Is Blind Faith the Answer for Truth?
Keith Crowe
“… if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you can
say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move. Nothing will
be impossible for you.”
A parable found only in the Christian text, which did not exist until
the 4th Century CE, when several “catholic” religious communities
began an Empirical compelled series of Council meetings beginning in Nicea, and
renamed itself the “Roman Catholic Church,” and is subject to the same scrutiny
for “truth” as any other of the thousands of religious texts. Faith does not transform anything into fact
or truth, nor can it change a leopard’s spots.
Faith is the mental key which allows fiction to mask reality.
Misplaced Faith can result in a very bad experience and a deeply
scarred life. Just ask the investors in Jeffrey
Skilling and Kenneth Lay’s Enron Corp., or in Bernard L. Madoff Investment
Securities LLC., or any of the victims of hundreds of other shady snake-oil
salesmen. Their investors were misled
and lied to by people responsible for these crooked commercial corporations. And, these are only a few of the ones we know
about because they were caught cheating and stealing. How many “snakes” are
still out there lying to vulnerable and fearful people.
The secular commercial world isn’t the only place people can be
misled and duped by snake-oil salesmen. MANY
Evangelical churches, i.e. John Hagee’s Cornerstone Ministries, Jim Baker TV Ministries,
Jesse Duplantis Ministries, Joel Osteen of Lakewood Church Ministries, and many
more, are tax exempt, family owned CORPORATIONS who answer to no one outside of
their family circle regarding corporate financial matters. Many live in Gated and Protected Communities
in mansions complete with servants and chauffeured limousines, and own multiple
(congregation financed) private jets, and enjoy numerous “mission trips” to the
playgrounds of the rich and famous. Although
those listed represent only a small number of a much larger religious extreme, they
are by no means alone in the business of religious brand businesses and competition.
Religions claim that it only takes an “act” of faith to believe and
accept their tenets and promises. However,
a threat with vivid descriptions of an eternal punishment that awaits non-believers
in an unavoidable afterlife can be an effective incentive to encourage acts of
faith. Why is this even believable? With thousands of religions competing for a commitment
to their order, how can anyone determine what is truth and who is a true god? Has there ever been a “mountain moved from
here to there” in the history of the world?
One might say that a mustard sized seed of faith worked for the
16 terrorists who were responsible for thousands of deaths on 9/11, but the
mustard seed sized faith didn’t work for the thousands of victims who were
desperately praying for rescue from an obvious fate in their hour of despair. Neither has a mustard sized faith or prayers worked
for the thousands of innocent men, women and children who were victims of religious
promoted wars producing atrocities in the Holocaust, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Palestine,
Israel, Myanmar, Africa, China, North Korea, etc. – who faithfully pray to sleeping
gods to “move the mountain” and rescue them from persecution and death.
If “prayer” was as effective and focused as many religions claim
with prayer meetings, prayer warriors, prayer teams, etc., we wouldn’t need half
as many Medical Centers specializing in maladies and diseases of every organ of
the sick and dying, as there now are in every major city in America. We just would not need this many healers if
prayer and faith could do it for us. Consequently,
in the face of health disasters over which we have no control, we resort to
ancient superstitions and fears who turn to supernatural powers that do not
exist, for help in our times of need.
Faith springs eternal not only in every mustard seed, but in all
the seeds of every organic life form of nature in the universe. They all have faith that they will have a
future to complete their purpose of existence.
However, not all will be successful. Some seeds will fall by the wayside and the birds
will devour them, others will fall among tares and thorns to be choked to
death, some will fall on rocky ground with no soil to take root, and some will
fall in prepared and fertile ground with support and encouragement to grow strong
and succeed in accomplishing its purpose in life, to support the perpetuation
of the species.
Nature exists and succeeds only by a constant struggle to live through
cycles of Life. Cycles that are measured
in hours for mayflies; seasons for leaves, flowers and fruit; years for mammals;
and centuries for giant sequoias.
Nothing exists or lives trouble free, it’s just that some life forms have
more struggles than others. There is
nothing fair about the struggles for life.
Honeybee hives, termite and ant mounds may exist for years, although
worker bees, termites, and ants may live only for weeks, depending upon weather
and foraging conditions. The queen of
each species may live and continue to produce workers for several years. For each, there is a continuous struggle to
survive and remain useful. When the queens
become aged, a few of their newly birthed larva are fed a “royal jelly” which
causes them to grow into new queens, and others are fed a different royal goop
that causes them to grow into drones (males) for the purpose of mating with the
new and emergent queens, who immediately set to work attempting to create a new
colony, usually in a new location.
Rarely do they take over the colony from which they were born.
Inside jungles and forests, the struggle for life exists in much
of the same way. The tallest and most
successful vegetation and trees produce most of the fruit and seeds that fall
to the floor. If the fruit or seeds are
not consumed by animals, and when conditions are right the seeds germinate and
become fledgling plants to begin the struggle to reach for sunlight from above
and necessary moisture from the surrounding soils. If the canopy is too dense, many plants never
receive the necessary amount of sunlight and therefore never make it to
maturity. Eventually, holes are made in
the canopy when an older tree is damaged or dies and falls to the floor,
opening a hole for sunlight to penetrate to the floor and benefit the fledgling
plants.
This delicate balance in the struggle for life has existed and
succeeded for billions of years. Until
now. The greed and proliferation of
mankind has upset the delicate balance of this garden planet.
The world is in a critical crisis of continuing to be the garden
it became billions of years ago. The only
creature responsible for this crisis is mankind. If mankind were suddenly eliminated from the
equation, the world could heal itself and continue to be the garden it once was. How is this healing possible if mankind
cannot be totally removed from this planet, you ask? As the density of mankind increases, we
become more susceptible to contagious microorganisms who can survive extreme
climates and lay dormant for centuries until there is an optimum opportunity to
awaken and continue their struggle to survive, thereby reducing the numbers of everything,
including mankind.
Fewer numbers of mankind will reduce the demands for “sport hunting
and trophy collecting;” over production of meat products by inhumane conditions;
destroying forests to raise profitable grains to feed increasing numbers of
animals for mankind to eat; and requiring less fossil fuels and their related emissions
that continue to diminish the quality of the magic atmosphere that once existed
to support the evolution and creation of life.
In short, without mankind (or a significant reduction of the same), this
world could easily heal itself.
Faith can’t do it, prayer can’t do it; increasing the numbers of
mankind won’t do it; increasing the numbers of religions who rely on
supernatural spirits won’t do it. And,
we are not capable of reducing our own numbers.
So, what is left are infectious microorganisms to thin the ranks and numbers
of people who have done nothing more than to be in the wrong place at the right
time to allow opportunity for microorganisms to thrive through social interaction
of mankind.
I have faith that if, or when, mankind becomes aware of the desperate
and critical conditions necessary to reverse the destructive path we have
created, the earth can and will succeed beyond our wildest dreams to become a
garden planet once again.
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