Obsessed Much

[Yaoi Huntress Earth]

Although one of my friends pointed it out to me, I think I secretly knew that a lot of my writings have deep religious themes (especally of the monotheistic nature) in one form or another, but it got me thinking why they're there.

 

Do any of your other ex-Christians who happen to be writers do this as well? For me, I think I still have a lot of unresolved feelings toward my old faith; some of them angry, some of them that still see some of the good it can bring, while othertimes it's more philosophical. Sort of like how the early Drowning Pool faced Christianity with a exclanation point instead of the question mark Creed used. No matter how divorced from your old faith you may be, it's finger prints never really rub off. Any of you writers want to share the religious themes you've ever worked with?

[GreenXero]

I use to be more of an artist than a writer, but I have the same thing going on with my old artwork. I like geometric shapes and I use the cross shape many times to represent humans. Ironically, I own greenhalo.net and the front picture is a quick drawing that I had done just to put something on the main page, but my parents think I am religious just because I have that on my site. BTW Green is my last name and the halo part comes from Nine Inch Nails(all albums are halos). I was thinking about changing it a little so that the halo is cracked and chipped.

[Shadoe]

Hey, I write in a fantasy universe where one of the countries in a war is based on the biblical Hebrews.

 

No, they're not the good guys.

[Guest Emerson]

I think its hard to shake off a believe that society has conditioned you with, especially religion because its so personal. Its hard to break away, even now I have times now and again where I question if turning away from xtianity is the right thing.

 

Its not always easy, so I understand how it would come up in your life. Ultimately its not wrong to be influenced by religion and its beliefs and things, look at The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown. He used all sorts of beliefs to make up the book, some of it is downright ridiculous like the image of disney characters as being part of the feminine divine or whatever.

 

I think that he just mixed in all sorts of things and beliefs, to make a best-seller out of his book. Or look at the red tent by anita diamant, she used a biblical story and fleshed it out as a novel. So I think its okay, I was reading a writing prompt book, and the author said to make up a juicy story using a bible character or concept and flesh it out.

 

There's nothing wrong with doing that or incorporating religion into whatever you want to do. Maybe its okay if the fingerprints never rub off, because every experience shapes you to who you're going to be. After being through the christian umbrella, I know that its wrong to incist that any religion is "right."

[Padreko]

When I was finally out of the religion for the first time I had man unresolved feelings towards it which lead me to try and understand things better. As life goes on though the religious animosity continues to dissapate. However, there are rare events where I'll feel it necessary to tear one of my religious buddies a new asshole :-D

 

As far as writing goes, I think its very easy to incorporate some sort of religious reference only because religion has effectively squirted its jizz into every facet of human society. I did it just last week in an essay talking about darwinism in the heart of darkness - blah blah blah.... religion wasn't so far from the focus of the anaylsis, but i put it in there anyways. :-D

[godlessgrrl]

Religion is mythology.

 

Mythology simply tells the story of human life in a metaphoric way. It covers the basics: archetypes, psychological changes or states common to humanity, rituals people tend to go through (marriage, birth, death, and so on).

 

I use mythology in my artwork and stories all the damn time. In fact my senior thesis was about art and mythology. And to me, no religion or body of myth is immune to being utilized as a tool to get whatever story across that I feel like communicating.

 

It's all about symbolic thinking. Xianity permeates our culture with a particular symbolic language, one which lots of people know and recognize. It makes sense to hang onto that: it's a means of communication. Same is true for other religions, other cultures, other parts of the world.

 

But in the end, I still think they all are talking about the same thing: human beings. If you cling to that, I don't think at all that it means you're still a believer. It's just a form of symbolic language that you know how to speak. Nothing more.

[HadouKen24]

To be honest, I found the exact opposite. I don't do a whole lot of writing, but I do some. And looking back, the things I wrote the few years prior to my leaving Christianity seem to have a bit more of a pagan sensibility than a Christian. And I currently think of myself as pagan in, not a religious sense, but more as having a similar outlook to the ancient Romans or Greeks.