Musings on Faith, and the Existence (or not) of Deity

[wyld_dandelyon]

 bearleyport  asked me, a while ago, "What faith is not blind?"  

And in a world where so many people think their faith, their religion, is a valid reason to ask--nay, to demand--that everyone else should live the way the faithful person believes is The One Right Way, that's a very valid question.  Historically, religion and other unprovable beliefs have inspired people to do a lot of good in the world--and a lot of evil.  So this isn't just a question of what's real, it also touches on right and wrong, on making moral choices.  

My anthropological studies showed that people in all cultures believe in things that fall into the category of what we westerners call, variously, "religion", "superstition", "God (or Gods)", and so on, though their stories and verbal depictions vary from culture to culture and person to person.  Now, I should be clear here--all cultures seem to have beliefs that fall into this category, but the people in the culture do not have the same level of experiences of and belief in those things.

And not so long ago I read that some scientists have been studying mystical experiences, and have come to the conclusion that (whether genetically or for some other reason) some people have them and some people don't.  So, experiencing the holy, the , like seeing the difference between red and green, requires having the physical faculties to do so.  Or, perhaps a better analogy would be the ability to think the person you fell in love with is great, despite their flaws.

We have machines now, after all, that can distinguish between red and green--there's more than the agreement of some people who can perceive them available to convince red-green colorblind people that what they're missing out on is a real phenomenon.  For the mystical, the magical, the deific, we don't have that.

In the meantime, however, I am not willing to discount the evidence of my own senses just because not everyone senses the same things I do.   

Comments

[wyld-dandelyon.livejournal.com]

How do you distinguish dream from reality?

That question assumes that dreams aren't real. Dreams are real, and, in fact, some cultures give them equal stature with waking experiences.

Dreaming consciousness and waking consciousness are both important to being a healthy, sane human. As is the ability to tell them apart--a faculty that the crazy guy you describe above apparently lacked.

[wyld-dandelyon.livejournal.com]

I can't prove I'm not making it up.

Nor can I prove that one of us is not being deluded by the imperfections and limitations of this physical existence--or, for that matter, which one.

Just as the majority of humans can tell the difference between red and green, the majority of humans think that some kind of deity exists. Of course, there's at least one chemical that definitely exists, but only minority of humans can taste it. In this life, we can only experience the things that our body/mind/spirit are equipped to experience.

So, when any of us has an experience that is "out of the box", that is unexpected or subtle or hard to put into words, or even just from a different state of consciousness than the ordinary waking consciousness (like a dream), we each have to interpret that experience as best we can.