...do you turn on the light first? Or if there is no electricity do you carry a flashlight or candle? My guess is you probably do the latter. Not too many people go against the natural instinct to make sure the room is safe to enter and that there is no hidden danger lurking in the shadows. Yet, many of these same people live by a philosophy of walking by faith, not by light. Well to them I say have fun tripping over furniture and stumbling into those unseen objects. I am taking a flashlight, candle, opening any available windows and if the light switch is there you can be damn sure that I will flip the lights on and illuminate my path. I don't have faith.
I am not so sure I ever really did have this mystical, magically feeling. Call me skeptical, call me doubting Thomas, call me oh ye of little faith. I like proof. I like things that add up. If I have two apples and Susie gives me two apples I know for a fact I have four apples, and that Susie is way too kind and will not have any apples to eat. That I can understand.
Having belief in something without proof? No thanks. I have tried that enough. From my earliest memories. It is Christmas, you write your letter to Santa. Please bring me XYZ and then Christmas morning comes and you didn't get what you wanted, wished for, had faith he would deliver. Other kids may have but not you. So you obviously weren't a good enough kid. Right? Nope. Mom and dad couldn't buy what you and all your siblings wanted, plus pay the rent, put food on the table and gas in the car. So you got something less. It is not until you learn that there really is no Santa, that you come to grips with that feeling that you weren't good enough. It was a matter of economics, plain and simple, and not a matter of you not being good or lacking the faith that Santa would come through.
Easter is another one. You learn that mom and dad were leaving the basket of jelly beans and chocolate bunnies. The tooth fairy? Same. Shattered hopes. Faith put in something that didn't really exist. Was just made up. Was a story, a tale, a tradition.
You are taught to keep a lucky coin or a rabbits foot. Don't walk under a ladder. Throw salt over your shoulder. Knock on wood. What a load of bollocks - the lot of it.
Drop a spoon and a woman is going to come visit. Drop a fork and a man will soon visit. Don't ever light three cigarettes with the same match. (I like this one because not only would you run the risk of burning your finger but we now know, unlike in the mid 1900's, that cigarettes are deadly, vile creations that will kill you, not make you sophisticated when you inhale that cool menthol aroma. We've come a long way baby!)
We no longer believe that the number of fogs in August predict the number of snow storms the following winter or that green beans should be planted on Good Friday. We would laugh at anyone that suggested such nonsense. Silly superstitions. Yet so many still allow superstitions to rule their lives. Superstitions are nothing but an irrational belief arising from ignorance or fear.
We also no longer believe that the sun is a chariot of fire being driven across the sky by Helios. The future is not revealed to us through an oracle bone. Mazu may be the Chinese "goddess of the sea" but we would feel foolish praying to her for a safe ocean voyage or a bountiful fishing trip. The worship of Odin is still practiced by some who claim to be Asatru Pagans, but most people find that silly. How can they practice that ancient belief? Don't they know they are wrong?
The Mayan and Aztec, they were wrong and they are gone. The Druids, for the most part, gone. The gods of Roman and Greek mythology? Great stories and make for fun dimensional, stop-motion cinema (THANK YOU Ray Harryhausen) but no one, "in their right mind" still really, truly has faith in Zeus or Jupiter. Yet, we still are asked to have faith that there is some sort of a mystical magical Nanny watching over us? Really?
Yet for many going through life, this way, superstitiously, is ok. It brings them some sort of comfort. Who the hell says your life was supposed to be comfortable? Why is your life more important than say, the Mexico City children who live in Basureros?
Have faith they say.
Show me proof I say. I need to see and know and touch and feel (physically not emotionally).
The idea that a sky dwelling being takes a daily interest in our lives and is going to one day judge us is a childish viewpoint, just as is belief in Santa or the Easter Bunny or Tooth Fairy or Pheobe Figalilly, a silly name and a silly game. The stuff of children. Doesn't your belief system tell you to throw away childish things? (1 Corinthians 13:11....I reasoned like a child).
I am not a very eloquent man nor am I a stupid man. I will not walk into a dark room without a source of light, but if I do, I alone will be responsible for stubbing my toe or falling over a box. I know what I think, but getting those thoughts onto paper or on this blog, doesn't always come easy. So I will finish with some thoughts from a man that I know, had the ability to write and reason and to cut through the darkness with the flashlight of truth and thought.
"The person who is certain, and who claims divine warrant for his certainty, belongs now to the infancy of our species." (...throw away childish things.)
"Beware the irrational, however seductive. Shun the ‘transcendent’ and all who invite you to subordinate or annihilate yourself. Distrust compassion; prefer dignity for yourself and others. Don’t be afraid to be thought arrogant or selfish. Picture all experts as if they were mammals. Never be a spectator of unfairness or stupidity. Seek out argument and disputation for their own sake; the grave will supply plenty of time for silence. Suspect your own motives, and all excuses. Do not live for others any more than you would expect others to live for you."
