A Question of Faith

I’ve noticed that blogs usually involve the blogger posting a statement/opinion and people reacting to it. Less often they post a question and other people provide answers, today I’m doing the latter.

I want to ask people about faith, & Faith (note the use of the capital). I want to know what it means to them, what value it has to them in their own lives. I ask this because I see little value in faith myself, yet society at large, & even my close friends, place a great deal of stock in it. There seems to be some kind of intrinsic value in faith that I’ve missed. What is it? Please help me to understand.

BTW: I’ve been thinking about making this post for a while, but it was this particular Ozy & Mille strip that spurred me into action: http://www.ozyandmillie.org/2005/om20050822.html

Clarification

Hello again, Just thought the last post needed a bit of good'ol clarification, namely I need to define what I mean by Inteligent & Stupid (in the contex of the last post).

Every day we make decisions, many of those decisions are mundane, minor ones that we can get away with doing pretty much instinctively, but not all our decisions are that easy. There are many decisions that we make every day that ARE important, or at least more important than ones we can get away without thinking about. Everything from choosing to argue with a co-worker, to deciding wether or not to run a red light, to who you vote for. At the most basic level there are two ways of handling these decisions:

1. You can consider the various options, weighing up the pros & cons, thinking about the ramifications of each course of action, and then choosing the best option (as is deemed but the situation & personal priorities) available.

2. Alternatively you can ignore most of the possibilities, just grab the most obvious & easiest option (interestingly this is usually the option which has the least personal responsibility attached to it) and run with it.

‘1’ is the most intelligent way to handle decision making, while ‘2’ is the least intelligent (i.e. stupid) way. Sure, we are none of us perfect, & considering every option in any given situation is impossible, added to this is the limitation of time, but the closer each decision is to ‘1’ the more intelligent you are being when you make it.

It's a state of mind, Stupid.

Well, this is the post that I started my blog up to make (beware, I’m using the soapbox for this one). Let’s see, where to begin…

Well the other day someone made the comment that “people, en-mass, are stupid” and I though ‘yeah other people are stupid aren’t they’ (that’s my intellectual superiority complex acting up again), but then I really thought about it. The fact of the matter is, people aren’t stupid, the human animal is, but it’s very nature, intelligent. It isn’t because of some gross physical quality that we became the dominant (if not most populous) species on this planet; it was because of our intelligence. Sure, some people are born with a low intellectual capacity, but those people are the exception rather than the rule. Of-course, but the same token, we aren’t all geniuses, but the average person, those who comprise ‘The Masses’ are not so naturally limited that we can get away with assuming that they’re stupid.

(From here I’ll assume that I successfully made my above point)
That said though, there is still the perception that most people are stupid, and we have to ask ourselves where does that perception come from?

I think (I hate to use the shield of ‘this is my opinion’ but here goes) it is rooted in two things:
1. We like to believe that most people are stupid; it is a convenient excuse for the world being the way it is and it has the added bonus of pumping our own ego.

2. (and this is the big one) Most people do not actually behave as intelligently as they could. What we have is a problem, not of actual stupidity, but rather one of voluntary stupidity. This, I feel, (there’s that ‘opinion shield’ again) is born of a disturbing trend in modern, western society that says: stupidity is OK.

At its core intelligence is based on thinking for yourself, keeping yourself informed and making your decisions with the information you have while still acknowledging the limits of what you know.

However in the modern (not that the past was any better) world we are constantly surrounded by influences that are saying “don’t think for yourself, we’ll do it for you” After all you don’t have to think for your self, when your government will do it for you, or maybe it’s that guy on the current affairs program, after all he’s a reporter & he’s on TV, it’s so much easier to let him do your thinking instead. Better yet, there’s religion, all these nice & tidy little rules to live by, I need never think again, & if it ever doesn’t make sense and can ask my (insert title of religious leader here) or better yet I can have ‘Faith’ that its all part of ‘His’ plan. Then there’s the work environment, after all, you’re paid to work not think. Or commercials, remember the perfect life is out there, just buy what we tell you. And who need’s intelligence when diplomas can be bought.

(Takes a deep breath)

Sorry, I think I might have overdone that a bit, anyway I think I made my point. It needs to be noted that people falling prey to the above usually think they are being smart (after a fashion). However to further complicate matters there is the perception that stupidity itself is acceptable, even desirable, ‘ignorance is bliss’ after all. But just because it is ‘bliss’ doesn’t make it right. Is it OK to be stupid? no, not if you can be intelligent, we do not live in an age where the world will work properly if the populace is stupid. Democracy, the foundation of the modern world, only works if the people can make intelligent, informed choices, and we CAN, we are not cursed to be stupid, we are all intelligent, free-thinking individuals, we are human beings. Get out there people & THINK.

(Takes anouther deep breath)

Well, there is a lot more I could say, I think (and say it better), but that is enough for now. All reactions, responses & comments welcome.

Soooo, now i have a blog of my own. Hmmm, this should be interesing (at least for me). Lets see what they've given me to work with. Well, there is a web-interface as one would expect, and, ahh, there's a fence to sit on, a soapbox in the corner, some stones and a small glase house, a flamethower (looks dangerous, I think I'll leave that for latter), a shelf for the pieces of my mind, some heart shaped cuflinks, an axe and grindstone, ohh, and a kitchen sink, man, they got everything here.

Seriously; I will be using this to occasionally (don't expect anything regular) post my thoughts on the world and to present topics for disscussion. If you wish to reply to any of my posts please do so, I will not censor them, the only time i will delete a post is if it is a duplicate or is intollerably offensive. Well I suspose that's enough to begin with, Now! to the Grumble Mobile, Hazuhaaa!!