Faith: An Examination

Many of those around you would like you to believe that faith is "simply choosing to believe something" or how the piece of Mormon propaganda goes "faith is knowing the sun will rise lighting each new day". Trying to make the argument that "we can't really know anything, so everything is really about faith".

Oh religion... your survival always depends on the belittlement of human beings.

Obviously there is something more to establishing beliefs other then simply making a choice. Other wise there can be critics for what any one believes because one choice is as likely as the other. This something we use to determine if arguments are more valid then the other is called truth. Truth is determined by the degree of conformity with reality.

Perhaps my own personal experience with over coming faith my be useful.

These are the first premises I came up with as I first started to question my faith:

• Whatever I believe it must be sincere.
• Sincerity requires truth.
• A belief in god should be sincere other wise it is simply a cultural prejudice.

When concerns such as this are brought up the faithful have a "solution". In Mormon culture it is called "personal revelation" in others it is probably called something else, but the idea is the same, you receive some kind of "message from god manifesting the truthfulness of religion X and/or god Y".

I applied my principles to this challenge that my religion offered me and this is the premise I kept in mind.

• If my "personal revelation" is sincere then I must know that it is authentic and not my mind playing tricks with me. (religious people should be completely open to this considering that they always question the minds ability).

In short I did not ever get an answer and defiantly not one that I could know for a fact was from God, nor have I ever met some one honestly look me in the face and tell me that they have. They always resort back to "faith".

However the main point I am trying to make is not that I never got an answer so therefore religion is false. The main point I would like to make is about sincerity and its relationship to faith.

All those advocating religion always switch between these two arguments. Faith some times and the "message from god" the other times. However these "arguments" are not compatible.

In order for a belief to be sincere you must know that it is true. If I said I love you but really deep inside I didn't know... I just kind of hope that it was true, then that would not be a sincere statement. So then the faithful advocate "message from god" idea, however if you are going to be sincere you must know that the message was from god, and if you know that the message was from god, then there is no need for faith.

take a moment to sink this in.

Do you now see that faith based beliefs and sincere beliefs are inherent opposites of one another? Sincerity requires and acknowledgement of truth, faith requires nothing. A sincere person does not simply choose to believe something, he examines reason and evidence, he questions everything, he puts in effort, he does not only look at one alternative. Can you honestly say this is what religion has ever done? Has ever advocated?

Can you honestly look me in the face and say religion advocates sincerity?

So what is faith then? It is cultures way of making prejudices seem noble (this is very comparable to patriotism). Faith is not a choice based on reason and evidence but a choice made despite reason and evidence. A choice made as a full on attack on reason and evidence.

Can we not look in ourselves and see what God is? What religion is? What faith is? Fear blocks our minds form examining these things honestly. But when you look deep in... when you truly question yourself and everything you believe, you will find out exactly what these things are... An absurdity created by culture. We created god, now we must get rid of him.

God vs Individualism

For a man in my position the issue of "intelligent design" is utterly irrelevant. Proposing that the universe was created by intelligence 1: doesn't answer anything (from where did this intelligence come from?) and 2: there is no reason to believe this intelligence was god.  Yet this is always asserted, which makes it clear that these creation ideas are simply accuses for asserting cultural prejudices.

The argument is always as fallows: "We don't know where the universe came from, so it  must have been the god that I already believed in"

This "argument" shows the kind of corruption we are dealing with. It is as if they are saying "thank god! I don't have the question my beliefs". Alas! mankind once again has used philosophy to evade philosophy.

These advocates of intelligent design have exposed religion exactly for what it is.  For it is that great corrupting force upon the individual, the dead weight every man must carry, it is this evil thing we call culture—the anti-human!

What is religion other then an aspect of culture?  What is culture other then the oppression of the individual? and finally my thesis: what is god other then the compensation for the damage done to the individual by culture?

Culture is a plague upon individualism and the health of mankind. Culture leaves mankind in a state of pessimism (as it should be) but the anti-human must compensate for this pessimism if it wishes to survive.  It must overcome this natural urge to debunk anything that attacks at the very nature of man, or in other words, it must hide its doing from the immune system of man kind. What is it that culture offers to hid this sickness: God.

God compensates for this miserable life culture provides by offering an "after life".  God compensates for our broken self-esteem and self trust by giving us "love". God compensates for "the inadequacy of reason and evidence" by offering "faith".

It is now clear, the more broken man is, the greater his need is for god.

If a man enjoys his life he has not need for a after life.  If man believes in him self he has no need for "god's love". If man does not abandon his senses and his reason then he has no need for faith!

