Young Writers Society

So let’s talk about today and the law of attraction and what it means to me. TLOA in short means to me the law of God. I believe that we serve a complete God and with this I mean that we serve a God of astronomical, inconceivable understanding of the human perspective and where the collective human consciousness is at the moment. For me it is this fundamental belief that disenables to me abide by the laws of only one religious institution, as that would mean that I would be setting my truth above the truth of someone else, as the higher, more true truth. This does not allow for an accommodative way of living spiritually and in other areas of our lives. I must say that I believe that we are opposed to the things that in one way or another mirror our own “imperfections and short comings”. I cannot for a second allow my human experience to be limited to the doctrine of one religious institution, as it ultimately works against the underlying principle of cohesiveness in most major world religions today. The notion of having to choose one house of religion as your own, and living by the rules and principles of that religion religiously, only leads to further separation of races, the ages, the cultures and the nations.





Living in a space of mere tolerance is not enough, and more is thus required from us a soul creatures. We not only acknowledge that the God of “opposing” religions is essentially the same Gods that we are all praying to. We must be as bold as to embrace the idea that we are all serving one God, that we are all on one quest to find something greater than ourselves as a means of keeping us grounded and linked to the ideals that will enrich our human experience, allows us to take with us lessons for what ever life may come after this one. For me as an individual we are ultimately here to love. I stumble here and there, sometimes failing to see outside of myself, seeing only the negative and stereotypical portraits of my brothers and sisters painted by myself and the rest of the human race, instead of seeing God in every human being that I encounter. I often forget that the same hands that moulded and crafted my beautiful black eyes, are the same hands that touched the mouth of my neighbour, or heart of a stranger. Deep down inside me I believe in the human race.





One of the other things that I want o talk about is the religious ideology that we are born imperfect and into sin (as Christianity would have it). This is no personal attack of the Christian house, as I do identify with a lot of the teachings of the bible and stand by many of the principles of good Christian folk. However, this notion of being born imperfect deeply bothers me. It makes me feel like the God that created me was not doing his work correctly. That there was some sort of short coming in the preparations for earthly experience that render me imperfect until I joined a religious house, seeking wholeness and oneness with God. I guess by now it is obvious that I disagree. I strongly, with all the conviction my giant body can master, believe that I was made perfect and that I was born perfectly and that I don’t need to go any where to go find God and his majesty, except for inside soul. I am a believer in a perfect God that knows no imperfections, even in our short comings. We serve a brave God. One that is trusting and honourable. A dare devil, to be frank [I know what it sounds]. But this God was so brave and so sure of his creation, the man, that he gave us “freedom of choice”. The choice to choose our own destinies. Trusting that we will see the light at the end of the tunnel, someday, somewhere. This Trust in us, and our ability to come to the light is such an amazing thing that I cant come to a place where I doubt this awesome being, even if I tried.





Obviously it is not my intention to give a lesson on spiritually or religious doctrine as my knowledge is limited as much as anyone else’s, but I want people to know that it is fun to exist in a space of love and acceptance. I had to come to place of respect for the depression that I went through and what it taught me. I had to acknowledge that I was trying to run away and that I needed to come home and make peace with the place that has made me who I am today, along with accepting the fact that being born in Namibia, or any where else, did not determine either my altitude or my latitude. I had to be honest with Keith and love Keith with all my being, with all my spheres of existence. I am on the journey of becoming one with myself through God, and it feels amazing. I love sleep and these days I can’t help but stay awake because there is always something to do. I do not look alive, but I feel alive.





I am counting my blessings and like I promised myself, 3 years ago, I am in the process of becoming the driver in my life. I am the one that loves life and loves the feeling of living. I also acknowledge that it is a fight to stay positive as a result of my long sometimes daunting battle with depression and bipolar disorder. I might sound jolly and well, but just the other day I was thinking about death all the time, around the clock 24/7. I was wishing for rest, and I was wishing to get away. I did not see a reason to live and wanted to see this place called heaven and this mystery called God. I needed to go to a place of happiness and worrilessness. I sought to be free of pain and anguish. I wanted to breathe easy and I needed to feel healing and enlightenment. As I type this I realise that I can feel all these things here, with you guys, the ones I love and am In the process of learning to love. I can be here and make a positive contribution to the human race, put my stamp on the sucker and give hope where I can, teach and learn where I can, and essentially be an active caring partner in this symbiosis called life.





In everything I do today, I devote my mind body and soul to putting God first.

Thank You LIFE for granting me this opportunity to make my mark. I commend you.



[Keith D Vries]

Hey Keith,

First thing I'm going to say is that this is clearly a very well-thought through essay that you have put quite a bit of time in to. The major problem with it is that your thought process is a little hard to follow. Take your first two lines:

"So let’s talk about today and the law of attraction and what it means to me. TLOA in short means to me the law of God."

