What is Faith? Faith is believing in something. Confident belief in the truth, value, or trustworthiness of a person, concept or idea. It is the mental acceptance of the truth or actuality of something. In its positive aspect, it is a belief in the favorable outcome of anything undertaken.
There are two kinds of faith. The first is a faith that is predicated on truth, and can be proven by experiment. The experiment that proves this truth is one that produces the same result every time. As an example, one might say two plus two makes five, but that does not make it true. In fact, upon hearing this, one might become convinced and even convince others that this is correct, and still this would not make it true.
The only possible way to get the correct answer to a mathematical problem is to conform to the established laws of mathematics, which are based upon truth. Therefore, in applying this law, you get the correct answer: two plus two equals four, at any time, at any place, and under any conditions. Truth.
The second is based upon ignorance, conjecture or supposition. This is a faith that has not been fully determined by tested experiment. No matter the fervor in its tenets, this professed faith is still in a state of doubt and uncertainty until empirical experiment can prove that it is either true, or reveal that it is false.
As an example, for five thousand years people believed implicitly that the world was flat. They had the utmost faith in their belief. Columbus came along, and, by experiment, proved that the world was round. Their earlier faith was based on ignorance, and an experiment proved that it was false. People had an untrue faith, exacerbated by the church, that the sun revolved around the earth, until Copernicus discovered the truth.
Over time, many other beliefs were held to be true as well, until they were proven to be false, and the debunking of conjecture and supposition continues to this day. Flawed and outmoded thought consensus, perpetuated by our fear and indolence, a trait of our human nature, causes us to steadfastly hold on to the security blanket of established orthodoxy. We let go only grudgingly when confronted with irrefutable scientific proof.
Faith may be bolstered by knowledge but that knowledge too may be true or false. After all, knowledge is the state of being aware of something, or the possession of information. It is very easy to be aware of something untrue, or to possess information that may prove to be false. Therefore, the old saying that ‘knowledge is power’ should be revised. Knowledge is power provided that it is based upon a truth, otherwise it may be a tremendous burden, a serious impediment, a decided hindrance, and a very present handicap to mental or spiritual development and progress.
And burdened is where we are today, handicapped by our misguided faith in the efficacy of our respective economies, the lack of credibility in our leaders, and the false idols of progress at whatever cost; and success no matter what it takes. We are entering a period in our collective consciousness where the next great paradigm shift in perceptions will leave most of us still thinking ‘the world is flat’ and that we can just continue to keep on keeping on. Many unwary will be left devastated.
And this is where the laws of the universe come into play. God as all pervasive energy is invisible and all of his laws are invisible. No one can see life, spirit, thought, electricity, atomic energy, or any form of power. All we see is the manifestation of those powers. Mankind, despite his arrogance, does not create power. He merely discovers it and appropriates it to his own use, sometimes wisely, sometimes not. He has harnessed electrical power, mathematical power, chemical power, atomic power, and many other forms of power. But the greatest of all power is treated with only a passing glance, and that is spiritual power.
Many of today’s thinkers, scientists and physicists are beginning to express the view that the greatest discoveries going forward will be along spiritual lines. Here is a force which history now clearly teaches has been the greatest power in the development of mankind. Yet, so far, we have merely been playing with it and have never seriously studied it as we have the physical forces.
Now that we have an understandable conception of truth and its application to other forms of energy, the time has come, in survival and in evolutionary terms, to devote more time to discovering the underlying truth of spiritual power. No doubt someone will try to find a way to pervert it for personal gain or power, but this truth, by its very nature, may not be so amenable to selfish human intervention. Appropriate use of this consciousness raising power would be a great asset for improving and enhancing every aspect of true personal growth as well as sorely needed synergistic social cohesion.
About the Author:
Henry Ramsey is a writer and renewable energy systems specialist who rides an electric bicycle. He is the innovator of New Paradigm Internet Marketing sites like http://www.HappyThoughtLifestyles.com
Only a Passing Glance