The worth and effectiveness of the individual and the need for god are inherent opposites. God is a concept created by culture to compensate for what it has destroyed. Witness the sickness my friends.

Any omnipotent being could not endorse this absurdity called "god". So we see, that any kind of being that religion claims, could not possibly claim religion!

If the universe was "designed" it was not by god.  Because god is nothing more then a creation of this corrupt entity called culture to tame mankind, make him predicable, and make him exploitable.

Drugs: Evasion of Self

The blogs that I always get the most hostility for are about animal rights, and drugs. So I suppose I would like to say to those of you that do drugs, please feel free to disagree with me, but I would hope you will take this blog with as much self honesty as possible and I will try to do the same with any comments you offer me.

Most people are against drug use (when I say drugs I include drinking) for various healthy reasons which I endorse of course. It is more then clear that drugs are nothing more then choosing self indulgence over health. But the true reason I am opposed to drugs (in practice not in law) is not a matter of physical health, but mental health.

At one point I knew a girl that smoked weed from time to time, she was curious of course about why I didn't smoke. I replied with the usual response of "its not healthy" however she assured me that weed has very minimal health risks (which is entirely false, but I didn't know this at the time) I simply shrugged this off but later as I was by my self I had to truly ask "if a drug truly wasn't unhealthy or addictive would I use it?"

I pondered about this for some time, and the conclusion that I came to was no, I would not.

It is our consciousness that defines us as alive. It is our consciousness that defines us human. And the point of any drug is to alter that consciousness... to separate your self from reality.

I suppose I mostly just wanted to pose the question... that if your social relationships with people if founded on altering your consciousness... doesn't that imply that you don't honestly enjoy these peoples company? doesn't that imply that you are hiding from something? That your relationship with reality is not what you would like it to be? I can see no other conclusion other then this.

I had said before that the party scene sickens me because people do not go there to honestly enjoy each others company but to feed off each other. Everyone's intelligence and humanity goes to zero at these empty gatherings. Girls act dumber, guys get more competitive, and it all becomes nonsense. But then to add on top of that drugs? An alternation of consciousness? Everything that makes us human, and beautiful is destroyed.

I truly have to ask... what are you people hiding from? Do you hate your self so much that you fall to these pathetic and empty social gatherings? Do you hate your relationship with reality so much that have to find peace in separating your consciousness from it?

I don't do drugs, and I don't party because I enjoy sincere people and a sincere relationship with reality.

The Anatomy of Corruption

Perhaps the greatest crime done by human thought is the separation of meaning from individuals, and the application of virtue to culture. Though it is hard to blame the intellectuals for misleading us because nearly all of us have committed the same crime. We have all given our loyalty to the culture, but as children did we really have a choice? Any resistance to our parents who were already corrupted by culture was nothing sort of futile. We were forced to let the culture corrupt us, and so very few of us ever break free again... So few of us find that inner child within us that was confident and free!

It is out of this emptiness that culture and collectivism grows. We hate ourselves so we fear standing alone. We become parasites just looking to suck the smallest amount of life out of the person next us. For this is what culture is: a leech fest. Co-dependence and broken minds never daring to step out side of the self proclaimed boundaries of the group.

Here, in the hatred of self is the worship of the collective born.

Culture offers us a false sense of purpose and belonging in exchange for unquestioning loyalty. Any hope of filling this emptiness dies when we are willing to settle for religion and nonsense. Because our loyalty to the group means we must give up our loyalty to truth! But we substitute belonging for truth (for more on this subject read my blog Truth vs. Belonging).

The individual is destroyed.

Once a loyalty to truth is minimal (existence would be impossible if there was not any respect for truth) the exploitation of man is optimal. And this is where we find the unholy marriage of culture, and "authority".

In the same way the individual gives his loyalty to culture, culture give its loyalty to authority. However the reasons for the submission are different. The culture offers belonging, "authority" offers "protection" and "needs" in exchange for loyalty. The illusion of authority is now born.

The monster has just grown teeth.

Now we are faced with war, the police state, exploited fear, and genocide. All which are ridiculous if human beings would simply see other human beings as individuals rather then cultures, countries and religions.

I have said it before and I say it again.

No Gods.

No Governments.

No Cultures.

Only individuals. Only loyalties to truth! Those things are only products of the emptiness within us. A fear of standing alone.

We are owned by nothing! Truth is our only master, and we must come to terms with it which is only possible when we let these empty things go. It is our relationship with truth that sets us free, not religions, not governments, not cultures.