This could turn into a long post..
To start with, I believe that nature is essentially a religion. Its the religion of time, of primal essence, of things happening that have nothing to do with us humans and everything to do with us. Nature is something you can believe in because you see it with your own eyes. Your senses take in your surroundings, constantly, looking at structures, buildings, good, streetlights. Subconsciously but importantly- we all breath in the air, taking oxygen through narrowed lung pipes. Its definite that nature is real, its something we all experience. And even though I think of nature as just trees, flowers, earth, and animals, really everything we derive is nature. Even steel, ore, gasoline, automobiles come from natural sources that have been modified.
Now, onto the nature of nature. Nature never talks to us. It never tells us what it plans to do, why its there. Its luminously big - the planet extends out in all directions, the sky extends straight up, and up, and up. We are left in its midst, tiny, outnumbered. Nature is always bigger than us, even when it is smaller than us, like in the case of bugs and bacteria. Nature never tells us why its there, or why we are alive. nature doesn't tell us why, and neither does anything else. We are left bottomless, constantly sensing and thinking, and instinctually acting, not so different from a bug eating from a leaf then growing and dying. But with so much more confusion, fear, emotion, we act blindly despite being able to see, because no one tells us, why we can see.
Therefore we look to religion, and some of us are fulfilled by this. Religion envelops us into a community. And in a community we feel less alone, less afraid; we feel more worth, and we are told that we have a purpose, that while the reason may be veiled, a reason is there as to our existence. Without a sense of purpose, the meaninglessness, the purposelessness, of living - takes hold in your system, resides in some cavity of your body - mind connection. And it festers there. It grows, shrinks, depending on your mood, but it takes up space, and our bodies are already maximally, evolutionarily, spaced for what we need to survive and nothing more. And our mind are this gigantic reservoir, overloaded with excess space that we need to fill, to fulfill by having a sense of purpose. Its cruel really, the absurdity of life- it makes me suffer.
And I've noticed that in nature is a religion of its own. It may be secular, humanist, and not have followers who wear robes. But at its essence, nature can be thought of as a type of religion. It gives us something to belong to, and at the same time transcends our very small and localized existence with a broader blanket. For me, the nature of religion lacks in meaning, I am still missing the why. But at the least, I am calmed minimally by the sense that nature is there, that life isn't simply pipes, smokestacks, freeways, and cars driving to and fro. Because in nature there is something you can belong to. I can't belong to time zones, and I really don't understand them. But I can start to belong to time - to circles - to seasons that change but then come back around to their beginnings. Even if my understanding of nature has been typified and organized, julienned by science, I can see how nature is a religion. No, its not our job to piece apart religion, and perhaps the piecing apart of nature is a goal that has backfired by causing the light of nature to burn less brightly in the eyes of youth? Fire still warms, whether its a combustion reaction or not.
Other ways that nature is religion - there's the seasons, which cycle. There's food, and water, sustenance for needy populations. There's the fact that a girl gets a period at puberty, and then can make a baby, but monthly will experience bleeding. There's the fact that we get older, see our bodies grow and mature and change. There's birth and death, and in the animal and plant kingdom, there is insect and animal mating, birth, seeds, and death - senescence. There's water that we see as raindrops and snow and oceans. There's mountains, valleys, lakes, geological formations. Much of it is stunning, such as a sunrise, sunset, or sunny or cloudy day. We are wired for it, that much is true. I don't understand it, nobody knows why, frankly I find it absurd. But I and everyone else am wired with it, part of it, inexplicably and yet intractably, indubitably, part of the natural essence.
Please, help me understand this. If you have figured it out. Because I suffer on, whether or not it is beautiful and a part of my innermost being to explore.
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