[R. P. Lane]

Weirwood


It is true, Weirwood, that each individual has his/her own ‘truths’. But what I am discussing is ‘facts’ and an individuals truths are not necessarily facts. Simply ‘believing’ something does not make it a fact. Let’s create a few scenarios.

• A child is adopted into a family. The child grows up believing that its parents, brothers and sisters are its true biological family. To the child this is ‘truth’ but it is not a ‘fact’.

• An individual sets out to buy a vehicle. He/she is told that the grey RV is in excellent shape and has low mileage on it. The individual buys the auto ‘believing’ he has gotten a real good deal. He tells his friends about his great new auto, his version of the truth as he believes it. However, the vehicle turns out to need a new transmission and the odometer had been reset. Obviously the ‘truth’ was not a ‘fact’.

• Do you know of anyone who truly believed that someone loved him/her only to find out later that this wasn’t true at all?

I don’t think I have to go any further than this to make my point weirwood. The act of believing something does not make that belief a fact.

You discuss emotions and feelings such as lust, love and envy as something that is related to ‘spirit’ but not connected to stimuli. You must have a great imagination wierwood. How can one lust, love or envy something that one knows nothing about and has never seen or heard of? All that we know is carried through to the brain by our senses, by external stimuli. Try explaining the red colour of a rose to someone who has been completely blind from birth and has never seen any colour.

You are correct, however, we are the sum of our experiences. So then what happens to the belief in a god/dess? What external stimulus has been received to warrant this belief? If an individual has ‘seen’ a god/dess, or spoken with one directly face to face, then his/her ‘belief’ may be grounded in ‘fact’, otherwise the belief has no basis other than social conditioning.

I don’t think (or I may have missed the post) that anyone said that the removal of all false belief systems would cure all of the world’s problems. This discussion has carried through from the original post that stated that people were murdered because they were ‘believed’ to be witches. It is these kinds of ‘beliefs’ that must be done away with. The time of the ‘Dark Age’ should be long gone. Only knowledge based on ‘facts’ will stop the violence and segregation of ignorance. If this means doing away with religious belief
systems then so be it. There is more than enough to wonder about in awe and delight at what we know to be fact at this time.