Jump to content
The Corroboree
Sign in to follow this  
13thdimensionconnection

The Faithless Rambling About Faith

Recommended Posts

Sorry I don't post often and sorry it is generally large blocks of gibberish I wrote while intoxicated. Just thought I'd share this.

I'm an athiest, but I understand why people would feel they need to follow a religion. True religion brings a kind of understanding that most athiests would never actually accomplish, despite their mockery of the understanding. If something completely unexpected happens an athiest would generally have no idea why, a religious person knows it was because of God. Most athiests ridicule, even if not vocally, this approach. It seems illogical to them to conclude whatever it may be as simply being god's will. But I admire it. The athiest may know everything has been created from hydrogen after the big bang but he doesn't know exactly how. Sure we have our theories, but we don't really know. The faithful knows. God did it. How exactly did God do it? By being God. Sure it is a somewhat ignorant understanding, but on a psychological level the truly faithful understands the world more than we ever could.

I stress the truly faithful part because quite honestly faith is not easy, especially nowadays. Everywhere in the modern media there is evidence against what a person may believe in if not outright pandering of the belief. I mean with all of the fact-smudging and alternate cases presented, it's hard enough trying to figure out if global warming is real and that's purely scientific. Imagine trying to have faith with athiests, christians, jews, islam and religions all over the world fighting to "save" or "enlighten" each other with their many conflicting stories of how and why we are here. They generally have good intentions but they can't all be right. Hell not even a full percentile could be right. Really all they are doing is making everything more confusing for everybody, especially those that actually believe. This is why I admire people who are able to have faith, despite the vast majority of the world being opposed to what they believe in. The modern righteous are a lot more non-conformist than the goth/indie/alternative/whatever the fuck they want to call themselves movement.

Even if one does not fully believe that everything is god's will, sometimes just the thought can be enough to help. Times of loss or great sadness play an interesting part in religion. Religion can be useful as a crutch, even by those who have never been able to actually believe. These times of sadness can be enough to make even the most faithful or unfaithful question their choice. The faithful may question why a supposedly kind god could let such a horrible thing happen to them. The unfaithful may question if it was their disbelief in god that caused it. That moment of disbelief is what drives religion. The long time faithful will almost always get their faith back and feel like the religion brought them back and helped them through it, the long time unfaithful doesn't have that. There will always be that lingering thought that maybe, just maybe, they are wrong about everything. The very basis of science is that hypothesis can be disproved and that our understandings may change. Most scientists would not believe Einstein's demonstration of the photoelectric effect, the thought that light could be both a wave and a particle was deemed preposterous. Science is about challenging and changing ideas, God is God. If somebody truly, and I stress that word, believes they understand their religion nothing can disprove it to them.

What is religion but a desperate attempt to explain the unknown? Humans are terrified of the unknown, it is in our nature to embrace what we know and find out what we don't. Religion answers the questions that we simply cannot. Those answers may not be enough for everybody, but for some they are.

Yes, I've seen Jesus Camp too, unconditional belief in a god can be scary as hell. It can be used in awful ways, such as suicide cults, terrorism and genocide. But you can't expect humankind not to corrupt something. Ever since we figured out how to use tools we have been constantly in search of new and innovating ways to kill and fuck shit up. For what it's worth, belief has brought a lot of comfort to the sad, a lot of clarity to the conflicted and a lot of peace to the dying.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

The truth is you and I cannot say whether there is or is not a God, ever, you will never prove anything either way. And yet you talk and talk and say quite condescendingly "oh, I can see how the little morons can believe in God".

Ok I believe in God and am not religious. I believe in God or a great creative spirit that lies behind all things because I recognise the staggering intelligence that goes into something as simple as a single atom. Atoms do not evolve BTW. But you may choose a different reality, all the power to you. But don't come to me and try to tell me what my experience is, because you will never know.

I look out to space and I have the same feeling, the same knowing. I feel it, and you can't take that from me. No amount of empiricism and arguments will get you there.

And then my consciousness itself, my very awareness, such a perfect silence.

So many trillions of factors, so much information, truly an infinite amount of information within a miniscule, infinetly small space. EVEN if there is no God behind this staggering creation, no intelligence behind it, it is beautiful, no, it is quite staggering is it not? far beyond what your mind can comprehend, yes. It is an infintie amount of information, and your mind is limited to processing a finite amount, this may lead to some error in perception, an error that can not be made-up with the finest scientific instruments.

But this ambiguity is not evidence of God. Nor can it prove the counter. Are you expecting science to one day prove or disprove God?, science deals with what is here, most Buddhist believe God is the unmanifested, that his presence cannot be measured in this world. You BELIEVE otherwise, but you have NO objective proof, and you will NEVER be truly objective.

Other perceptions and realities are possible within different minds and mind-sets. Yet you want to deny this possibility. You want to say that the way you see things is the only way. Our minds cannot deal with infinite quantities, it prefers quantities it can grasp (once again not evidence of God), it needs to reduce everything to this world, to the mundane.

