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Many people believe that they know things about the Creator (or whatever higher
power they are devoted to). They will unflinchingly apply descriptions, labels,
pictures, and even have the audacity to put words in the mouth of the Creator.
Instead of saying things like they are, such as “the prophet Joe So-and-so feels
that his dream last night was a vision from a god and that he believes that this god
says such-and-such” they have the nerve to phrase it more like “the god says to do
this” as though it's a fact or something. This type of arbitrary proclamation is called
"revelation”. It is also "dogma", an unfounded opinion, sometimes strongly held and
fully expected to be so, that is touted as a fact of reality. For a variety of reasons,
humans will take such dogmatic “facts” to heart, and believe them (or proclaim
them) to be uncontested Truth. This phenomenon, as I understand, is called “faith”.
It seems that holding onto your dogmatic opinions in the face of overwhelming
contrary evidence, such as observation, reason and whatnot, constitutes “strong
faith”. The stronger the evidence you ignore or cast out as “blasphemy”, “heresy”,
or “the devil”, the stronger the faith. A famous example of men of strong faith is the
British Flat Earth Society. They believe the “fact” that the earth is flat, like a
pancake, not spherical like an orange or a planet. Perhaps a more common
example would be the people that accept religious dogma unquestioningly because
they have been indoctrinated as children with the notion that faith is a virtue before
they were old enough to think properly and for themselves, as well as and including
those who possess the “good enough for daddy, good enough for me” mentality. A
man of “weak” faith, as I understand, would be somebody who doesn't truly believe
anything on words alone, at least not things that smell fishy, especially when there
is nothing to back it up with, and who holds his own beliefs and opinions suspect,
and is able to learn and evolve them.
DANGERS OF FAITH
Often times faith in revealed dogma is relatively harmless, and I believe that it can
be beneficial, especially if the one holding said faith has no problem with living in a
fool's paradise (assuming and granting that his faith makes him feel better and not
worse). Sometimes, however, the faith can be inspiration for shocking cruelty and
stupidity. Look at the Inquisition, the Dark Ages, the Nazis (faith is not necessarily
religious), etc; all the faith-inspired genocide of the ages and of today, the wacky
suicide bombers and suicide cults like heaven's gate and Jonestown. When the
people trust shamans and other “authorities” to spoon-feed them their “knowledge”
of reality, things like this can, do, and will continue to happen. It has been said
rightly that if a child is indoctrinated early enough and properly that they can be
made to believe virtually anything, and this includes, unfortunately, horrible things
that have lead our species to much pointless suffering.
THE POWER OF FAITH
Now there are at least two different “types” of faith that I currently perceive and am
concerned with. The first type is what I have written about above and that I
currently believe has been shown to be venomous to human prosperity, the blind
dogmatic faith of revealed religions and brainwash cults, the faith that can stand in
sharp contradiction to understanding. I shall refer to this faith simply as blind faith.
Logical Faith, which is not an oxymoron, is a different animal altogether, and I am
becoming convinced that it can indeed be used as a source of power (as strong if
not stronger, I hypothesize, than the powers that may come from blind faith) in
addition to being necessary for basic operation as a human living through a
subjective perception of the world. An example is the faith that the floor behind you
is still there, even though you can't see or sense it; otherwise it would be scary to
walk backwards. This is making the rational assumption that since the ground has
never opened up behind me before, or to anybody I know, and because it seems
quite solid, that it is not likely to be doing so now. Having faith that I will not step into
a pit when I walk backwards because the floor was there and seemingly solid a few
seconds ago is faith in my understanding of my environment. In addition, I
understand that faith can be misplaced, because of experience and observation,
and that it is indeed possible that a freak accident or misfortune could occur and
the floor give out or a stoplight malfunction or a trusted life-long friend betray; in
addition, past experience does not necessarily guarantee the nature of things yet
to come.
When this logical faith is applied as a psycho-spiritual power, it is the
understanding that if you believe something is going to happen or that something is
true with as much conviction as you can, it becomes more likely to manifest. This
type of faith is not a passive sheep-like trust extended to others and/or perceived
as a shortcut to knowledge like blind faith; it’s more of a mental technique and
seems to be used with success by many. Personally, when my faith (logical faith,
naturally) has been strongest I have experienced significantly more “crazy
coincidences” and have been generally more blessed. Hence, I theorize that if you
believe that your prayers or spells or talismans will work for you, or even simply that
good things are coming or bad things going, that they are more likely to manifest
and prove you right, and if you do not believe in any of that stuff that you will likely
be proven correct, that it is all tomfoolery.