I'll be honest, Prefect, I'm not as sure as I used to be.
But here's how I see it - I can't explain why this place exists. Or how it fits into the religious canon of what happens in your afterlife. No more than some of the scientists on board can explain it by scientific means.
But redemption, atonement and repenting are fundamental principles of our relationship with God. We all have the choice, every single day, every single moment of our lives, between doing the good thing, and doing the wrong thing. Circumstances can drive us one way or another, but we all have free will, none of us are created evil or good, we are created to make ourselves one or the other. The Barge, I think, gives people who may not have had the opportunity, or ability, to make the choice for good in their lives; and we aim to give them the ability and desire to choose good, and to atone and repent for what they have done. Not just repent in thought, but repent in action, to act differently.
It perhaps gives them one more chance to repent in their lives, one more chance to find their own capacity for good as well as evil, as perhaps all their life ever did was try to crush that capacity under the heavy weights of either expectation, circumstance, or the inability to see what was wrong in their actions.
It, fundamentally, is about redemption. Which is a fundamentally sound religious concept, to me, and something everyone should have a chance at, and something everyone can achieve.
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branchandroot
Re: private
Date: 2011-03-14 12:56 am (UTC)But here's how I see it - I can't explain why this place exists. Or how it fits into the religious canon of what happens in your afterlife. No more than some of the scientists on board can explain it by scientific means.
But redemption, atonement and repenting are fundamental principles of our relationship with God. We all have the choice, every single day, every single moment of our lives, between doing the good thing, and doing the wrong thing. Circumstances can drive us one way or another, but we all have free will, none of us are created evil or good, we are created to make ourselves one or the other. The Barge, I think, gives people who may not have had the opportunity, or ability, to make the choice for good in their lives; and we aim to give them the ability and desire to choose good, and to atone and repent for what they have done. Not just repent in thought, but repent in action, to act differently.
It perhaps gives them one more chance to repent in their lives, one more chance to find their own capacity for good as well as evil, as perhaps all their life ever did was try to crush that capacity under the heavy weights of either expectation, circumstance, or the inability to see what was wrong in their actions.
It, fundamentally, is about redemption. Which is a fundamentally sound religious concept, to me, and something everyone should have a chance at, and something everyone can achieve.