Can you afford to have faith?

Joel and Victoria Osteen, some of the best known preachers in the USA, were on Larry King today talking about the importance of faith in times of distress. They spoke about how we shouldn't have a victim mentality and that God has a plan.

It is because people had faith in the stock market that they are in the mess they are in today. It is because they had faith in the real estate market that many are homeless and it is because banks had faith in the American economy that they gave billions of dollars in loans to unqualified buyers.

Faith asks you to believe in something beyond your control. It asks you to trust without question and trust that what you have faith in is a good thing. It is brilliant when it works in your favour, but what happens when it works againt you? That is the wake up call to really start thinking, not putting more faith where it didn't work in the first place! It is amazing how many times people who are quite successful at what they do, particularly in professions where they don't have control over the outcome of their efforts, tell you how important it is to have faith. Those that failed, you never hear from, so you never hear that faith doesn't quite work!

People who lead ordinary lives, without a shot at great riches or success of any stellar sort, often fall for the faith nonsense, thinking that it is God's will whatever comes their way, and that it is God's will whatever doesn't come their way. It is amazing how many times God's will works towards making that guy rich that actually bought the lottery ticket and how his will is limited to one ticket!

Faith is easy to sell, because it is based on fear. It is based on the fear of taking responsibility and on the fear of the rational that tells you point blank that you are nothing but a statistic, a number, and of very little significance beyond that in the larger scheme of things. Fear sells rampantly. If that fear can be shifted onto God, or something equally faith based, then we can play victim of that "higher power" and not bother to acknowledge that we are each nothing but a specimen of humanity and nothing more with a random chance of being happy or sad, successful or not, ugly or beautiful as much as dead or alive.

Those who trust knowledge, though, are much more empowered and capable. Knowledge can be sharpened, and cannot be denied. It is measurable, and it is applicable. It is acquirable and it is transferable. What a currency! If we were to have real faith in God and the power of something as magnificent as creation, I would imagine we were given brains in order to free God from having to think for us all, while we simply clung to faith in Him!

I continued to listen to Joel Olsteen and his wife Victoria, to see how deep this rut would run, just out of curiosity, since Larry King is no idiot, even while a vast majority of Americans are. He was smart enough to ask a great question about whether Joel thought being gay was a choice. The idiot actually said YES! And his wife quipped in to say it is not a perfect world but that gay people were quite actually quite nice and wonderful! What a great way of saying they want to keep their follower base secure!

So, here we have faith based people calling gay people imperfect, while hinting perhaps that heterosexual people are somehow closer to perfection and God, while stating that marriage should be between a man and a woman! Knowledge tells us today that being heterosexual or homosexual is an orientation, very much a naturally occuring thing, and if God were to play any part in this, He is by no means getting his act straight!

It's easy to talk about faith when it is working for you. When you have figured out the way to good health, a good economic status, and a routine that doesn't tire you down, it is a fantastic thing to have. When you are out there in the competition, facing an uncertain world, wanting to do better, relying on the chances you are going to take, wanting to succeed, wanting to build something out of yourself, knowledge is a much better companion.

The Wright brothers didn't get their aeroplane to fly with faith. They figured out a way to increase the pressure of air below the wings over the pressure of it above the wings. We win wars by knowing where the enemy is holed up and pounding those locations with ammunition, not by sharpening our rusty swords in the darkness till the enemy's ammunition rains on us. All of humanity's progress in the last two centuries is based on the Industrial revolution. We made more progress in these last two hundred years than we had in the two thousand years before that, only because of science and technology, not because of new religious practices.

Fools who preach faith without putting the onus on knowledge are doing a great disservice to humanity. If bad economic times are a "test" from God, then preachers are a bigger test. I wonder why God would want to test his creations so much if he was so great and perfect and omnipresent. It could very well be that God is all that, and just having fun to see what we would do in each and every situation! I would do that if I were God, but I wouldn't answer a single prayer, except maybe a child's. I would answer a child's prayer just to make it more fun for a young soul. I mean, why screw up a kid's life and fill it with despair when all he wants is a cricket bat?

It is easy to go round and round in circles when you talk about faith, because you can always say every failure is not a let down by faith, but a preparation for a greater success. I haven't heard anyone say that faith limited their success by not giving them enough "tests". In other words, we don't know a damn thing about faith, but want to twist it any which way we can to avoid talking about rational things, which can be boring and rather cruelly honest. If you become a candidate for faith, it will take you in that comforting circle of escape, round and round till you are giddy and full of it.

Faith doesn't have much to offer except a crutch when you are feeling helpless. Knowledge will tell you that statistically, it is absolutely possible, through the choices you make, that you will hit such lows once in a while, and your brain will figure out a way to evaluate the choices you have, and you will have enough of a chance to do better. When you have figured out exactly how you screwed up the last time, having more faith and taking the same route will lead you down to the same low again. You KNOW that, so this time you would take a different route and be a little more pragmatic and informed. That, my friend is knowledge, borne out by experience. That is the kind of person God would be proud of having created.

Have faith in me, I speak the truth here!