26 June 2010

Quote of the Week

"Faith means not wanting to know what is true."

Friedrich Nietzsche

11 comments:

Unknown said...

True.

Anonymous said...

I continually ask religionists that talk about the "power of faith" to me, to furnish their assertions with examples of any great human endeavor that was built with faith.

1skepticalbrother

Unknown said...

Tragically, that is so very true in far too many cases in the Christian community. In fact, many have been led to believe that asking questions greatly angers our Heavenly Father. Be assured that this is not at all true, and He does actually answer--just not always saying what we want to hear, however.

Anonymous said...

That's a very mystical and esoteric sounding comment FishHawk. But how are you so sure that your "understanding" or "spiritual insights" are correct? Do you have the ability to be at all places at all times? Are you all knowing? Are you all powerful? How do you know the mind and intent of this deity you speak of? How do you know that it's a father and not a mother? How do you "know" anything more than anyone else regarding this "Father Figure"?

1skepticalbrother

Unknown said...

I just know what He has personally revealed to me--with most of it being quite contrary to what I was taught before, my dear 1skepticalbrother. You see, I was raised a Southern Baptist, and I have never doubted His existence. Nonetheless, He was really nothing more than a character in an ancient book to me before He started making Himself real, and where that really started was by asking the question, "What's going on?"

To put that in a better perspective, I was to a point in my life where I had given up on ever being really happy. In fact, I wanted to kill myself again, but had no confidence in being able to even accomplish that without leaving myself in a vegetative state instead actually good and dead. My mom had been after me to start reading the Bible again, and I agreed to--mostly just to shut her up. An amazing thing happened, however. For when I came across Luke 1:37, it was like a Light literally came on. For the verse says, "For nothing will be impossible with God," {Luke 1:37 NAS}, and a thought came to mind, "If nothing is impossible for God, then it would have to be possible for Him to love even me!" Later on, I was out in the yard actually saying out-loud to myself, "God loves me, and He is in control," and that is when that, "What's going on?" question burst forth. For if He really does love me, and He really is in full control of all that happens, then why did He let me do all those stupid things that had apparently gotten me in so much trouble? Almost immediately, I became flooded with answers to questions that I had not even thought to ask.

Now, this is not to say that He will do the same for you. For it all depends upon what He wants to accomplish in and through someone that determines when (and to what extent) He will allow and enable them to enter into His absolute Truth, but before your time as a part of this world comes to an end, be assured that our Heavenly Father will allow and enable you to fully understand everything that He wants you to. Whether or not you will want to accept it is entirely up to you, but you might be quite surprised with what He has to say if you will just try to reason with Him. It is has been mostly through my thoughts that He has spoken to me, and I am perfectly willing to accept that I really have gone plumb insane. For it would be easier for me to deny my own existence than to deny that I have been "hearing" things that could not possibly be of me.

If any of this has you the least bit intrigued, all of the books that our Heavenly Father has given me to publish are now on one site in the order that they are meant to be read. The first book in line is The Crackerhead Chronicles, which is an abbreviated account of my life so far, and the rest of the books are meant to build on what was started in the last two crumbs (chapters) of that book, which is when I start talking about our Heavenly Father making Himself real to me. Be assured that any and all comments are welcome--even if you have no doubts about me truly being just another certifiable nut-case.

http://fishhawkdroppings.blogspot.com/

Anonymous said...

I don't think you're a certifiable nut-case...at least no more certifiable than me but with all due respect FishHawk I have to ask; why do you assume that what you hear in your head, which by the way, cannot be heard by anyone else but you, is the voice of a God? For me, what I hear in my head is better explained (and perhaps not fully understood) by the ongoing studying of psychology and neurology. There was a time when I embraced the notion that the voice(s) I heard in my head were personal communiqués from the Abrahamic God, but humility has forced me to retreat from this vain position.

