Spiritual Awakening
I had something of a spiritual awakening this weekend.
I used to harbor a lot of resentment and spite toward organized religion. I believed it to be a method of social control, keeping its followers blind to their surroundings, tying them to an outdated, dead ideal.
Before I proceed I should clarify the meaning of two terms:
Blind belief: Something believed or accepted as true, especially a particular tenet or a body of tenets accepted by a group of persons. This is belief based on authority rather than subjective experience.
Faith: Something that is believed not by virtue of fact or evidence, but by heart and soul. Something stemming from direct personal experience rather than cultural influence.
My belief system is an engine driven by faith. I believe that our universe is composed of energy-scattered matter-all parts of the same whole. Simply put, we are all different compositions of the same force. This is similar to many other belief systems, but I don't believe that this "force" or "energy" is sentient in any way. For that reason I don't consider it to be a deity and don’t refer to it as a “god”.
I used to practice sorcery. The idea was that through the use of material objects I could manipulate other objects or influence people. In the beginning, it worked. Through the use of symbolic items, verbal chanting, and various other tools I saw very real results.
I worked through to the understanding I have now backwards.
After I had been practicing the art of sorcery for some time, I came to a realization. I didn't need the components, the symbolism, or the words. Just faith. It was my belief in those items that drove the end result to success. I realized this because once I tricked someone. I told them that I was going to curse them. I didn't, but the next day they were violently ill. Their faith in my curse drove it to success.
I started experimenting with it, and realized that faith alone drove the power of what some people call magic. I have owned slaves that had complete faith in me. They believed in me, and held complete trust in my words. Manipulating their faith, I was able to view many results to further sway my understanding. I have worked with volunteers for hypnotic induction to much the same effect. In order for hypnosis to be effective, faith is required. The recipe is: 1) misdirected attention, 2) belief, 3) expectation, and 4) imagination. Once this recipe is met, the sky is the limit.
That's where my truth was born. I realized that there is no god, only faith. I realized that the idea of spell-casting was not based on magical talismans or charged stones. The true instrument of power was faith all along.
My spite for organized religion began there. Not only had the idea of God been outdated, it had been completely destroyed (in my mind). I decided that any believer in God was weak, using it as an icon for their faith, as a crutch to explain the elusive, or as a system through which to morally justify any thinkable action.
If faith was a machine that could turn the wheels of reality, it was no wonder that mass congregates of believers saw the blessing of “miracles”. I believed using any deity as a focus was weak because through experimentation I realized that the power originated from oneself, not from any apparent external source.
This weekend... I realized that it doesn't matter what you have faith in. Faith is a tool. I don't need to go around destroying other people's gods... as long as that faith serves a purpose and helps them to become better people, I have no reason to strike it down or condemn it. Spite and hate are out of place. I don’t have time for them anymore.
Following this realization I started biking again. Last night I rode for 2.5 hours and I feel GREAT. For the first time in a long time, I feel like I'm really getting in touch with myself again.
I used to harbor a lot of resentment and spite toward organized religion. I believed it to be a method of social control, keeping its followers blind to their surroundings, tying them to an outdated, dead ideal.
Before I proceed I should clarify the meaning of two terms:
Blind belief: Something believed or accepted as true, especially a particular tenet or a body of tenets accepted by a group of persons. This is belief based on authority rather than subjective experience.
Faith: Something that is believed not by virtue of fact or evidence, but by heart and soul. Something stemming from direct personal experience rather than cultural influence.
My belief system is an engine driven by faith. I believe that our universe is composed of energy-scattered matter-all parts of the same whole. Simply put, we are all different compositions of the same force. This is similar to many other belief systems, but I don't believe that this "force" or "energy" is sentient in any way. For that reason I don't consider it to be a deity and don’t refer to it as a “god”.
I used to practice sorcery. The idea was that through the use of material objects I could manipulate other objects or influence people. In the beginning, it worked. Through the use of symbolic items, verbal chanting, and various other tools I saw very real results.
I worked through to the understanding I have now backwards.
After I had been practicing the art of sorcery for some time, I came to a realization. I didn't need the components, the symbolism, or the words. Just faith. It was my belief in those items that drove the end result to success. I realized this because once I tricked someone. I told them that I was going to curse them. I didn't, but the next day they were violently ill. Their faith in my curse drove it to success.
I started experimenting with it, and realized that faith alone drove the power of what some people call magic. I have owned slaves that had complete faith in me. They believed in me, and held complete trust in my words. Manipulating their faith, I was able to view many results to further sway my understanding. I have worked with volunteers for hypnotic induction to much the same effect. In order for hypnosis to be effective, faith is required. The recipe is: 1) misdirected attention, 2) belief, 3) expectation, and 4) imagination. Once this recipe is met, the sky is the limit.
That's where my truth was born. I realized that there is no god, only faith. I realized that the idea of spell-casting was not based on magical talismans or charged stones. The true instrument of power was faith all along.
My spite for organized religion began there. Not only had the idea of God been outdated, it had been completely destroyed (in my mind). I decided that any believer in God was weak, using it as an icon for their faith, as a crutch to explain the elusive, or as a system through which to morally justify any thinkable action.
If faith was a machine that could turn the wheels of reality, it was no wonder that mass congregates of believers saw the blessing of “miracles”. I believed using any deity as a focus was weak because through experimentation I realized that the power originated from oneself, not from any apparent external source.
This weekend... I realized that it doesn't matter what you have faith in. Faith is a tool. I don't need to go around destroying other people's gods... as long as that faith serves a purpose and helps them to become better people, I have no reason to strike it down or condemn it. Spite and hate are out of place. I don’t have time for them anymore.
Following this realization I started biking again. Last night I rode for 2.5 hours and I feel GREAT. For the first time in a long time, I feel like I'm really getting in touch with myself again.