Faith vs Integrity

The life of faith is in a race with integrity. The trick is to die before the vector of integrity is tempted to intersect faith before the finish line. Development of integrity can cost you your soul. Dying in unscrutinized belief is the safer bet. Have no fear. Your faith is the sure safety that nothing will change until you get your catastrophe.

Meanwhile, be content in the outcomes of faith which we have witnessed now for two millennia. Don’t complain, and please no worries. This is the life you choose through belief.

“The impression somehow prevails that the true believer, particularly the religious individual, is a humble person. The truth is the surrendering and humbling of the self breeds pride and arrogance. The true believer is apt to see himself as one of the chosen, the salt of the earth, the light of the world, a prince disguised in meekness, who is destined to inherit the earth and the kingdom of heaven too. He who is not of his faith is evil; he who will not listen will perish”—Eric Hoffer

“Ye are the light of the world”. What do you say to that when everything faith touches lives in a constant state of regression? Living in the past, hoping the future ends. Would a good god condemn you for truly not believing? Seems to me such integrity should be rewarded.

Testimony—Relieving Your Doubt Through Repetition

A testimony or “witnessing” is known as a statement that is based on personal experience or personal knowledge. A statement is accepted on the basis of person’s testimony if his or her asserting it renders it acceptable, ie; conviction, eloquence, or sincerity. We can also, rationally accept a claim on the basis of another person’s testimony unless at least one of the following is found to be true:

1 The claim is implausible;

2 The person or the source in which the claim is quoted lacks credibility;

3 The claim goes beyond what the person could know from his or her own experience and competence (children)

When it comes to testimony, how trustworthy are you, the source, in separating what you want to believe vs what you’ve been taught to believe vs the inherent bias of culture, demographics, and perception? If you know your church is “the one” sanctioned by Jesus, how can others know theirs is “the one” True Church© too. Maybe they’re coat-tailing on a bad idea? It’s happened before.

If you fallen to religion, just be grateful it wasn’t Jehovah’s Witness, Mormon, Catholic, AOG, Money Church of Osteen™️, Copeland, Dollar 🤡, Comfort or Ham. Id hate for you to look silly. And for the loners out there, your close. Really close.

As far as children witnessing for any religion, who’s testimony do you suppose they are they sharing? But it’s so cute… Hmm?

Religion Deemed Too Big to Fail

If religion in America were a country, its $1.2 Trillion in tax free income (2016) would be the 15th largest economy in the world. Too big to fail? Subsidized religion would be interesting, to say the least.

The economic bailout of 2008 cost $700billion to keep institutions we hate in business. Imagine how soothing it will be to bail out religion to sustain its lengthy crash? It could however, be worth ending the futility of its unmet objectives by natural selection—for extinction.

It would be worth a few bones to retrain the ministry into something useful—like carpentry or green technology. They don’t typically pay unemployment insurance for themselves or other church employees. It’s a risky business when there’s not enough crisis to keep membership up.

It may be deemed too big to fail, but it would be worth it. A quick dose of reality, then, after the weeping and wailing we can get on with living. Transcending belief mode will be an incredible period of discovery.

Faith vs Ethics

The greatest contribution of atheism is the provision of a firm basis for ethical conduct. Atheism explains that morality is a social obligation but not a passport to heaven and salvation. The theistic belief in divine retribution sidetracked moral behavior. Believers were more prone to please the god of their imagination by prayer and ritual than to conform to rules of moral conduct“—Ramachantra Rao

This is the dividing line between worship and personal responsibility. To please god is obedience to belief, even if it’s socially divisive. One excludes, the other includes. Doesn’t really matter what religion you believe, it is that you believe anything at all.

“We have the impulse to resist evil, but through faith permission is granted to inflict it. We step beyond the believers mindset; not content for their own sake, but like a dangerous meme is spread. Not out of genuine concern, but religious mimicry”.

Extended Phenotypes

Genetically predisposed to do something useful, the beaver naturally builds a dam with no training from its specie. Some of the ingenuity is quite amazing, being copied in principle by human engineers and hydrologists.

Birds also build nests operating automática with no training required, it’s hardwired and as natural as eating.

Humans build shelters too, and take notice when it is lacking. “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.” Luke 9:58

So what is it that humans naturally do, or even usefully tend to with no training? What are we programmed to do?

Through the course of religion we have been trained to wait, to believe empty promises that have yet to come to fruition. To ignore what we see, in favor of words. To propagate wishes as truth, and most importantly, place more importance on what we don’t know than what we do. Maybe we don’t know anything, and that’s the problem.

In a recent study interviewing patients in palliative care, the number one regret was what they worried about when life was good. Humans like to worry—though we all know the uselessness of it so we nobly call it concern, then live a life fighting back nature vs accepting things as they are, infighting our lives away over two false premises—out of worry panted by another.

Left or right, or which religion most closely aligns with what I’ve been conditioned to believe—then fight for it, all distractions from being you, which when we finally learn to do it, is pretty awesome all in itself.

“Man, sometimes it takes a long time to sound like yourself”—Miles Davis

Anosognosia and Religious Certainty

Anosognosia is a neurological deficit in self-awareness, a condition in which a person with a disability is unaware or in denial of its existence. This disability we are addressing today is belief—regarded as personal achievement or a high mental destination, where “I believe” has become the pinnacle of religious thought. But what is belief other than a set of imaginations that have been carefully honed to pacify existence? There’s no substance to it at all.

Scientific beliefs are corroborated, falsified, tested and reviewed, then applied to produce a result or technology (we have satellites in orbit with these ideas) that actually produces something.

Religious beliefs are simply compared imaginations with other hopefuls for the mere sake of believing. And today, religious belief of any kind (even strictly opposing views) are respected for the simple fact they believe something, or anything at all. Certainly any belief is more worthy than unbelief—at least they have a chance, right?

Yet, belief is nothing more than a set of ideas that may sound really neat (or morbid) but is simply wishful thinking—assigning it some strange importance that will outwit nature does not make it real. But, we’re sticking to it against all reason, turning the mere idea into defensive pride, renaming it faith (which is the arrival at what?) all the while these fascinations do nothing to transcend humanity from this long monotheistic stall.

“Anosognosia is a lack of ability to perceive the realities of one’s own situation. It’s a person’s inability to accept that they have a condition that matches up with their symptoms“ (1) These religious beliefs occur despite significant lack of evidence or the predicted outcomes.

“Go to, thy faith hath dug you a hole”.

Note On My Old God

If the ultimate, monotheistic plural god of Abraham doesn’t exist, would that mean none of the others do either?

As a believer I was so used to discrediting the other gods for so long (way to easy) I never bothered to look into them. I suppose I don’t know enough about them to believe in them, but do I know enough about them to not? Can you not believe in something you’ve never invested?

For now I’ve just let it all go. No chasing belief or fine tuning incredible imaginations to disguise my final destination. It’s really out of my hands. The Christians already control the cosmos with their prayers anyway, so what am I going to do?

“Belief is meant as a temporary waypoint to prove a premise, not a destination in itself”

How did belief become a virtue (rhetorical question) anyway? It is a worthless position of pride faith clinging to someone else’s hopeful imaginations with an argument. It’s all quite ridiculous, really.

“We will never progress as a society until we overcome belief mode and transcend the neurological trappings of faith”.