My take on Faith
My last blog generated quite a ruckus (Couple of comments for me is a busy day in the fish market by the sea ).The central question raised was about faith and its help in keeping ones mooring steady. Sorry folks, I wont buy those kind of fish any more, for me faith is the root cause of everything (i typed evil, but resisted plucking the low hanging fruit). Let me illustrate with an example, I have faith in my teacher and believe that my teacher would be 'fair' (again a very subjective word, lets quantify it as a acceptable behaviour in the present day society, by doing which you are not killing any kittens and puppies) and she ends up giving me a bad mark just cause I giggled with her niece. Is my faith misplaced? Should I even have faith in her? Would I have been better by reasoning out that Giggling with teacher's niece would annoy her and she would punish me? Dragging this analogy along, would it better in putting faith in the Lord and riding out the storm or packing and leaving to a better place? This analogy Sucks, but oh well, one has to live with what one has got.
Belief and faith according to me and a recent Guardian article are strong evolutionary traits. Humans while evolving started believing in the big sky daddy who would watch over them, send in the locusts, throw a few lighting bolts and many such things at his children because he is upset over his shaving water being 54 deg rather than 52 deg. This faith in this imaginary deity helped them in time of crisis, praying helped sooth the frayed nerves and this imaginary deity grew in strength, he became GOD of all things.
I never said that I believed in monetary rewards for my prayers and prayed for the winnig Lotto 649 numbers. I said that if there were the power to that prayer, I would have become richer, smarter and prettier just because my mum prays day in day out. Belief and faith in something powerful than us may be good thing, heck it even helped us evolve in to this position, where we are thinking of even time travel. For me, I would pass on Faith, and I would have some more reason.
posted by Pavan @ 10:34 AM
2 comments
2 Comments:
yeh im back heh ....
faith ... hmm ... faith to me doesn't seem all that subjective as does 'fairness' .... faith can have a relative universal definition whereas fairness is completely perspective bound .....
What is faith? Faith is a firm belief in someone. Why do we usually believe in someone else? Because it makes our lives easier ... to depend on someone else completely for answers ... takes away our need to stress over making the right decisions at all times ... we believe in someone who we think would be able to take care of that decision making process for us and AS A RESULT, we'll be relatively at ease - stress free - life would be easier. Why does everyone need a companion in their life to spend their life with? someone to rely upon? a companion to share secrets with. a companion who you dont have to pretend around? a companion who lends you an ear at all times when you need it? ALL OF US have this innate need to have someone like that in our lives. NO ONE can live all their life by themselves. If one does, then he/she is really not enjoying what life is all about ...
so technically, that to me is faith ... where we trust someone enough to the point that we subconsciously expect them to take care of us so that we are stress free ..... that's exactly what we do with God too .... Praying doesn't bring about results. If i sit here and pray that i become a millionaire without having my butt at all, u and me both know that chances of that happening are next to none ...... BUT praying does give me mental peace .... it gives me a false assurance that someone is taking care of me .... i prayed and now everything will be taken care of. in your example, your faith in your teacher COULD've been misplaced cuz of your bad judgment ..... but faith in God is seldom misplaced cuz we create a version of God in our heads .... an imaginary friend, he is to us. ... every relgion preaches and most of us accept that God is everywhere ... there is no vacuum in the world ... it's all god ... there is god within me, within u, between me and the monitor , in the empty glass sitting on my table ... God is everywhere I see .... it's like a blanket .. a cushion all around me ... if EVER i am in any sticky situation, all i do is close my eyes and remind myself that God is here .. with me, around me and trust me, i feel better instantaneously! did god do something? nah, it's my mental state. just knowing that someone is here to protect me, take care of me, and to give me strength to continue on .... it's relaxing.
I just recently had a car accident. car totalled ... and i came out of it without a scratch! at first, yes, i was shaken up ... but when i thought of it with a different perspective that it could've been a lot worse .... that God really did save me ..... i was feeling a lot better! i have no regrets of losing my car ... just gratefulness for being alive. Did God really save me? Maybe he did, maybe he didn't ..... but the fact that i have FAITH that God did protect me, makes my life heck a lot easier ..... i don't stress myself over silly materialistic things such as loss of a car, loss of money .... im happy with how thngs are ... the only thought and ideal that i live by is "If God gave me birth, He will take care of me." ..... trust me, it works like a magic potion to make the QUALITY of my life a lot better ... the way i perceive and view things are in a positive light at all times. :)
That's what Faith is to me ...... internal happiness from having Faith in one you can trust ... especially God, who is not human to make humanlly errors .... so our faith can never be misplaced in Him .... there is always something good hidden in whatever we think as bad ... maybe worse was in store than whatever did happen to us ... maybe god did let us off easy and we dont realize it ...... u never know .... it's all a mystery ..... faith is not the solution to the mystery but sure is a step towards its solution ... u don't feel as lost .... u just have faith in him and keep on walking in the winding path that we call life.
shiatza, i wrote too much again! i shall definitely write about this topic sooner or later on my blog as well heh ... http://ineptcritic.blogspot.com ... keep tabs ;)
Name is Rai ... Roop Rai :p
Cheers Pavan
correction:
Praying doesn't bring about results. If i sit here and pray that i become a millionaire without MOVING (not having hehe) my butt at all, u and me both know that chances of that happening are next to none .
Post a Comment
<< Home