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:iconspiffykt:

~spiffykt

...is a steampunk pixie.
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Nonsense Rambling

Mon Apr 27, 2009, 12:07 PM
  • Mood: Artistic
  • Reading: I'm Perfect, You're Doomed by Kyria Abrahams
  • Watching: the news
I spent all weekend at a Unitarian Universalist event, so my brain was on religion when I set about my latest project today - Display portfolio! (I know, I know, I still haven't posted all my creations from my last art portfolio thing. But this time, it's a presentation piece, not something I'll actually wear, so pictures will come faster. But I digress.) So I was working on my display portfolio and somehow ended up mentally listing words that I related to art ("messy hands" and "geeky" were two,) and the word "unforgivable" came to mind.

This is weird, right?

The reasoning behind it, I decided, was this Bible verse, and several similar ones:

Isaiah 45:9 (New International Version)

9 "Woe to him who quarrels with his Maker,
to him who is but a potsherd among the potsherds on the ground.
Does the clay say to the potter,
'What are you making?'
Does your work say,
'He has no hands'?

Basically, God is Creator and as creations, we have no business questioning him. Since art is taking the act of creation into one's own hands, it seems to me there is serious theological reason to consider making art subversive. After all, a lot of art questions the way the world works and if it ought to work that way - that's part of the philosophy behind Steampunk - and what right do we have to question?

Then again, in Gnosticism even the Creator God is evil and the good God is above all these petty creation-things, so this idea isn't new.

I like it, though. And I like my new project. My routine for this week now includes after-school paper mache-ing sessions, and I have to buy fabric at some point. So exciting~!

</religion geek>

4 Comments

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:iconsayokitsune:
~sayokitsune Apr 27, 2009, 1:47:15 PM
I remember once being told in my CCD class (I honestly don't know what that's an acronym for - Catholic something-something. A place we went as kids to learn about God and church every Sunday. There were workbooks and snacks) that we, as humans, are not actually capable of creating things. Only God is. After all, who made the clay for that sculpture your shaping? The trees from which the paper came you are sketching on?

This is pretty much all I have to add. XD Interesting concept.

--
[link]

Binding Shadows. A webcomic. I write for it. SO GO LOOK AT IT. KTHX.
:iconspiffykt:
~spiffykt May 1, 2009, 2:30:06 AM
Ooh, actually, that's a sensible way of looking at it.
So then, by that logic, how does God feel about us trying to copy His creation-ing anyway? Cute but kind of useless, or still vaguely subversive? I guess the Catholic church tends to make extensive use of lots of different kinds of art, so they must be pretty cool with it as long as it's not blatantly blasphemous... </early morning, half-formed ponderings>
:iconsayokitsune:
~sayokitsune May 2, 2009, 9:52:08 AM
Well, in His view it is not Creation, it's something different... if that makes any sense.

I wouldn't think He viewed it as subversive... I was taught that, you know, He gave us all different abilities and gifts with the hope of us "praising Him" through it. (And yes, you give a very good example, the Catholic church and its vast array of icons.)

(Also, I personally remembering that there is nothing wrong with questioning. We are, in fact, encouraged to question to be more actively engaged with our faith. Our religion, in fact, almost means nothing if we do not pose questions every once in awhile. I think the understanding is that God would prefer not to have a vacant, mindless follower.)

--
[link]

Binding Shadows. A webcomic. I write for it. SO GO LOOK AT IT. KTHX.
:iconspiffykt:
~spiffykt May 3, 2009, 11:30:41 AM
Yeah... That makes sense. I think I'm sort of working from the Gnostic view of creation, where the Creator God is actually the evil one - in Christian Gnosticism, Lucifer is the one who made the Earth.

Hee, at my church, questioning was encouraged... but the answer was always Jesus and if you were the asshole who said it wasn't when everyone was trying to sleep through Sunday School, well, it sucked to be you. And also, Christianity is the historically the first religion where the emphasis was on encouraging belief/overcoming doubt instead of on community involvement, so I think I see it as a bit less questioning-friendly... though obviously that probably depends on what church one goes to more than any doctrine.
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