This time: "Science flies you to the moon; religion flies you into buildings"
Years ago I may have applauded along with the crowd at such a comment but nowadays I sigh at how my left-brained friends manage to so completely miss the point, which is one about belief.
Now, I'm agnostic; I see no evidence for the existence of a supreme being so I do not believe in one, but at the same I cannot disprove the existence of one either (if that sounds wishy-washy to you bear in mind I have a similar stance on the subject of the easter bunny).
Where I part company with many of my other godless friends is that I think that a life without faith is likely to be empty and unfulfilling. I just personally don't agree with religious faith.
To explain, as a hypnotist I feel I have more than a little insight into the human mind's capacity for belief. Let's face it, we're all capable of unquestioningly believing crazy things, evolution has wired us up that way, and the most impressive thing about belief is the way that it affects the nature of reality. I don't think that any kind of thinking is going to affect the objective universe, such as allow people to use telekinesis to unbend corkscrews, open a channel of communication to the deceased or make deities pop into objective existence, but bear in mind that none of us actually lives in an objective universe. You, and everybody you meet, live in a subjective universe, which is just your mind's interpretation of what your senses are telling you.
You are responsible for generating your perception of reality.
To the faithless the only way to think is one where belief follows evidence. This is fine if you want to work out something objective, such as calculate the age of the universe, but I think it's important to realise there are other areas in life where the scientific mindset doesn't have all the answers and can actually lead to mediocrity and misery. Those all too real entities in our worlds such as confidence, happiness, fulfillment are not objective quantities.
Faith, to me, is to place belief before evidence. Successful people, happy people, achievers, don't look for evidence that they will be successful, happy or get what they want; rather they believe it first. When we believe something our mind and body work overtime in thousands of imperceptible ways to make that thing true for us. This is why, for example, athletes will actually spend time just imagining perfect performance.
I think that a little faith is missing from a lot of peoples' lives. There are too many people waiting for evidence of the things they want from life so that they can then believe that they can have them, and in doing so they place the cart before the horse.
Faith and relationships
Here's an example that's been on my mind for the last few days.
I recently read a book entitled He's just not that into you by Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo (two of the minds behind Sex and the City). It's a self-help book aimed at women wanting to understand men, but I was curious to get a bit of perspective and indeed a lot of it could apply to both sexes. It covers all sorts of different situations that might come up but there is a common theme, which is that there are times when by far the best thing to do is to cut the guy loose and move on.
This is a lot easier to say than to do of course, for both men and women, because this scene is set against the backdrop of what I've heard called, rather aptly, "the great emotional depression". This is a concept I read about in a book called If I'm so wonderful why am I still single? by Susan Page (both of these volumes reside on my allocated "scare women away" bookshelf). Page comes to a similar conclusion as Behrendt, that people perceive their own self-worth to be so low and good partners to be in such short supply that they stay in better-than-nothing relationships lest they never find anyone else. Low self esteem everywhere; it's like the economic depression of the 1930s except it's not money that's not circulating freely, it's singles.
A lot of my friends are couples and when two people are really good for one another there's a chemistry that I think is just wonderful to see and this somehow transcends my jealousy. They remind me why I am single.
There are no two ways about it, being single is very difficult at times but there are worse things than being single. There is, for example, being in a relationship that isn't going anywhere and yet holding on in hope that there is a future, somehow things will get better, or kidding oneself that this is as good as it's ever going to get. The problem is that this isn't so apparent from the inside; it's very difficult to admit to oneself that there are no butterflies and that low self esteem is at least partly responsible for cementing a relationship together.
I know lukewarm better-than-nothing relationships can be comfortable but the terrible truth is this: whilst someone is invested in such mediocrity one they are closing themselves off to finding something truly amazing. That person with the capacity to truly melt their heart may just show up, see they're unavailable, sigh, shrug shoulders and move on to pastures new without them even realising.
This is where we come back to faith; to choose to be single in todays world is a massive leap of faith. It's about knowing what you want, what you truly desire, and believing without question that somewhere out there at some point in the future you will find it. Keeping the faith through the inevitable lonely evenings is difficult; keeping it in the face of romantic opportunities that are admittedly agreeable but fall short of ones needs is even more difficult.
There's no way to prove that special person is out there; it's about having faith.
Faith in oneself
Heraclitus, a greek philosopher, once said "Character is Destiny".
The people who live truly remarkable lives suffer the same setbacks and circumstances as anyone. What makes these people different? Well the difference comes from inside of them in the form of their set of beliefs.
I think it's important to decide who you are and where you want to go with your life, be it in your career, relationships, or any other goals.
If you believe, truly believe, that you can achieve great things your mind and body will move mountains to make this true. If you decide that it is in your character you will put yourself out there, get the knowledge, take the risks, make the mistakes, earn the experience and learn the lessons to get where you want to go.
The way to a great destiny is through character and a great character comes through belief.
Faith is a wonderful thing.
