Is Anyone Else Curious?

By -
Blog #9
                                                                             Ok so I found this image awhile ago and have been curious about it ever since. I am curious about what people's first thoughts were when they read it, and I am curious about why and how exactly this can be true (I am by no means questioning that it is true, I agree with him wholeheartedly, I am just wondering how it can be possible? I always thought that the fact that you can't actually "see God" is one of the reasons why most people like religion or gravitate towards it, and that it becomes more about faith and hope than anything else.
 But it is clear that humans have the inherent desire to feel and prove things to be true or false, which we see first hand by this silly example in the quote above...and we see in a lot of skeptics about religion. "how can you believe in God, has he ever spoken to you?". For some religious people they do believe that God has spoken to them...but what about the ones who don't think he has? Are these the same people that feel the need to brush their fingers on the wall to see if the paint is in fact wet? Or are these the people that would believe the person that told them about the wet paint and continue on with their day without having to check. Perhaps the difference between getting told that the paint is wet and believing strongly in an "invisible man in the sky who created the universe" is that in one situation someone is telling you to believe something and in the other situation it is you choosing to hold on to your own personal beliefs. 
We definitely tend to trust ourselves more than other people, well I would like to think so and when someone tells us that paint is wet we probably trust them to some extent, but make the conscious decision to verify it because as we all learn, people lie... and as we go through life more and more we realize that we have the strong desire to find out for ourselves and see with our own eyes, or hear with our own ears, etc that something is in fact reality. This is most likely the same psychological principle that makes some people not believe they are being cheated on in a relationship, until they finally see it with their own eyes, even if they subconsciously knew the entire time what was really going on. 
....But if we adopted religion on our own accord, we most likely have experienced little moments where we feel our beliefs have been verified, and if not, it is most likely that we like the fact that we can't verify our beliefs....that it isn't as easy as reaching over to see if the paint is wet when it comes to God. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Amidst the Pandemic

By -
Image
I think having the opportunity to take Smells and Bells and then experiencing a worldwide pandemic came with good timing. Oftentimes, we’re so rushed to get from one one place to another that we miss out on what happens around us. We’re so accustomed to the lifestyle of being busy that it has become the norm for many of us. However, the pandemic has forced us to slow down. We’re now appreciating everything that we had previously taken for granted and noticing things in our surroundings that we have never noticed before.  Take this quarantining/social distancing as an opportunity to be more aware of what you experience through the senses. I don’t think my senses have necessarily heightened over the past 5 weeks, but I am actively making the choice to pay more attention to what I see, hear, touch, taste, and smell. I like going on nature/mindfulness walks and basking in the sunshine out in my backyard. This morning, I could hear a faint noise from the wind, hear the birds chirping, f
Read more

Food in the Afterlife

By -
Image
In Religion in the Kitchen: Cooking, Talking, and the Making of Black Atlantic Traditions , Perez talks of Ashabi and her grandchildren providing food offerings to their ancestors. This immediately reminded me of the practice of food sacrifice in early China. I've taken Chinese language classes for about 7 years now and in one of the lessons, we learned about food as well as the history of food in Chinese culture. Ashabi and her grandchildren would give food offerings to their ancestors every day. This included nine beverages (coffee, liquor, and water mixed with sugar and molasses) and nine square pieces of coconut topped with red palm oil and guinea pepper. The offerings would also include whatever food was dropped on the ground. In their house, food dropping on the floor signified more than it would in common American households. It signified that the ancestors wanted that food and had willingly made it fall to the floor. They also used dishware that had been chipped which was
Read more