Littlejohn22, a grilled cheese sandwhich once sold on ebay for $10,000 because the burnmark on the bread resembled the face of the Virgin Mary. It seems religous fanatics know no bounds when it comes to their "faith."
Not to get too philosphical or anything but I wanted to talk about that a little bit more. I hope Christians in general feel ashamed of these lunatics because they really gare iving the rest of them bad names. In fact those fanatics are ruining their religon day by day. I put faith in quotation marks for a good reason because it isn't really faith, its blindness. Richard Dawkins brought up a theory about how Creationists think, he said this: "Theory A has loads of evidence to support it. Theory B has no evidence at all. I don't know how Theory A explains X so that means theory B must be correct." That plus the theory I talked about in my last blog pretty much sums up fanatics in general and this really is all religons not just Christianity. Even my beloved Paganism has its share of fanatics who think and act almost exactly the same.
Those of the "faith" have one very important and fatal flaw, they refuse to say "I don't know." Data in the Star Trek TNG episode where they ran across Nageelum quoted somone as saying "The begining of knowledge is the words 'I don't know.'" By not allowing themselves to say that they are denying themselves the path to knowledge and therefore growth both spiritually and mentally. Their absolute devotion to the word "faith" eliminates the notion that they don't know something and even if they can't explain it they use their "faith" as their fallback to why something works. This belief system shows its flaw when they tell you that they have faith. Faith lets them believe something and try to get you to believe it without offering any explanation whatsoever. If you have faith in God then what you believe is truth.
In order for us to learn anything we must move beyond the notion of simply having faith. I believe that ghosts exist because I have seen evidence that in my mind proves they do exist. There could be other explanations for the things I have seen but I haven't been told what they are yet and I have personally not figured out what they could be. Where this differs from having faith is that I am willing to say "I don't know what caused these paranormal experiances I have had." I also have not stopped trying to find an explanation, I simply have come to the conclusion for now that the experiances were caused by ghosts. If you were to approach me and offer to explain my experiances away I would listen to you. We would have a lively debate but in the end if I am proven wrong then I must conclude that my experainces were in fact not related to ghosts. This is where faith would step in. At this junction instead of accepting the notion that I really have the wrong idea about my experiances I would say something like "Well my faith keeps me strong and therefore I know these experiances were really ghosts." I may even say something like this; "If you had faith in God you would see that these were really ghosts. Let me show you how to have faith in God so I can save your soul." Faith tells us that you are never wrong and that those who don't have faith are. As you can see the notion of faith is as inaacurate as it is obsolete.
But should we not have faith in something? As I mentioned I am pagan so that means that I have faith in the God and Goddess, nature spirits and magick right? No actually it does not. These are things that simply can not be proven now or maybe ever. We simply do not know what these things are. Most of the people of Earth believe in a god of some kind, God, Allah, Buddah and if you go back to ancient times there were Ra, Isis, Zeus, Athena and on and on. There is some kind of life other than what we can see and hear and touch and taste and smell I think most of us can agree on that. But our perceptions of what it is are constantly changing. This is where faith ceases to exist, when your perceptions of what you believe are changed by truths other than what you know. Faith does not allow for the inclusion of new truths and the sweeping away of old ones. I do not have faith that there is a God and Goddess I simply use these figures to help me understand what is out there. Until I find other ones that make more sense to me that is what I believe. Belief is far superior to faith because belief allows for growth, for change and for the words "I don't know."
Not to get too philosphical or anything but I wanted to talk about that a little bit more. I hope Christians in general feel ashamed of these lunatics because they really gare iving the rest of them bad names. In fact those fanatics are ruining their religon day by day. I put faith in quotation marks for a good reason because it isn't really faith, its blindness. Richard Dawkins brought up a theory about how Creationists think, he said this: "Theory A has loads of evidence to support it. Theory B has no evidence at all. I don't know how Theory A explains X so that means theory B must be correct." That plus the theory I talked about in my last blog pretty much sums up fanatics in general and this really is all religons not just Christianity. Even my beloved Paganism has its share of fanatics who think and act almost exactly the same.
Those of the "faith" have one very important and fatal flaw, they refuse to say "I don't know." Data in the Star Trek TNG episode where they ran across Nageelum quoted somone as saying "The begining of knowledge is the words 'I don't know.'" By not allowing themselves to say that they are denying themselves the path to knowledge and therefore growth both spiritually and mentally. Their absolute devotion to the word "faith" eliminates the notion that they don't know something and even if they can't explain it they use their "faith" as their fallback to why something works. This belief system shows its flaw when they tell you that they have faith. Faith lets them believe something and try to get you to believe it without offering any explanation whatsoever. If you have faith in God then what you believe is truth.
In order for us to learn anything we must move beyond the notion of simply having faith. I believe that ghosts exist because I have seen evidence that in my mind proves they do exist. There could be other explanations for the things I have seen but I haven't been told what they are yet and I have personally not figured out what they could be. Where this differs from having faith is that I am willing to say "I don't know what caused these paranormal experiances I have had." I also have not stopped trying to find an explanation, I simply have come to the conclusion for now that the experiances were caused by ghosts. If you were to approach me and offer to explain my experiances away I would listen to you. We would have a lively debate but in the end if I am proven wrong then I must conclude that my experainces were in fact not related to ghosts. This is where faith would step in. At this junction instead of accepting the notion that I really have the wrong idea about my experiances I would say something like "Well my faith keeps me strong and therefore I know these experiances were really ghosts." I may even say something like this; "If you had faith in God you would see that these were really ghosts. Let me show you how to have faith in God so I can save your soul." Faith tells us that you are never wrong and that those who don't have faith are. As you can see the notion of faith is as inaacurate as it is obsolete.
But should we not have faith in something? As I mentioned I am pagan so that means that I have faith in the God and Goddess, nature spirits and magick right? No actually it does not. These are things that simply can not be proven now or maybe ever. We simply do not know what these things are. Most of the people of Earth believe in a god of some kind, God, Allah, Buddah and if you go back to ancient times there were Ra, Isis, Zeus, Athena and on and on. There is some kind of life other than what we can see and hear and touch and taste and smell I think most of us can agree on that. But our perceptions of what it is are constantly changing. This is where faith ceases to exist, when your perceptions of what you believe are changed by truths other than what you know. Faith does not allow for the inclusion of new truths and the sweeping away of old ones. I do not have faith that there is a God and Goddess I simply use these figures to help me understand what is out there. Until I find other ones that make more sense to me that is what I believe. Belief is far superior to faith because belief allows for growth, for change and for the words "I don't know."
Have a great Friday