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Essay: Why Do We Believe?
Nov. 22nd, 2009 03:52 pmThis is the 4/4 part of the essay on faith.
Why Do We Believe?
In most cases, the reason for faith is that a person feels much more comfortable when having faith in an assertion which he accepts as fact in defiance of all logic. Here I will not dig too much into the reasons for believing in love, friendship and justice (a generalized classification of the types of faith was made in the previous part). The above faith is not essentially faith as such, but a phraseological unit which rather declares a hope/wish for a world dominated by love, friendship and justice. Similar, let us call them 'poetical' constructs, have no pretence beyond just expressing a personal attitude of the believer on a given issue, which in most cases is associated to a certain emotional state, or an appeal, rather than true faith. Some of the specific reasons for which a person devotes himself to religious faith will be examined below. These are associated to the type of faith which implies not only an appeal for a certain moral (the world would have been a much better place if religion was doing only this), but also a firm conviction that a set of unproven assertions are actually an absolute truth.
Similarly to an insane person who in most cases is unable to realize his own insanity, the religious believer could not recognize on his own the reasons for which he has been tricked into believing in absurd declarations, accepting them as ultimate truth. An external and objectively and rationally thinking person is needed for that, someone who could analyze the act of faith, as the insane person would need a psychiatrist.
Throughout many of my conversations on this topic, I have reached the following rational reasons for which a person could devote himself to the religious faith.
( Why Do We Believe? )
(Of course, a large part of my own blog will be dedicated to the comedy which starts when the above-mentioned ignorant people suddenly turn into knowleable authority in cosmology, physics, biochemistry, evolution, paleontology, geology... and meanwhile, they start supporting their theses with scientific evidence).
The above list of reasons for believing is certainly far from being exhaustive, so I may continue adding more examples here.
Why Do We Believe?
In most cases, the reason for faith is that a person feels much more comfortable when having faith in an assertion which he accepts as fact in defiance of all logic. Here I will not dig too much into the reasons for believing in love, friendship and justice (a generalized classification of the types of faith was made in the previous part). The above faith is not essentially faith as such, but a phraseological unit which rather declares a hope/wish for a world dominated by love, friendship and justice. Similar, let us call them 'poetical' constructs, have no pretence beyond just expressing a personal attitude of the believer on a given issue, which in most cases is associated to a certain emotional state, or an appeal, rather than true faith. Some of the specific reasons for which a person devotes himself to religious faith will be examined below. These are associated to the type of faith which implies not only an appeal for a certain moral (the world would have been a much better place if religion was doing only this), but also a firm conviction that a set of unproven assertions are actually an absolute truth.
Similarly to an insane person who in most cases is unable to realize his own insanity, the religious believer could not recognize on his own the reasons for which he has been tricked into believing in absurd declarations, accepting them as ultimate truth. An external and objectively and rationally thinking person is needed for that, someone who could analyze the act of faith, as the insane person would need a psychiatrist.
Throughout many of my conversations on this topic, I have reached the following rational reasons for which a person could devote himself to the religious faith.
( Why Do We Believe? )
(Of course, a large part of my own blog will be dedicated to the comedy which starts when the above-mentioned ignorant people suddenly turn into knowleable authority in cosmology, physics, biochemistry, evolution, paleontology, geology... and meanwhile, they start supporting their theses with scientific evidence).
The above list of reasons for believing is certainly far from being exhaustive, so I may continue adding more examples here.
