(warning: this is a rant)
So I was having this discussion with somebody else and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t express my thoughts about faith and truth and religion well enough for him to understand (or agree, anyway). Then I started reading Dracula and Dr. Van Helsing was trying to get Dr. Seward to understand and believe in Vampires without straight out telling him everything. He was trying to build up Dr. Sewards understanding of the evidence and facts so that Seward, himself can find the conclusion of vampires.
When Seward gets discouraged, Van Helsing says this:
“…I heard once of an American who so defined faith: ‘that faculty which enables us to believe things which we know to be untrue.’ For one, I follow that man. He meant that we shall have an open mind, and not let a little bit of truth check the rush of a big truth, like a small rock does a railway truch. We get the small truth first. Good! WE keep him, and we value him; but all the same we must not let him think himself all the truth in the universe.”
–p. 206 of Dracula by Bram Stoker
this is exactly what I was trying to tell the other guy (but in relation to God, not vampires). I think people do this a lot. I think science does this a lot. I think the theory of evolution does this a lot, “hey look! this animal is simular to this animal, they must have developed together or from the same thing!” (that’s a very cliche and somewhat immature example, I’m sorry. hopefully you get the idea.)
everybody thinks faith is worthless, or stupid, or naive, but I think it’s the backbone of knowledge and understanding. If we never had faith in a larger truth, we would never develope what we have today.
people say faith is blind, but I think that faith allows you to see past what is directly in front of you. it’s vision.
faith and curiosity largely carry the human race in it’s developments. It’s motivation.
wow, I got kind’a off track.
agree with me or pick it appart. I’d like to hear someone else’s thoughts on the subject.
by the way, I didn’t mean to rag on evolution. I’ve actually gained a good amount of respect for the theory, though I don’t agree with it. I do still hold grudges against many of the people that follow it so fervently.