You're wrong, because I see it totally different and am just as intelligent as you are, so stop condescending my view and others who hold-it, worry about your own truth and let others be as they want to be!

Go on being an atheist and live that truth, but dont trespass on my imagination, freedom, perception, right to be and believe.

Edited by ref1ect1ons

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I personally found no condescension in 13th's post. In fact s/he went to great lengths to say they admired the fact that there are maany people who can fully believe in something without ever (thus far in history at least that we know of) possibly being able to know 100% if it even exists. Do you feel defensive in your belief in a God?

I hold similar sentiments in regards to how many religious people use their faith to try and help better their lives. I'm utterly against the banning of religion. I think it's the forcing it - and the forcing of most things actually - onto another person that is utterly abhorant, so people who wish to ban religion are doing the exact same they accuse the faithful of. Religion is a tool, how the human uses it is up to the individual. My grandmother has found enormous comfort in her faith (Christianity) for many reasons throughout her life which hasn't been easy. I myself - who similar to you, Reflection, pretty much believe there is something intelligent I may as well name "God" - have at times too. Many do. Many use it for ill gain or for their own nefarious purpose, but why blame the hatchet when Lizzie Borden chopped her folks to bits? Why stop the masses from using a hatchet to chop their kindling?

When my widowed grandmother's house was flooded last year, there came a work crew of Sudanese refugees from my gran's church who came to help from their own volition on hearing her predicament. They even refused to stop cleaning to have some lunch. Why? Because Faith united them despite the refugees copping a whole lot of flack from local townspeople just because they had the misfortune of being born into a violent place at a violent time. It works both ways; when my gran had a house for lease until it was sold she allowed a family of the refugees from the Church to lease it which they were having a lot of trouble doing elsewhere in town not government assisted. My uncle+wife (also regular church goers) lived next door to there and saw the family doing a few things that is just culturally different to how we do things in Aus. Instead of just berating them and kicking them out, they helped them adjust and explain - without condescension as far as I'm aware - what should be done, ie mow the lawns once a week etc. To my uncle, auntie, and gran, these people were all just God's Children in need of a helping hand, which obviously they returned along with others when my Gran needed help.

On the other side, only a fool would say religion is always used responsibly and benevolently, but is the misuse of a tool by another the responsibility of those who use it righteously? Or should it be refused to them too, because someone else can't be trusted? IMHO Hell no.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Condescension is pretty much the exact opposite of what I was trying to achieve. What I meant to convey is that religious ideals can be extremely helpful and insightful to the believer and that a truly faithful person requires no proof of god to be certain of its existence which I find admirable and somewhat enviable. I'd love to be able to believe in something purely on faith, I guess I just haven't found the right thing to believe in yet. To be honest I think if there is anything that could be taken as condescension it is against nonbelievers such as myself. Very sorry if you feel like the piece was insulting to your views ref1ect1ons, that was absolutely not my intent.

FancyPants, thank you for understanding where I was coming from. I feel exactly the same way about blaming the perpetrator, not the weapon of choice. All religions have sects of extremists but the good that the religion can bring far out ways the damage that a few who misinterpret it can cause. Also your Grandmother sounds like a wonderful christian, refugees already have it so hard that it makes me quite happy to know there are open-minded and decent people like her around.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
I'd love to be able to believe in something purely on faith

This is what I find 'condescending'. I probably am using the wrong word or have defined this word different for myself.

But I feel that my perspective that God exist is not based on faith, but experience. When people say 'faith based', it makes me think that I have no logical or sound reason for my belief. That it is based is some un-scientific sentiment.

I wrote quite passionately and quite strongly, I wished to convey my sense of awareness and my sense of God so that you would see that this perspective is possible for intelligent and logical individuals. It is not faith for me, it is the only logical conclusion.

I am not going to apologise, but I may have been too strong with my opinion on 'faith', which is a distasteful word for me. It implies belief without reason. It is stupid to believe in something blindly, it is totally against who I am. It is almost similar to the idea that "religious/spiritual people need to believe in God because they fear death". I do not fear death, and I don't expect god to save my ego from death, and so I dislike these kinds of assumptions.

On the other side, only a fool would say religion is always used responsibly and benevolently

It is very rare that religion serves the good these days, people are attached to idols rather than having a connection to the source itself. I would say most religions lead people away from the source, and so I never argued that religion was 'good'.

Infact I believe that every good has a shadow, and so good carries the seeds of evil. This is why Buddha taught the Middle way.

something intelligent I may as well name "God"

This is exactly what I feel Fancypants. I feel that this place is so amazing so intelligent that there must be some intelligence somewhere. And it must be more intelligenty than me, because it is stageeringly beautiful and well beyond my comprehension. I do not see this insight as 'faith'.

No offense to 13th, I think now that I am understood I feel alot less passionate.

Edited by ref1ect1ons
  • Like 1

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
Sign in to follow this  

×