True Faith

True Faith

I am who I am. I do not exist because I think so.

People love to have opinions. Knowing the truth creates a barrier to their faith. If their beliefs are false, they find others who share their opinions, and by joining arms, they are insulated from truth. They call their faith, the truth.

People find it difficult to learn what is true, but that is only the first problem. Even where the truth is found easily, once it is found, sacred opinions must be abandoned.

Lies, for some, seem better than the truth. They pride themselves in their skill in lying. They love to deceive, mislead, misinform. They value what lying achieves for them — money, love, power. They enjoy deceiving others and they deceive themselves. Sometimes they believe that others wish to be deceived, that they need to be deceived.

To those who love lies and live their lives surrounded by lies and liars, Truth is boring, They wonder how it is possible to live a life without lies and lying. To those who rely on false things for entertainment, for profit, for their social interaction, to abandon this seems impossible.

To enjoy fiction need not be harmful, but confusing fiction with truth, believing fiction is truth, conveying fiction to others as if it were truth, we become prisoners of our delusions and we delude others.

To seek the truth, to know the truth, to believe the truth — these empower every human. Truth frees us from conflict, it frees us from harm, it frees us from confusion, from error, from dispute, from ignorance. These produce cooperation and bring about harmony.

To indulge in lies, to fill our lives with lies, to believe that lies are the truth — these destroy us. Lies create conflict. Lies lead to confusion. Lies prevent learning. Lies keep all of humanity in a state of war. to confusion. Lies lead to death.

Only a permanent devotion to the truth can change humanity from cacophony to symphony. Only the endless pursuit of the truth can bring an end to conflict. Truth surrounds each of us with people we trust and love. Without truth, we are lost.

Death and Tragedy

Death is rarely tragic. It is normal and to be expected.

"Men must endure

"Their going hence, even as their coming hither:

"Ripeness is all."

             -- King Lear, Act V, Scene II

For good Christians, death is a comedy -- a happy ending to life, no matter when it may come. For the unreligious, it is a disorganization of those atoms which life had organized, freeing them for new roles. For all, death is loss only to those among the living who are unwilling to accept the way the universe works.

"Death, be not proud, though some have called thee

Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so" 

            -- Donne, Holy Sonnet #10

What is tragedy?

To me it is something so extreme and unexpected -- that it affects us long after the event. It is Oedipus striving diligently to avoid Fate, and failing. It is Hamlet, paralyzed by shock, depression, grief, and uncertainty, wanting to act, but able to do so only when dying.

Tragedy affects our emotions and our thoughts, Tragedy teaches us a lesson that strikes us in our heart and mind equally. Tragedy requires a rare combination of circumstances and events that we cannot ignore, cannot diminish, and cannot forget.