointed destiny while to all the other organisms, chance.
Yes, God exists, but He cares nothing for his creatures. Man is delusional if he truly believes such a being would care for him. But can man believe otherwise? He can but it does seem to be abnormal … an aberration.
Phew! Now having said this, I must confess that I care nothing for truth. But how can I? when only violent events drive man to seek answers, truth. The problem with philosophy is that it assumes that man possesses an innate drive for truth – the existence of truth is a priori. I feel otherwise. Perhaps I may be wrong. And even if man were to have a innate desire for truth, it makes no difference for there remains the problem of ascertaining whether it can be obtained; I say no.
As to the idea that the path is as honorable if not more so than the actual goal, I have nothing to say. Although it does sound as if man would like to believe this in order to comfort himself upon realizing that the goal is never attainable. What choice has he then but to deceive himself and say that the attempt is as good as the object?
The twilight of the idols approaches. They march in front of me, their shoulders slumped, their gazes colored in abyssal dew. The moments of pure thought are punctuated by paroxysms of shame.
Finally, it remains to be answered: Why should I live? There is no answer, it seems. Living for the sake of living is not sufficient.