Let me bore you with a little anecdote FishHawk. A friend of mine named Louie stopped me one day at a public park here in Virginia Beach, Va. and told me that God (he didn’t specify which God but I assumed he was referring to his interpretation of the popular Judeo-Christian Deity, not one of those false Gods like Allah, Vishnu, Kaang, et al.) told him to give me a message. Allow me to paint you a picture of this man. Louie is an intimidating homo sapien; he’s approximately 6’ 5”, 250 lbs. and has a thunderous baritone voice. Anyway, Louie grabs both of my shoulders with his Grizzly Bear-like hands and (remember he’s speaking for his God) starts shaking me, and tells me that “God” wants me to stop asking so many questions. So I asked him was his God talking to him at that specific moment; he replied, “Yes!” So I grabbed his bald sweaty head with both hands, pulled him down six inches, slammed my sweaty left ear against his equally sweaty left ear, held it there for as long as he let me and told him that I didn’t hear a damn thing. Zero, zilch, nada! I suggested to him that perhaps this was not a God talking to him…perhaps it was only gas. I then suggested an over the counter medication to help him with his condition.

My friend, I respect your right to believe in whatever form or fashion you see fit. But as far as I’m concerned, the processes that are responsible for the existence of the cosmos and everything in it, whether it is a God or Gods or an evolutionary process, most certainly did not need the assistance of human beings to get it started and does not need us to maintain it. So I had to ask myself; why would this entity or process need me to spread its “message?” If it had a message it could radiate that message much in the same way that it radiates the energy from the sun that it allegedly created in an instant.

I will read your blog posts and comment when I feel I have something constructive to add to a discussion. However, I may be branded as one of “those of a highly negative nature” by some of your readers.

Peace, respect and critical thinking,
1skepticalbrother
Blog: The African American Agnostic

Unknown said...

Be assured that I greatly appreciate your sincerity--as well as how respectfully you are treating me. Oh how I wish everyone I am allowed and enabled to speak with was as you are. For there are many in Christian community who feel quite justified to be rather rude towards those who would dare question what they are saying.

No, our Heavenly Father does not need any of us to do a thing for Him, but He does want us to want to be willing participants in His work, which is to draw as many as will to Him. For it would not accomplish His purposes to force anyone to spend all of eternity with Him in His Kingdom of Heaven as an heir to all that is His in glory against their will, and this is why He has given us the freedom to choose whether or not we will want to be one of children by faith.

Speaking of such, if it is indeed true that none of us would have ever existed in the first-place unless He wanted us to, why wouldn't He want to have a very close and personal relationship with us? Part of that would involve speaking directly to us--would it not?

Yes, since none of us would have wanted to subject ourselves to all that our Heavenly Father has, it is naturally inconceivable that the Creator of all that exists (apart from Himself, of course) would. After all, if something you made for your own good pleasure started messing up, wouldn't you do what you could to fix it--even going as far as to throw it away and start all over if it couldn't be fixed? I know I would, but what is so misunderstood is that we are not really broken. That is, at least not in regards to the plan that our Heavenly Father set into motion long before any of us came to be. For He created us as we naturally are in this world so that He could receive a very special kind of love from us. For it is relatively easy to love someone who almost always does what we want them to, but it is another thing entirely to hang in there with someone who very seldom does.

No, none of this is going to make any sense if it is not echoing what our Heavenly Father has already been personally revealing. For the way it works is that He goes before, and His Holy Scriptures were provided to serve as written confirmation of what He wants us to know and understand.

Formal preaching and personal teaching through the church is meant to help reinforce the witness of His Holy Spirit--not stand in His absence, but far too many do not want to believe this in the Christian community. For they want to believe that the Lord God Almighty is depending upon them to seek and to save the lost--much to His dismay.

Yes, it sounds utterly ridiculous that our Heavenly Father would allow so much to go so apparently wrong--especially when it comes to things that are done in His name, but would not someone who had spent much of their life preaching the wrong message before coming to know and understand the Truth be especially grateful of His grace? The Apostle Paul serves as a good example of that. For he had many early Christians killed and imprisoned before he was changed.

