a cheap sort of top dressing

[crazilla]

For a few years now i've refined my distaste for religion from a childhood disinterest in the fairy tales of recent millennia (unfair in contrast to my growing appreciation for those of antiquity) to a a refined and scrutinized intolerance for the stunting and controlling role faith (meaning baseless belief) currently plays in human affairs on all

Comments

[annanaka]

Meh. Having faith in people is a tricky little thing. No matter what you choose to call it, without it the world is sort of hopeless. I might agree with you that it's just some form of optimism, the hope or wish or thought or belief or whatever that all will be well, that people are good, that good things are supposed to happen to us, etc. Love deals heavily with all of this, making it all the more muddled and rationally inexplicable, as people in love are totally irrational and can't explain anything. =P

My "optimist" belief and attachment to Austin can probably be, on some level, equated with faith, but I'd hate for you to label me as unreasonable and irresponsible and all the other stuff you mention above, as although it requires much faith to stick by someone when things are really hard (especially if its their fault), there's also some type of logic that goes into the argument. i.e. Is this person worth my time? Why? Why not? Does this problem have a solution? If I put up with his crap today, is he going to be good tomorrow? And maybe part (or all?) of love is finding someone whom you can enjoy while rationalizing away all of their faults or convincing yourself that you can tolerate them...

How very bleak all of this is... =P

[crazilla]

You make a good point! I might be expected to argue that love comprises very rational behavior, in that people who have fallen in love have in some way verified their trust and good natures to each other. But this is certainly not how it works.

In these terms, i understand love more as a decision than a feeling (though the feelings are crucial) or belief; you love someone when you've acknowledged their faults, even possibly disastrous ones, and resolved to pursue the relationship despite these factors working against it. By making that decision, you champion responsibility over faith; you accept the necessary likelihood of failure and act in accordance, rather than denying it and acting as though no problems exist.

To "rationalize away" the bad parts sounds to me like denying them or ignoring them. If your meaning is closer to looking past them or "filing" them, then i think we're not far removed. ^_^

[annanaka]

I think there's a lot of gray area between truly acknowledging and accepting faults and "filing" them and just denying their existence. I also think that most people float around somewhere in this gray area rather than being on one extreme or the other.

[crazilla]

This is also true. I suppose what i mean is more which end one strives for, rather than where in the gray area one's actions lie (provided one isn't just utterly unsuccessful and the two are far removed).

Of course, this may just be me still trying to imbue the conversation with optimism. . . .