podeamfaith and beliefs and general snobbery
Sitting in the library, waiting for my photo essay to be printed an mounted on foam-board (damned thing needs a full four hours, or so they told me), I decided to use the time to catch up on reading some new material; I’ve been re-reading what I have at home/on the computer so many times, I’m pretty sure I could recite chunks ad verbatim (and ad nauseam).
Sam Harris’ The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason is a very amusing read, along with informative. Dry it may be, but lines like the following had me grinning – to the discomfort of those around me:
Jesus Christ – who, as it turns out, was born a virgin, cheated death, and rose bodily into the heavens – can now be eaten in the form of a cracker.
A line concluding a quotation on the Holy Sacrament, I could not but laugh at the caustic brushing off of blind belief (as was displayed by the mentioned-quote).
Reading Harris’ writing reminded me of something I read, about snobbery I think I must agree that I am an incredible snob.
My being a snob doesn’t mean I think I’m superior to other beings I come in contact with (that’s derivative from my being am arrogant bastard); I just realise how inept I am – societally, intellectually, emotionally, spiritually, and various-other-deep-ally-s.
It has been said that no truth can be proved correct; only wrong. I fully subscribe to that; the individual firm in his or her own personal world, built on a foundation of personal truths, ignores this. Cloistered that person becomes, blind.
But blindness comes coupled with safety. Circumstance has destroyed my truths, and I’m slowly building up new ones; with the liberation that offers, I am also painfully exposed to the world.
I don’t begrudge that; my eyes have been opened and my mind aged. My ears listen, my mouth debates, my soul mistrusts; I’ve learnt one thing – never hold on to truths too rigidly.
Man proceeds with life, and men break down universally held tenets of knowledge with new discovery, offering naught but uncertainties in place.
History built soaring towers of intellect, and contemporaneousness reveal them for the flim-flams they are. More applicable perhaps to truth in general, but personal beliefs too can be thusly influenced.
Right now though, I believe that if I do not get off this seat soon and get myself some dim sum (I found this place, pictures coming), my non-esixtent derriere would remain that way for ever.