"Faith is the surrender of the mind; it’s the surrender of reason, it’s the surrender of the only thing that makes us different from other mammals. It’s our need to believe, and to surrender our skepticism and our reason, our yearning to discard that and put all our trust or faith in someone or something, that is the sinister thing to me. Of all the supposed virtues, faith must be the most overrated."
“To 'choose' dogma and faith over doubt and experience is to throw out the ripening vintage and to reach greedily for the Kool-Aid.” Christopher Hitchens
Having belief in something without proof? No thanks. I have tried that enough. From my earliest memories. It is Christmas, you write your letter to Santa. Please bring me XYZ and then Christmas morning comes and you didn't get what you wanted, wished for, had faith he would deliver. Other kids may have but not you. So you obviously weren't a good enough kid. Right? Nope. Mom and dad couldn't buy what you and all your siblings wanted, plus pay the rent, put food on the table and gas in the car. So you got something less. It is not until you learn that there really is no Santa, that you come to grips with that feeling that you weren't good enough. It was a matter of economics, plain and simple, and not a matter of you not being good or lacking the faith that Santa would come through.
Easter is another one. You learn that mom and dad were leaving the basket of jelly beans and chocolate bunnies. The tooth fairy? Same. Shattered hopes. Faith put in something that didn't really exist. Was just made up. Was a story, a tale, a tradition.
You are taught to keep a lucky coin or a rabbits foot. Don't walk under a ladder. Throw salt over your shoulder. Knock on wood. What a load of bollocks - the lot of it.
Drop a spoon and a woman is going to come visit. Drop a fork and a man will soon visit. Don't ever light three cigarettes with the same match. (I like this one because not only would you run the risk of burning your finger but we now know, unlike in the mid 1900's, that cigarettes are deadly, vile creations that will kill you, not make you sophisticated when you inhale that cool menthol aroma. We've come a long way baby!)
We no longer believe that the number of fogs in August predict the number of snow storms the following winter or that green beans should be planted on Good Friday. We would laugh at anyone that suggested such nonsense. Silly superstitions. Yet so many still allow superstitions to rule their lives. Superstitions are nothing but an irrational belief arising from ignorance or fear.
We also no longer believe that the sun is a chariot of fire being driven across the sky by Helios. The future is not revealed to us through an oracle bone. Mazu may be the Chinese "goddess of the sea" but we would feel foolish praying to her for a safe ocean voyage or a bountiful fishing trip. The worship of Odin is still practiced by some who claim to be Asatru Pagans, but most people find that silly. How can they practice that ancient belief? Don't they know they are wrong?The Mayan and Aztec, they were wrong and they are gone. The Druids, for the most part, gone. The gods of Roman and Greek mythology? Great stories and make for fun dimensional, stop-motion cinema (THANK YOU Ray Harryhausen) but no one, "in their right mind" still really, truly has faith in Zeus or Jupiter. Yet, we still are asked to have faith that there is some sort of a mystical magical Nanny watching over us? Really?
Yet for many going through life, this way, superstitiously, is ok. It brings them some sort of comfort. Who the hell says your life was supposed to be comfortable? Why is your life more important than say, the Mexico City children who live in Basureros?
Have faith they say.
Show me proof I say. I need to see and know and touch and feel (physically not emotionally).
The idea that a sky dwelling being takes a daily interest in our lives and is going to one day judge us is a childish viewpoint, just as is belief in Santa or the Easter Bunny or Tooth Fairy or Pheobe Figalilly, a silly name and a silly game. The stuff of children. Doesn't your belief system tell you to throw away childish things? (1 Corinthians 13:11....I reasoned like a child).
I am not a very eloquent man nor am I a stupid man. I will not walk into a dark room without a source of light, but if I do, I alone will be responsible for stubbing my toe or falling over a box. I know what I think, but getting those thoughts onto paper or on this blog, doesn't always come easy. So I will finish with some thoughts from a man that I know, had the ability to write and reason and to cut through the darkness with the flashlight of truth and thought.
"The person who is certain, and who claims divine warrant for his certainty, belongs now to the infancy of our species." (...throw away childish things.)
"Beware the irrational, however seductive. Shun the ‘transcendent’ and all who invite you to subordinate or annihilate yourself. Distrust compassion; prefer dignity for yourself and others. Don’t be afraid to be thought arrogant or selfish. Picture all experts as if they were mammals. Never be a spectator of unfairness or stupidity. Seek out argument and disputation for their own sake; the grave will supply plenty of time for silence. Suspect your own motives, and all excuses. Do not live for others any more than you would expect others to live for you."
"Faith is the surrender of the mind; it’s the surrender of reason, it’s the surrender of the only thing that makes us different from other mammals. It’s our need to believe, and to surrender our skepticism and our reason, our yearning to discard that and put all our trust or faith in someone or something, that is the sinister thing to me. Of all the supposed virtues, faith must be the most overrated."
“To 'choose' dogma and faith over doubt and experience is to throw out the ripening vintage and to reach greedily for the Kool-Aid.” Christopher Hitchens 
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