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Reason and Faith
See, Rook's big issue with religion is that it's not rational or reasonable. And you can't really argue with that. It isn't rational to believe in God. It isn't reasonable to join a church worshiping some unknown being existing on a plane beyond our comprehension who may or may not care that we even exist. That doesn't matter to me. I believe anyway. There's so much in life that defies reason that it is ridiculous to restrict yourself to logic alone. Love. Taste. Humour. Pleasure. Consciousness. As much as the scientists try to quantify these - talking about chemical attractors that cause love, or locating the tactile sensors in your hands that cause sensations when you touch something - they cannot answer all the questions. They can detail the chemicals that pour through your body when you fall in love. They can describe the emotional reactions in psychological terms, breaking down the steps of amour, passion, commitment. But they cannot explain why love exists, why you can feel so strongly about a particular person. They can't explain why some love a person who meshes with them so perfectly, and others love people vastly different in every way. They have quantitative analysis, but not qualitative. It's the same with faith. I have no proof that God exists, nothing I can point to and say, 'There He is!' That doesn't change my belief in His existence. But I feel that there must be a source for all those things that cannot be defined. For me, that's God. I don't agree with everything that organized religion does, but my problems with churches are similar to my problems with large corporations and governments. A person is fine, but people are crazy and irrational. The Catholic Church recently closed down the last Magdalene Laundry. As nasty as the whole concept is, I'm not really shocked that an organization that's been around for hundreds of years with millions of members worldwide still has some hideous anachronisms surviving. Organizations do not move with the times, and this is just an extreme example of the problem. But don't confuse religion with faith. Just because the Catholic Church is finally realizing it has a problem with pedophilia among it's clergy, don't assume that every priest alive has a thing for little boys and that the congregations tacitly allow this. Just because churches teach morality and codes of living to their members, do not assume that every churchgoer is an imbecile who cannot think for himself. Churches are dangerous in the tenets they propose to their congregations, because of the sway they have over their members, but that's not in anyway unique to religion. Take the current level of jingoism among the U.S. populace right now, fueled by a government that seems ready to leap into any convenient war. I read a lot of journals by Americans, and the amount of dismay over their countries attitude is staggering. But even their dismay at their government's warhawk attitude does not make them any less fervent about their love of their country. They are not any less American because they don't agree with Bush. And I am not any less a Christian because I don't necessarily agree with everything my church does. And I am not any less a rational or reasonable being because I believe in God. These things are not mutually exclusive. Oh hey, a new toy for you folks. Down at the bottom of every page now is my custom Google search. According to my stats, Google re-scans me every couple days, so you can use it to look up all sorts of old things on this site. I use it every damn time I write one of these these days. One Year (Plus a Day) Ago: The Difference Between Me Part Three: Train of Thought - It took a while, but I finally wrapped up this monstrosity. Two Years Ago: Better in red sauce - Our quest to find decent Chinese food in a small town. Plus our plan for name standardization in that industry. And it's the origin of the term 'ubiquitous red sauce', a phrase we still use today.
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I
was working on this big response to Rook's