Sodom,
Would you entertain the idea that "faith" is more like inductive reasoning
than "powerles[sness]" or "brainwashing". It seems that faith is like a
"feeling" one gets when one reads a lot of general statements about
something...they don't really add up to a conclusion but they add up to a
certainty of sorts. Or, would you accept that faith is a "social
metaphysic" of sorts--like a mob mentality; perhaps faith is the
*conclusion* that a group of people reach but this conclusion is not
available for one person to state in so many words?
As to faith being inductive: It seems that when you ask for details,
christians can't supply them...but they quote lots of obscure texts (as if
this explained something...and maybe it does, TO THEM; so, maybe with
enough of the general principals you get an impression of something bigger
that [maybe] is too complicated to put into logical statements).
As to being a social phenomenon: If you ask them to explain something to
you they will say "Go ask my preacher" or "Come to Church"...so maybe this
"thing" that they are talking about is in a different symbolic language, of
sorts, which takes many people with various symbolic understandings to
interpret--AS A GROUP; but just maybe this type of logic takes
mathematicians, and musicians, and mechanics, and scholars, etc. all working
togeather to interpret.
Brett
P.S.
You seem too pre-judged toward science and against religion to ACTUALLY be a
level 5...I would think that you are dichotomous (so would be a multiple of
level 2's, minus the original conception of self-as-god...minus the ONE). I
also see you as having substance without form--that is you mirror a level
one without having the quality of oneness. You are most likely a level 3
formed of pairs...and therefore a level 6--though perhaps minus the first
pair due to their resemblence to a unified understanding; and so, you would
resemble (or mimic) a level 5 while attempting to destroy their confidence
in themself...their level one quality.
BR
Returning,
rBERTS%n
Rabble Sonnet Retort
Levity is the soul of wit.
Melville D. Landon. (Eli Perkins)