So recently, I played this card game Illuminati, and was an awesome card game which i recommend to most everyone. It was browsing YouTube and i came across this video which i found pretty cool:
After talking about symbols i class, i was wondering how much they infiltrate everyday life. I know that religion appears everywhere in life. Media, fashion, architecture all have traces of religion hidden in them. This video was really interesting to me because it tied many things together through symbolism that i did not expect. Religions borrow gods, beliefs, and so much more from other religions, but what's going on with symbols? They get borrowed too. My question now is: Symbolism exists everywhere, but at what point do we, as people trying to find order, connect unrelated objects together because of order our mind has created which does not actually exist?
At the moment, i am sitting on a couch in front of a TV thinking of symbolism. Well, what is also in front of me is a white concrete wall. That wall, first is white, which means this wall is good because white symbolizes purity. Second, because it is concrete, it symbolizes strength. Third, because it is a wall, and is separating me from something, i can think of it as a protector. So, i have established through symbolism, that this wall, is a strong, pure protector. Hmmm. Should i start to worship it? I don't think so. Through the interpretation of symbols, i lost sight of the fact this what i'm looking at is just a wall.
Humans naturally read into everything. Its a natural part of the mind to find order in chaos. We connect dots in the sky to create constellations. Stars technically are not random, but for the most part, we can assume they are, and yet, for hundreds of years, through astrology, people determined their futures and actions by them. We found order in the depths of the sky and tied it to life here on earth.
I believe that through symbolism, people have looked to deep for meaning. While a lot of symbolism is correct, people's search for truth has many times lead to the incorporation of completely meaningless data in the culture. As we look into the symbolism, just remember that randomness and coincidence are a normal part of reality.
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I too find that people too often read too deeply into things. My aunt recently found out about a protein that is shaped like a cross. She sees this as a link between religion and science. I see this as someone trying to force symbols onto everything in order to spread faith. Its a protein. Not a symbol from god. Your right. People need to stop reading into things too much.
ReplyDeleteBut the world is a collection of completely random data.. right? So any attempt to give meaning and value to the world will be a construction that on closer examination is empty. I like your wall example, and you can do that for anything. And that is in micro form the process of interpreting the Psalms.. really thoughtful post!
ReplyDeleteMy mother also recently spoke to me about that cross-shaped protein. This is not the first time she has brought up some random thing and tried to connect it to some sort of spiritual/religious symbol.
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