Why “faith” is dangerous:
- It promotes adherance to an idea or belief despite evidence to the contrary.
- It causes people to believe that they have a monopoly on facts, ethics and morality.
- It insists that science can’t be trusted, because “science has been wrong before”.
- It stifles conversation about things that have profound influences on our world.
- It rejects objectivity.
- It clouds perceptions of how the world operates.
I recently recieved and e-mail that echoed a sentiment that most “people of faith” seem to share:
There are 4 kinds of Knowledge
Facts- Facts are not really a strong form of knowledge because they change and are updated.
Opinions- Opinions are even weaker, because people change their minds everyday.
Wisdom- Unfortunately by the time we get wisdom, we are too old to do anything with it.Faith- Faith is the strongest form of knowledge. A person will not budge on an idea if they have faith in it. And science cannot change faith like it can a fact.
I would argue that faith is the weakest form of knowledge, if it can be considered knowledge at all. If one will not budge on an idea and will not allow an idea to be amenable to science or new evidence, then that idea is no closer to objective truth than pulling random ideas out of a hat. Yet most of the world sees faith as a virtue.
Instead, we need to see the ability to change in light of new evidence as a virtue. I think that most people do this in their daily lives, and reserve unwavering commitment to ideas when those ideas are valuable and central to their worldview. Most people don’t like to have their worldview turned upside-down and will fight venomously to keep it nice and homeostatic.What’s it going to take for people to see the ability to change as a virtue or to be happy when their worldview is crushed and replaced with something entirely different?
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As we draw closer to this new era, science has finally begun to turn towards human conscious awareness, which ultimate “bridges” the gap between Science and Religion. There are religions, whose concepts become distorted over the ages and is where problems occurred, however, religion is not the source of the problem, it’s people. Though the essence of truth which come from the enlightened ones remain the same and continue to ripple out reaching for those who cannot find ‘themselves’. Everything is vibrational energy and whether you come to utilize that undersanding through the words of Christ, Ramana Maharshi, Gautama Buddha, Confucious/Lao Tzu, or any other guru is all that matters. We’re all diverse, coming from different backgrounds and we hold different levels of tolerance for “stress”. For some, it’s like a muscle in the mind that needs to be exercised and for some, it comes like a switch.
It’s a real shame most people who bear witness to diversity only find ways of “attacking” instead of consoling or simply accepting and tolerating, that they are the only ones that matter and that anyone else of their own flesh, blood, and emotions don’t deserve such respect. Just because they are not like you or ARE you.
You create your own reality, whether you believe the universe is sentient or non-sentient. You are right, because it is what you believe that manifests your actions for doing. It ultimately doesn’t matter whether God exists for everyone, but it is for you which it matters most. It is from you which light is manifest through your actions and whether you’re strong enough to keep a high frequency of vibes to create miracles in your life. I’d stick with faith, because through it is always a change for the better.