Although I do not compare with the Apostle Paul, I also stand as a example of being in the wrong before. For I pastored a small Southern Baptist church for around two years, and I used to preach much of what I now recognize as being quite contrary to what our Heavenly Father actually says is absolutely true.

Yes, it may very well be that I am still in the wrong, and I look forward to what observations you may make over on FishHawk Droppings. Since very few have wanted to have much of anything to do with the contents there, even comments of a "highly negative nature" are most welcome. For being almost totally ignored is harder on me than being yelled at.

Unknown said...

P.S.: Is your blog The African American Agnostic hosted by HamptonRoads.com, my dear 1skepticalrother?

Anonymous said...

Good evening FishHawk. My mother's side of the family was steeped in Southern Baptist Christianity, so I understand, somewhat, your feelings and your faith in your God. It is foundational to your existence and as I've said before I completely respect your right to worship and communicate to the rest of humanity your interpretation of how you think your God wants you (and the rest of us) to behave.

That said, when my Jewish, Christian or Muslim sister or brother approaches me with the intent to “correct” me or admonish me or “educate” me, they are met with respectful but rigorous questioning. And since they purport to have all or some of the answers to our most pressing human issues, I place the same evidentiary demands on their assertions and suppositions as I would anyone else in any other field.

Think about this my dear FishHawk. Think about the concept and construct of the Abrahamic God and, if you can, minimize your emotional attachments and look at these characteristics as objectively as possible. Yahweh is omniscient; how do I reference all knowing with my feeble mammalian brain? I read incessantly and I know nothing. Yahweh is omnipotent; I can direct a crew of twenty laborers on a re-roofing installation but that’s the extent of my “power.” Yahweh is omnipresent; what does that mean? How do I wrap my mind around that construct? Once on a commercial airline I saw a heavy set gentleman occupy almost two seats…that’s as close as I’ve come to seeing someone at all places at all times! And finally, Yahweh is also suppose to be all loving…I have a hard enough time loving myself much less loving ALL! My point is that we use the term “God” so flippantly yet we don’t have any mental reference for its attributes. Yet folks, billions of them, insist on talking about their God and “His” will for humankind. What is really going on here? It’s business FishHawk…manmade terrestrial business with a celestial lemon twist. Just something to think about.


Yes FishHawk that is my blog page hosted by hamptonroads.com and my email address is negrononbeliever@gmail.com.

Unknown said...

Yes, my dear 1skepticalbrother, it is impossible for us to "naturally" comprehend all that our Heavenly Father truly is, and before He started making Himself real to me, all I had to go on was what I had been taught by others not so unlike myself. For there was really not any sort of very close and personal relationship with Him--despite what we openly professed.

All of that changed when He changed me. For I have been brought beyond natural limitations {1 Corinthians 2:6-16}.

No, I am not about to try to tell you that I now understand everything perfectly. For I still have no idea how our Heavenly Father can be One and the Same with His only begotten Son, who truly is the Lord Jesus Christ, and His Holy Spirit, but I do know that it is true because of what He has personally revealed to me.

This discussion all started with a quote about faith from Friedrich Nietzsche that is indicative of the way faith is so misunderstood in the Christian community today to a very great extent. For far too many have been led to believe that there is much that we are not meant to understand at this world (maybe never), but the absolute truth of the matter truly is that the kind of faith that truly is of our Heavenly Father is not blind, nor deaf. For He wants us to truly know Him, and where faith comes in the most is in trusting that He will never change. For how can anyone really know that He will remain the same forever until forever ends, and if forever can end, it was all a big lie to start with--right?

These things are addressed in the books on FishHawk Droppings, and my email address is FishHawk7@gmail.com. I hope I can be of help, and I really do appreciate your questions.

Augustine said...

Careful quoting Nietzche - he also hated women and inspired Hitler.