Saturday 23 July 2011

The Danger and Fallacy of Belief

Belief Kills!

Belief is the cause of all separation and conflict.
Events in Norway again highlight this little-known truth. Misguided individuals exhibiting extreme and fundamentalist beliefs have wreaked havoc on history. Belief feeds the ego, twists the mind, perpetrates violence and conflict and brings about death and destruction. Belief is anti-social and immoral and at variance with natural law and human destiny. Belief sets up its opposites, instigating endless conflict and despair. Truth is very different from belief. Where there is belief there can be no truth and no love. Belief is the cause of most of the problems which beset the world. It undermines religion and maims the spirit, manipulates the mind and falsifies reality. In the guise of Christian or Muslim fundamentalism or in the form of political extremism and totalitarianism it can evoke terror and destruction and even bring about the downfall of civilisations. Belief is evil.


Shun belief......open the mind and see the danger and the utter fallacy of belief.

11 comments:

EyeOnWales said...

A lot of faith being shown in the values of 'truth' here. Dropping the blame at the door of 'belief' for seemingly all the world's violence is a bit rash. Do you really think one person's 'truth' would result in anything different, if another 'truth' was to be found in conflict.

Pointing at faith is the easy way out of confronting a simple fact, this is not an issue of faith, belief or truths, not even the more sturdy area of facts, that this was actually to do with people, humans, the condition of being human. Remove your belief from the equation, and do you really think that a man or a woman wouldnt find a reason to pursue such crimes. Of course not, humanity is defined by its capacity to inflict suffering on itself, its does not need, and does not rely on faith, to achieve such goals.

Unknown said...

There is no one person's truth or another person's truth in conflict with it. These are beliefs. You are falling into the trap again of confusing truth/belief/faith.
It is to do with the condition of being human, and the fact of human conditioning which caused a potential human to act mechanically. Man is a machine on the way to achieving humanity. This is very evident on looking at the world around. The first step to being truly human is by seeing into the extent of one's conditioning from which arises "belief".

EyeOnWales said...

Sorry but your response does not make a great deal of sense. You cited faiths as examples, not me, and your definition of 'belief' is clearly rooted in a swipe against organised religion, whether you can acknowledge it or not.

You go on to agree with me regarding the human condition, but maintain a fairly innocent attitude towards the role of 'truth'. 'There is no one person's truth or another person's truth in conflict with it', you say, how deeply flawed your views are, every truth is a construct, and will differ from the truth of another. Difference is the key, fear of difference, revulsion to difference. While 'truths' are different, conflict will remain.

However, you seem to also be advocting the demise of beliefs? Is not the belief in an independant Wales a belief. Should we not therefore abandon this belief ot confrom with some form of universal truth?

You need to give this some more thought, but then again, if wish to be rid of belief, then you may as well do away with freedom of thought while you are at it...

Unknown said...

Two men searching for Truth. One exclaimed "I have found it!" The other said:"Good, now let's organise it!" Yes, a well-deserved swipe at organised religion, most of which is based on a distorted view of history and a preoccupation with belief, "the blind leading the blind".
We know the results of this.
Truths are not different - there is only truth.
Thought/action free of belief is authentic and responsive to a changing situation.
For example, the movement in 21stCent politics towards independent and interdependent nations.
Sorry - but that's how it is....

EyeOnWales said...

'There is no truth. There is only perception.'
Gustave Flaubert

The weight of your argument stands and falls on this theory. You argue for truth from an absolute perspective, but it is a flawed thing to do. Truths are created from facts, which are themselves subject to change as various areas of research change, there is no absolute truth, only relative truth.

However, to take your line of thinking for a moment, how is in a position to define the absolute truth which you argue for. Will you be the arbitrator of the truth debate when one truth is put forward contrary to another?

Take religion out of it, and your problem remains unresolved. You can say that there is only one truth until you are blue in the face, but then you will be no better than the relgious voices you hold in such contempt. What makes your true better than all the others, sounds an awful lot like the religion debate.

But to finish with your line, there is not one truth - sory, but that's how it is. My truth is different to yours, and the argument rolls on, the fact we are having this debate shows up the weakness of your argument.

Unknown said...

As I said your contention that "my truth is different to yours" is not truth and not subjective, but which is ever-changing and undefineable. In this sense Flaubert is correct. Seeing rather than believing is perception. Truth, which is evanescent, cannot be organised and so religion in all its guises is only a means of reaching the mystical state where all is revealed, yet which cannot be told, or conveyed through intellectual argument.

EyeOnWales said...

That of course works on the premise that a faith or religion purports to reveal 'everything', which you'll find most do not, in practice most state quite clearly that they do not have all the answers, that faith is a process and a journey, rather than a definitive.

Anyway, your side swipe of organised relgion is fine, but your arguments for the value of truth is still lacking. A truth that is changing is not an absolute, which is what you argued for at the very beginning of this. Your counter claims just continue to undermine your initial premise, that in some way truth is superior to belief, because it lacks the contentious demands of belief. It does not. Truth is not the same from day to day, which allows room for interpretation. If you do not look to interpret truth, then we are doomed to be little more than automotons, accepting that which is presented to us as the definitive, and asking no questions. Fear that day when it comes, for our days of open free discourse will be at an end.

Unknown said...

Interpretation is another problem. There has to be free discourse and the exchange of ideas in an open society but truth cannot be interpreted but only perceived. Much time and effort is expended in trying to interpret what can only be experienced. Listening and letting go is a much better approach than accumulating and airing knowledge.

EyeOnWales said...

Truth is a creation, formulated by opinion, research and discourse, of course it can be interpreted!

Then you suggest abandoning knowledge, maybe this is why your argument is so circular, you are reading, taking on board, forgetting, and coming back with progressively less coherent responses, there is definite value in the accumulation of knowledge, but if you are determined not to follow that path, then I suppose you will never learn...

Unknown said...

Obviously we are not on the same planet! Truth is only apparent when you abandon belief, knowledge and its interpretation.

EyeOnWales said...

Agreed, pointless going any further, your ideas on truth are certainly not applicable to this planet, best of lucking finding one in which they might be relevant.