11.01.07 sainte céline
I’ve been reading a lot of history recently, and it’s caused me lose pretty much any faith in god I had left. This isn’t a good thing. I believe it’s a more meaningful, less lonely world if there’s something else out there, but I can’t make myself believe in it if I don’t.
At my family Christmas dinner, an aunt asked me how I’d been, and I had the ill-advised impulse to launch into a born-again agnostic rant in response. To my surprise, despite the horrible timing, everyone was quite open to my views.
Douglas Adams says about religion,
“If someone votes for a party that you don’t agree with, you’re free to argue about it as much as you like; everybody will have an argument but nobody feels aggrieved by it. … But on the other hand, if somebody says ‘I mustn’t move a light switch on a Saturday’, you say ‘I respect that.’”
Well, it seemed that agnosticism had also reached that status of unimpeachable opinion, at least in my family.
Half an hour later, the conversation turned from God to Céline. Bolstered by the previous open discussion (and wine?), I was candid about my views on the diva. Sure, she’s extremely talented and… uh… thin? but I can’t help but be embarrassed as a French Canadian whenever I watch an interview with her, because she comes off as a flake at the best of times, and a complete moron at the worst.
That’s all it took for the golden gates of open debate and mutually respectful exchange to slam shut. Tears shone in my aunt’s angry eyes as she defended the songstress, so vehemently and emotionally that I left the house to wish the neighbors a good yule. As I crossed the cold street and felt the tension dissipate, I made a mental note on future family party etiquette. God touchable, Céline not.
You know, I have never actually met a person who says that they are a fan of hers, and actively likes her.
Ouin! Céline…. passons!
My aunt was her teacher in elementary school. My mom is a big fan. Needless to say, it didn’t go over so when when I called her “lucifer’s siren”.
I’m a staunch athiest, but I don’t beleive it’s a ‘more meaningless and lonely world’ as a result. The world is what we make of it. There are horrible injustices and cruelties that occur in the world. That we can recognize that we are fallible, and aim to curb these things and improve ourselves, this is something I find more comforting and empowerig than the idea of a scentient being watching the cruelty unfold for his/her amusement.
To quote Laplace “I have no need of this hypothesis”.
Personally, I practice rational optimism. It’s a bit like Occam’s Razor, but when presented with a set of possible explanations that fit the available data, instead of choosing to believe the simplest one, I believe the one that makes me the happiest.
One of those beliefs is that we, as a human race, are generally becoming more humane. What was once considered virtue became first distasteful, then discouraged, then disgusting to the point that we, looking back on the history of our race, see atrocities that revolt our modern sensibilities. As the human race matures, our lives are becoming less nasty, brutish and short.
It is, unfortunately, a slow journey, but I really do think things are getting better. Celine is just an unfortunate throwback.
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