belief
July 31, 2023
that fine crystal, which before your eyes, turns to plastic
What can you choose to believe? If belief is a blind one can remove, people must choose to live in the dark and that beliefs are irrelevant to a higher quality. However, let belief be a word spoken like fire upon the soul, burning itself into form, we must take belief with the utmost gravity. Then, that this flame takes form which curl the fibers of being such that no two are alike, we cannot reconstruct the spark. All we know is that something was there. For those that may be blind, those who believe, and the doxastic voluntarists, a spark has touched them too, with a fire that curls the fine threads of their being into carbon, melting the heavy strands into the same form, but from each’ perspective a different concept of the form arises.
In the second century, one brought the question to the rabbi of the Talmud, “if one cuts an oven into three pieces and rejoins this tripart with sand, does it remain pure?” All rabbis but Eliezer deemed it unkosher. Rabbi Eliezer stood alone in the oven’s purity, drawing every argument from Torah to justify it as so. The rabbis did not waver. Eliezer pointed to a tree, saying that if he is right, the tree will prove it; the tree promptly stood and walked away. He took this as proof – I take it that the tree had an avoidant personality disorder and would like to be as far away from conflict as possible. But still the rabbis did not waver. Eliezer said that if he is correct, the water will prove it. The closest stream turned away, skipping like lambs away from the ocean. Again, this can be explained by a simple personality disorder of the stream. But still, the rabbis did not budge. Eliezer then said that the walls of their hall would prove it. The walls budged, leaned, and began to fall at Eliezer’s word. They were promptly told off for disrespect by the other rabbi. Walls should not care about religious law. Ovens should. Eliezer then says that heaven will prove him right. Metatron emerges from the heavens, saying that religious law agrees with Eliezer. One of the rabbis respond that the Torah is not in heaven; the voice of the Lord cannot intervene in a discussion of the Torah. All that may decide the meaning of the Torah are the rabbis.
That the rabbi stood steadfast in front of the Lord leads to the assumption that belief outweighs the word of that which you believe in. A concept which carries such a strength must be handled with the utmost importance. To believe in something requires the fiber of your being arranged in its direction.
Atheists are often decried as nonbelievers; this is not the case. Belief is not just that in an irreplaceable deity, but any concept in general. Many of the famous atheists, of which I will mention Carl Sagan in respect, believed in science. And many will cry, “science is not a belief, but an objective fact, proven through the scientific method!” How fortunate this science is that it never can be disproven. One is to prove things via direct observation - I have never once held a single atom in my view. Evolution, despite Darwin’s cries, is not evident to the everyman. There is no bedrock to science but a shifting clay. If our current view of science is to be static, that is, that we progressively advance into knowing more about the universe, can we draw a distinction between that science of the ages, from which came alchemy and phrenology? Their certitude was no different from ours. Our tools may prove more, our grip more firm, but all suffer from a lack of foundation which may shift and crumble. But, is religious belief not to be questioned? It wouldn’t be fair to the atheists to not.
The atheist response would likely be that science is at least more provable than religious beliefs; that science is grounded in material reality. This is a fair critique. There is nothing material which can, without a shadow of a doubt, ensure religious belief. All miracles extend through the hands of man, after all. I have personal proof of the sparks turning to fire and illuminating my being, but the soul cannot be comprehended by another. Maybe one day.
The crossroad here is a particularly nihilistic place to decamp. If one cannot prove religion and if all science rests on sand, there is nothing to prove. No truth exists and consensus reality begins to fail. Living in this space is painful. Nothing can be believed, nothing proven, all becomes air. All is vanity. To proceed from this place requires some reconstruction.
Unless there is some trickster stimulating my every sensory input, I can trust my senses. My hands are cold, owing to the fact I just washed them. These keyboard caps are sharp against my hands. The faint aftertaste of Red Bull is in my mouth. Drills run right outside my office. This, I can trust. I am recording my thoughts. From that, given that other people deliver thoughts to me which would never occur from within, it is a reasonable assumption that others are autonomous agents. Science, religion cannot be proven, but existence can. But there are some aspects of science which I may trust. Cells were present when I last looked in the microscope. I’ve seen bacteria. The fine layers of skin, fat, and muscle must exist because my leg was once slit open as if a fish were to be deboned. Some medicine must work; antibiotics stopped my skin from sloughing off as if it were a chrysalis to emerge from. That I was once different proves that exogenous hormone signaling works, though I cannot confirm the nanometer estrogenic receptors in every cell.
This seems to be the direct observation the scientists ask for, that everything be examined and proven. However, by their method, I must accept the presence of the spiritual. In my worst times, when the walls around me seem to crumble, and I wish for all to become ash, in my desperation, I’ve repeated those prayers taught to me when I was younger. A presence not like that of the material comforted me then, though I cannot explain it. Science may want to explain it in terms of altered mental states and limbic systems, but I am familiar with those, and this was nothing like that. Of course, this doesn’t meet the replicability metric of science, but no experience is replicable. There is space between the material and spiritual.