I have never understood faith. People tell me it’s faith to
believe that anything is going to happen that has chance of not happening. This
is not true, and it confuses faith with trust. Faith is the belief in
something despite the evidence. Trust is the belief in something because of the
evidence. The level of trust I have that a given action will result in a
predictable consequence is directly related to the percentage of times that
consequence occurs. I have the maximum trust in that when I hit the letter G
that letter will appear on my screen because it has always done so. My level of
trust can go down to zero from there.
I can attempt to fool myself by artificially increasing my
level of trust in something for the purpose of easing my mind. When shooting
pool for instance I will attempt to see a low percentage shot as easy,
artificially increasing the odds in my mind so that I may relax more. This does work
somewhat, but deep down I still know it was a shot that I’m only going to make
say once or twice out of ten attempts. Having faith does ease your mind, even
if it’s a forced delusion. I can only imagine how much so if I could completely
ignore the real odds.
Nothing supernatural has ever been proven to exist. When I
watch Ghost Hunters or any other paranormal television I see a comedy, not a
documentary. Every one of their evidences has been explained away. When a human
body is opened there is no bright light shooting out with angels singing, you
reveal a flawed biological machine that resembles many other species and does not defy explanation, and could
even now be significantly improved upon.
The differences between humans and the four top primates is
very small. The fact is there may be only a few small abilities that other
animals have and primates are missing, that if they had could lead to the development of other
exclusively human abilities like the desire to teach and understanding what
someone else is thinking in them. Paying attention to what someone else is trying to
tell you for instance is an ability that most every dog on the planet has and that
primates lack, could when boiled down to it, be the only thing that’s kept them
from becoming self-aware and on a similar path as ours. Over time their brains
would have grow larger and they would begin to build shelters and form
societies. Primates have already shown they can work together for the greater
good. There bodies would undergo small changes as a result of different needs
placed upon them, but they would always look like apes. So I trust that evolution
is how the species on this planet including humans developed because that’s
what the evidence tells me. I don’t have faith in it and it’s not a religion.
There are thousands of stories of people performing miracles
throughout history. Does that mean we’ve had thousands of gods walking among
us? No of course not. Is it odd that there would be only a few that became the
most famous? No it’s inevitable this would occur. Is it unusual or against
human nature that the most famous of these would be perpetuated then used by
those in power for their own reasons having nothing to do with truth? No it’s
been a favorite tool of leaders for all of recorded history. Is it likely that
only these most famous would be considered the only ones that were telling the
truth? Yes to even consider that the others were telling the truth would
marginalize the most famous.
So in light of all this is it more likely that Jesus was the
only one of these that was the son of a god, or that none of them were? How you
answer that is up to you but if you consider the odds it’s almost as likely the
letter P is going to pop up on the screen when I hit the letter G.
If I were to have faith in god I
would have to be capable of deluding myself completely and ignoring what logic
and the odds tell me and the fact that religion would exist regardless, I
have no idea how to do that. I would probably be happier if I could but I
can’t. I really don’t want to burn in
hell forever so to any of you whom has a personal relationship with god or his
son please have him come over and explain things, maybe even a quick tour of
heaven, because anything short of that and I’m scewed.