OK, so to you TLOA means the law of God. Why? I don't know. I am left guessing, wondering. Really simple to back up though - you could have written this "To me, the Law of Attraction is the Law of God, for if there is a God, it must be attraction, as it must be perfectly attractive." Then go on to justify all that.

I recognize that I'm probably not your target audience, but having written church sermons for a number of years, I can tell you that people want to hear (and read) why you think something, not what you think. One of the reasons the new atheist movement (Dawkins etc) is so powerful is because they are trained logicians, as scientists must be in this day and age.

The second thing I'll say is learn grammar. In your first sentence, for instance, you should not have two "and"s. In your second, you need commas around "in short." Your third sentence is too long. Overall your spelling was great but your grammar didn't match it, so I guess that's something you'll need to brush up on. Almost every sentence had a grammar mistake.

The third thing I'll say is that when you started talking about your personal battles with life, bipolar etc. - that is when this essay finally started to make sense. It should not take me that long to make sense of your essay. The way to make this more powerful is to start by telling us that you absolutely hate life, then through reason bring the reader on a journey towards loving life. A sort of interior monologue would suit this essay perfectly. The way it stands I am faced with a wall of disconnected thoughts, with the most important message being a surprise for the end (a big no-no in writing).

Overall, not a terrible essay. You write it like it is, but not how the reader wants to read it. You're a writer with potential, it just isn't realized yet. Therefore I can only give this essay a 3/10. I hope this won't discourage you from writing more, and feel free to send me some form of message if you have any questions.

Good luck,
Larz

Ah, another religion essay

Hey, Keith, CannonComplex here to critique your work.

Well, i read your essay and find it interesting. the title gave me an insight of something anti-religion but instead showed questions. if your target audience are religious then I may be one of them.

I would comment on the essay and to give my own thoughts and views on the ideas that were brought up.

There were some ideas that I had seen and the biggest is the so-called religious relativism. You were right when asking that if there is one God then why are there many religions proclaiming a God that is different than the rest. I had seen this argument, and often that argument has been stretch to show that religion is bad because it seperate people. I would like to introduce firstly the concept of God as the Noumenal Real. I meant Noumenal Real in terms of what is. We can talk what is God like in our own term but What God is another different matter. So the Noumenal Real is a summation of what God is. Therefore, each religion is shows a certain shade of the Real, and when interfaith grows, the comparison of what is God among religions tend to be the same.

The second idea brought up is a common teaching in the Church that we are imperfect. I cannot deliver a philosophical answer to this but instead my own thoughts. I disagree when you mention that the idea that we were born imperfect is weird. i would stretch it by saying we were born imperfect so that we can become perfect. We always look at ourselves as perfect in terms of wealth, achievements and personality but perfection means not to desire something material but perfection in the way that we have found life's purpose or a sense that everything seemed done. Its hard to explain that.

Those are my thoughts to the ideas and now for the critique.

You should start the essay with something that introduces and somewhat sums up the whole essay. The second to last paragraph would have been a good start since it combined a good mix of personal thoughts and ideas. However, personals thoughts on an essay are not really important but what is important are teh ideas that were brought in and how you showed or interpret it. This piece is more of a personal essay than a real academic essay.

PS
Oh, i would like to say something to larz. The new atheist movement is a new gig because the leaders are scientist but that does not mean the leaders of the Catholic Church as an example are not scientists or reasonable men but teh difference is that the new movement focus only on one side which is reason while as the Catholic Church offers a two sided motive which is a relation with reason and faith.

I don't think that there is anything wrong with having separate religions-the main rules of all religions are the same, that life is beautiful, that God is powerful, that nature is his creation and we should not harm it, that everything is sacred. Sure, all the religions, and even all the different sects of Christianity and Islam and Judiasm let their differences come between them, but at the heart they are really all the same. This is an interesting idea, though I think it is a half-hearted idea. There can't be differences between all the religions if everybody in them followed the rules-God's number one rule is thou shalt not kill, so how can there be war, if everybody just listened to the God that they said they worship?

I don't really react much to essays like this, though it is well written, and you orchestrate your point well, I think that religion is much more cut-and-dry than this-there's good, and there's bad, if you are good, you are rewarded, if you are bad, then you burn in Hell forever. I don't think that religion is open to much interpretation, but in the world we live in now, everybody thinks that everthing is subordinate and revolves around reason and logic (though religion does) but religion is also a complex system of emotions and beliefs that reveal a greater truth than debate and probes can.

I liked the essay, and the argument is good, but I don't really think the argument is tangible....

sorry I can't be more helpful, but it is like 11 and I gotta turn in.