Has the search for God become that which defines the course of all our lives?
Our place in the universe is more fragile and precarious than that even of the planet which we inhabit. Death and, perhaps even worse, obscurity haunt every step, seemingly waiting around every corner. We define a beginning and ending within a span of time that is equivalent to the blinking of a star’s eye. Even the most significant of actions are plagued with a seal of eventual doom and oblivion.
So who is The Rat King? Ultimately, nothing more than anybody else, and not intending to be anybody else. But somebody for whom the search for reason in a world apparently devoid of any of it has been an essential driving force. Somebody who used to believe that this constant uncertainty and questioning, and compulsive need for a defined purpose, set him apart from those around him, isolating him from a world otherwise content with blindly soldiering on.
Hopefully this problem sounds familiar. Though I’ve adopted the moniker of The Rat King, and for a while without fully understanding any of its implications, I now reveal it to a larger community in hopes of establishing an identity with which we can all relate. Because, after two decades of this self-imposed isolation, during which I was always a bit critical and resentful—and yet, incredibly envious—of people who had religion or God in their lives, I understand that what I identified as my own personal crisis is the crisis of the entire human race. The world as we see it can be scarcely understood. Our place within it can hardly even be identified. But hope and love give us the reason to exist within it nonetheless. The kind of hope and love that has been found by millions through the works of holy organizations, and through the affinity for an ineffable identity responsible for our well-being. Figures such as Jesus Christ, Muhammad, the Buddha, etc. help us to forge a closer relationship with that being in the form of a human disciple.
In this way, we are all the Rat King. As seemingly lost and scattered and insignificant as the image of a rat conjures up, but at the same time holding dominion over our place in life through our emotional capacity to strive for togetherness under the umbrella identity of a divine figure. My personal goal is to help unite all disparate religions under this human wish without demolishing the distinct aspects of each that has helped every individual begin to find peace, while at the same time providing a resource for those who feel particularly lost to discover their own cosmic identity. But I am just one Rat King. It will take all the Rat Kings—all of you—to help make this dream a possibility.
As Matthew von Richards, my life has recently been hit by a state of turmoil which saw many fellow men and women getting caught in the crossfire and treated unfairly. Since then I have been working on once again finding a state of harmony both with myself and with my cosmic identity so that I can come to terms with the mistakes that I have made, and to make amends with those I have hurt. Only then can I begin to repair the wreckage of my designs and aspirations.
My ministerial credentials are real, although they are unsupported by any traditional schooling, and I would hate to misrepresent myself. However I can preside over weddings, have presided over funerals, and feel qualified to assist anybody on an interpersonal and philosophical basis about any kind of ethical or spiritual quandaries. I can also refer anybody in the direction of proper theological teachings if this more specific desire is required. I would never claim to be well-versed in any specific religious school of thought, even though I am casually acquainted with all of them, and familiar with many of their frameworks.
I identify as a Deist, the belief in one God (or commonly referred to as the “Supreme Architect”) based on reason and empirical observation of the natural world alone which developed during the Age of Enlightenment and formed the basis for Unitarianism/Universalism. As such, I do not necessarily agree with the assertions I chose to make in the Argument of a universe without a literal God figure, but merely decided that this reasoning was the most simple with which to present the concept of the Cosmic Social and Spiritual Reformation. I also have a significant interest in theological interpretations of the Greek gods, Buddhism and the relationship between Christianity, Islam and Judaism.
Other interests include non-violent anarchism, theatre, the study of human behavior, unconventionality, astronomy (clearly), the canonicity of fictional universes and theories of time travel.
All inquiries or comments about the website, the philosophy or anything in general are welcome at any time!
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