Quote:
Originally Posted by Livia
It is impossible to explain what faith is. It's like trying to explain what love is. I recall reading something that explained faith as being like a blind man flying a kite. He can't see the kite, but he can feel it pulling on the string.
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What a wonderful analogy! I really like that Livia, thank you for sharing
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I was not brought up in a religious household, I'm not of a religion and the only times I've ever been inside any religious institution have been when I was at school and they took us to the church for in-service days. I couldn't even tell you which affiliation the church had, nor do I know very much about Christianity or other religions.
What I do believe, however, stems from my reading of many different great classic works of literature. I remember being 12 years old in a biology lesson at school and being taught about how, if there are too many rabbits one spring, there will be an increase in the number of animals that prey upon rabbits and an increase in diseases that kill rabbits. Nature is constantly balancing itself out. For me, that theory extends to humans. There are WAY too many people in the world, so as a means to balance that imbalance, there has been a rise in the following: incurable (and new) diseases, homosexuality and infertility. I've got nothing to back this up other than my own personal belief in this idea, but to me, it makes sense. People didn't die of cancer hundreds of years ago, because they were dying in wars and of flu outbreaks and of plagues and other ailments. Once our society developed enough to be able to combat these things, did we suddenly stop dying of mystery illnesses? No, the illnesses just got harder to cure. HIV, AIDS, many types of cancer... all of these, to me, seem like modern illnesses. Perhaps people used to die of cancer all the time, they just didn't know it at the time, but certainly it's become more prevalent in modern times. Nature killing people off makes sense. There are too many people in the world. Homosexuality is one surefire way to stop people from reproducing, but with scientific advances allowing even that to happen now, I reckon some new way of stopping people from becoming parents will rise up - leading me to my point about infertility. The existence of IVF alone suggests that infertility was considered a significant problem, so I wouldn't be too shocked if figures for that are on the constant rise, but I've not looked into it so I don't know.
So, to relate all this back to the question of the soul. I don't know if I believe in an all powerful God figure which judges everything we do and decides upon an eternity of happiness or horror for us - that seems to be a societal construct rather than an actual possibility. Why would that make any sense? How do you judge good behaviour and bad behaviour? There are so many shades of grey. Stealing medicine is a bad thing, but if it's to give it to your dying younger brother so that he will live, that is a good thing, right? Life is made up of these sorts of scenarios. It is impossible for someone to live a wholly good or a wholly bad life. I think a person's soul dictates what they are like, even from birth. My parents always tell me that when I was born, I opened my eyes almost immediately and was constantly looking around the hospital to see what was around me, and to this day I'm still a really inquisitive person, always learning new things and taking an interest in the world around me. You could argue that that is a learned behaviour, but my parents are adamant that I was like that from the day I was born, so was that just something I was destined to be? Part of life is trying to figure out what it's about, and I don't especially care if other people can completely refute my point of view, I'm quite pleased with my views on the soul/destiny/nature's law because they make sense and appeal to what I like to view the world as. This is an interesting thread Ammi, thanks for posting!