Pessimistic Faith

Picture a monk in your mind. Make his facial expression quite clear in your thoughts, because I am about to ask you a question about what he looks like.

My question is, is he smiling?

Mine wasn't. My stereotypical image of a monk was a medieval man in a brown robe, with a mostly bald head and a serious face. Historical Christianity has an image of sombre, serious people. Some images could even be said to be of people weighed down by their belief. Maybe God is a kill-joy.

An atheist wrote an article a while ago in which he commended the relatively pessimistic view of religion. He was comparing this view with what he considered the unrealistic optimism of his current culture. He didn't mean that a pessimistic person was moody all day long- he made a point to say that when good things do happen, a pessimist can be as happy as an optimist. The difference is that only the pessimist will also be surprised.

I have faith in God. But am I a pessimist?

Greedy Optimism

Many people who would describe themselves as "not religious" appear to have an optimistic view that the world generally turns out OK. This view has possibly been influenced by seeing too many movies or reading too many books with shiny happy endings, but the optimism isn't founded on anything more solid that a vague idea that things just turn out that way.

Some of the most visible examples of this for me have been brief updates that people write online. I see people I know writing that they are currently going through a bad time, but that there is hope. Not hope in anything in particular. Just hope! These individuals sometimes quote the kind of happy mantras you might find in a birthday card or on a car bumper sticker, as if these small and cheap products are enough evidence to conclude that life can, and should, be nice all of the time. Strangely, the people who share these ideas about how nice life should always be are among the most frequent to complain that thing's are going badly.

All of this self-enforced happiness about life has recently reminded me of something else in the world- Economics. The way that the world has currently decided Economics works seems to echo some of this same unfounded optimism that I frequently see.

Sky: Behind the Scenes

For the 50^th post on Sky and Field, I would like to offer a glimpse behind the scenes of the Sky- the 12 short stories that I have posted on this blog so far. I have included my own reflections on my work, and mentioned where inspiration for styles and stories have come from. I feel that I have improved over time, and hope that I have more stories to post here in the future.

Belt Life

My first short story was created to present a sci-fi idea I had of an alternative earth. The belt spinning around the world so that people can permanently live in a time of day instead of a country is an exaggerated idea of humans trying to control our universe. I got to throw in a few other alternative-universe ideas too, like companies installing a new ozone layer, etc. The idea could be expanded on at a later date, but I am not motivated to do so myself.

Screwj

A quick trip through a well know Dickensian tale causes Mr. Evan E. R. Screwj to question why he has to die. This parody, starring a more generous human than the original, and a cockney grim reaper, was simply something I used to draw some quiet attention to death as a part of life. Some of my other blog posts have described how I don't think death, as a topic, need be as taboo as it is. Also, dying as "the bad news" hints towards "the good news" (a.k.a. The Gospel) being a remedy.