Faith, that jolting experience (II)

When you find a person who believes the deity is a constant and real presence, you find a rare phenomenon in the soul of this person (yes, supposing the soul exists; if you feel awkward with this notion you can call it whatever you want since there is no doubt that an intangible “something” lives inside our heart, skull, or mind that we call “I”).

The first surprising fact you find when you look close to the beliefs “owned” by this religious person is that those beliefs are a certainty, the person “knows” God exists, “knows” He is in charge and “knows” that despite the unsecured sight we have of the world at large, there is a Plan, a Design to be followed up to a Happy End, childish as this seems.

This surprising fact is the basal stone which has maintained religious Faith alive through so many years since the first of us opened the eyes to the wonderful sense of being aware of the difference between the rest of the world and that sentience called “I”! This “knowing” fills up the vacuum in our soul so aplenty that life takes a new and wonderful meaning.

The mystics, who have experienced the sense of the divine, are so strongly attached to the anchor of belief that it is a certainty. And, wonder of wonder, those whose experience were not mystic develop a strange certainty almost as strong as that of the mystics.

What makes all this possible? How can a person “create” something so incredibly wonderful? Theologians’ explanation is that no person create it since it is too big a notion as to be thought by a human being, so what?, well, as incredible as it may seem, the explanation states that it was revealed by the owner of every space in the Universe, included souls, God Himself. Agnostics sustain it is a psychological reaction. Choose the one you like more.

The simple fact that every one of the creatures are so tightly bonded to the Creator can develop a strong and secure sense as to close the gates to insecurity and vulnerability.

Be this true or not, this Faith moves mountains and makes people better in their own ways since it removes the need to be defensive and guarded against the imponderable.

Compared to desacralized Faith this is Ambrosia, this is the Golden Fleece, this is the Shangri-la every one of us dreams about!

Unfortunately, these different “Faiths” have, as anything else in the universe, a dark side we know too well. Three mistakes named:

Fanaticism, fundamentalism, bigotry.

Deeply seated in those insecure feelings we develop in life facing uncertainties is the need to keep safe our beliefs; those beliefs that give us a harbour for our fears, when our Faith is not based on something as strong as a God, or if you prefer as good as a psychological reaction, we feel threatened and anything that menace those beliefs are a menace to us, personally.

We “must” fight all and everything departing our paths. This fight is a distortion of real Faith. This gives birth to those three mistakes mentioned above and through them a myriad of errors, cruel actions, and dreadful attitudes.

Starting from this narrow lane of thought humankind had divided into factions, each faction had created new concepts to keep its needs addressed and, of course, as those concepts are not the same since the veneer of knowledge, intelligence, and culture are different, even those factions near enough to share some beliefs are far enough to dissent on basic things and ways of thoughts.

This is true in both situations. Scientific and religious beliefs have its divisions, and each one of them its followers, developing, by the way, many different manners of defining the same thing and a rejection, sometimes brutal rejection, of any definition not agreeable to theirs.

This is the well known, not written, principle that states we must destroy everything we do not understand or see different to us and our ways.

Difference is not wrong, WE are different in the manner of puzzle pieces are, if we just take the place we are designed for, the image appears clear and beautiful. But that is not the case, we think the image MUST be as we imagine it is, following our principles and beliefs (aka, tainted Faith, since it is tainted by our own ideas, or those inherited), so if we find a different piece in our puzzle, we try to cut and warp it to conform our idea of the whole, destroying that “different” piece in the process and thinking we did it a good turn.

We prefer to kill, since it guaranty there would be no remonstrance from that quarter, instead of trying to understand each other and be very much alive, as it was meant since we are born.

There is a long way to walk yet for humankind to accept differences, and with it faith as a reality as concrete as to produce actual facts, my guess is we will reach that stage but it would take many, many individual casualties to make humankind shine in its own glow.


The music is a fragment of Beethoven "3rd Symphony" by Jansoms BRSO.

© 2013 Od Liam.