Cormac McCarthy Blog

Wall Street Journal: Earlier you referred to the role luck plays in life. Where has luck intervened for you?

Cormac McCarthy: There was never a person born since Adam who's been luckier than me. Nothing has happened to me that hasn't been perfect. And I'm not being facetious. There's never been a time when I was penniless and down, when something wouldn't arrive. Over and over and over again. Enough to make you superstitious.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704576204574529703577274572.html


I find it interesting that Cormac McCarthy would find himself so lucky to the point of superstition, but not believe in God. This implies that God mustn’t be just be a simple belief, but belonging to a whole separate category; a category he doesn’t accept as the truth. So does this put God (for him) below superstition…perhaps due to luck being more tangible? I find this type of ideology in the road, where the man is in a tragic situation, but “lucky” to be living, “lucky” still remaining the good guys, “lucky” having the boy by his side. And when things seem bleak, they find salvation and keep preserving, while cursing God, and living. But without god what is the point of trying to be good? It’s Impossible; you don’t even know what good is! Imagine our world where religion never touched it.

The only reason why people without religion know what is right is because they live in a society/world where religion rules most of the people, so they can still be morally righteous but not believe in god. Without religion, right and wrong is left for humans to decipher, and don’t get me wrong, but some people have really twisted principles. And I don’t just mean that occasionally they compromise them, but that they were never right in the first damn place. Some may say, “Well what came first the chicken or the egg? Morals or religion?”

Supposedly, in Christianity (correct me if I am wrong) humans are made in the image of god. So if Adam is made to be like god, ( I am sorry this just sounds so weird to me) then that means he has a religion, whether it is labeled that or not. Also in Islam, each human soul testifies that Allah is the only one and true god before given life. Now this is mainly so that on the Day of Judgment (look it up) there is no excuse for one to say they just didn’t know when they were living, but this also serves another purpose. It is said that because of this all humans are born into Islam, as a Muslim, and it is his parents who make him into a Christian, Buddhist, Jew, etc.: meaning religion was already instilled before morals.
Sorry.

Well, the dictionary defines moral as a lesson, esp. one concerning what is right or prudent, that can be derived from a story, a piece of information, or an experience. Well one can interpret the situation in the most skewed perspective that may seem crystal clearly wrong to us, but not them. With religion, we leave it to interpret information, experiences, whatever, from one perspective that we all conform to.

Of course, my point of view only works if you believe that religion was sent from god, and not man-made….which I find quite impossible.