Continued from last post..

Perhaps it is hypocritical of me, as an atheist, to believe in the idea of soulmates. Most of my life I have believed that to be an atheist is to believe in nothing. A life without any belief is a lonely existence. It took me a very long time to realize that belief, even religious belief, which I used to see as silly (and in some ways I certainly still do) is not a bad thing. Reading Douglas Adams' 'The Salmon of Doubt' there is a section where he talks about a book which has changed his life. For him, that was a Richard Dawkins book, and it helped him to come to be an atheist. For me, who is so easily absorbed into the worlds that leap up off the page of a fantasy novel and dance, full of vigour and life, along the lively corridors of my imagination, it was unsurprisingly a fantasy novel which changed me. Or perhaps more accurately, two books, both by Brandon Sanderson. 'Elantris' and 'Mistborn'. Both are filled near to bursting with ideas, philosophical and religious most especially, which burned in my mind.

I don't know how many understand the feeling you get when you finally understand some epic concept. It's an empowering feeling, and in that moment there is nothing that could defeat you. Mountains seem like anthills. All the power of Rome in its glory days would cower at your feet. It is a wonderful feeling of discovery.

These books awoke this feeling in me, like few have done before. They held up all of religion--not just Christianity or Islam or Judaism or Hindu, Shinto, Buddhism--all of it held up in front of me, and threw it under a different light.

Religion, belief of almost any kind, is a sort of hope. In 'Mistborn' there is a character who is a keeper of all the religions of man--all of them forgotten because of enforced state religion--who often attempts to find a religion to fit the main character. The main character is looking for the common ground between all the religions--what made them all last so long against the emperor when nothing else survived?

I like the idea that there is no real right or wrong about any of it--though unfortunately too many today would disagree. And what is the same about all of them, regardless of truth? It's that believing breeds hope, and is enough to help one get by in a hard and oppressed life. And this is by no means restricted to just religion.