THE FAITH PARADOX

An essay discussing faith and religion (or the lack of it)

Here's a paradox.

Whenever there's been an evil controlling dictator marching across the pages of history he has, in his wake and as powerful as the armed forces he has gathered around him, insisted that the people drop their own beliefs, their own ideals, their own prejudices, everything that marks them as individuals, and follow his example in everything.

Hitler was like that and if he didn't like you then you didn't last long. Go back through history and you'll soon discover he wasn't the first. Even the British monarch Henry VIII and his daughters who followed him onto the throne were like that. Queen Elizabeth, that much admired lady who proved herself to be as mentally capable as any man, found that her more stubborn opposition was less effective if their heads were removed via the executioner's axe.

Capital punishment has, then, been a means to extinguish opposition down many long years.

Such dictators are largely looked upon as evil, though sycophants may well have crawled at their feet, toadying for all they were worth. Toadying was, after all, a means of staying alive especially if, under a different monarch, the toad may have expressed different opinions.

So the paradox.

In our age, one that is more enlightened than just about any other in history, there is a large element of individuals who are fed up to the back teeth with the remnants of the Roman Emperor Constantine's last ditch attempt at keeping that empire together by using a strange and minor new religion that was struggling to be taken seriously in the East as a lever.

That religion was grasped, changed, moulded, its texts edited down to less than a quarter of their original number, and made Roman. Then it was imposed on the rest of the world via the word and the sword in much the same way as dictators have used brutality to impose their own often selfishly cynical views.

So it is sad (and here's that paradox) when those who have seen the light and have personally shoved that old set of odd beliefs into the back of their minds where they properly belong because they can't agree with them (like I have), don't seem to be able get to grips with the notion that not everyone might see things the way they do and might not want to shove anything into the back of his or her mind.

It's just a thought. Nobody has, as yet, taken out a patent on belief.

Reviews

[Nailah Baniti]

Peace Peter, wow, you've summarized the madness quite well. It was well-written and intriguing. I suppose it's beliefs or be life, passionate write, heartful. Thank you, wake-up the world!

[Peter Rogerson]

Thanks you for your input, Nailah (lovely name, by the way!) Wake-up world indeed!

[Nailah Baniti]

Peace, Amen, brother :)