Black and White

Both read the Bible day and night, but thou read black where I read white.

~William Blake

There are many people that we consider good “Christians”. We all know someone who goes to church every Sunday, and we all know the typical Easter/Christmas churchgoers. Blake was always against organized religion in general. This was shown through many of his poems, pieces of art, and many quotes. One of the main reasons for this is his quote above. There are millions of people who read the Bible, but not everyone sees it the same. Some people have different views about different topics. This is why there are so many churches today. People are reading different things, because what they read is taken out of context. I cannot even count how many different versions of the Bible there are, and this is all what Blake was talking about in his poetry. How can all these people have the same God, but believe in different things? Shouldn’t everyone believe in the same thing? This is why Blake did not believe in organized religion. Even people in the same church have disagreements about different principles. It is the same with poetry. One person may read a poem and think they know what it means, and to another person it means something completely different. Blake did such a great job with this in his poetry because it can be taken in many different ways. Most of the time however, Blake was often talking about religion, and the different principles in it. These would often include Christ, his life on earth, and his death. I think that Blake meant to have his poems be confusing for a reason. We all need to work for ourselves to figure out what is right. Many people said that Blake was crazy because of the artwork he did, and the theories he had, but he was actually a genius. I guess what I am trying to say is that Blake’s poetry makes people question. We can only grow by asking questions, and when you are faced with religion, there are so many questions to ask. It makes things become black to some people, and white to others. Blake’s poetry made you understand reality.