In the early 2000’s I remember hearing about then US President Bush and how he found God. He described the emergence of his faith as a little mustard seed which was planted inside of him and which he couldn’t ignore. Apparently he was wild as a young man and faith played a large part in guiding him to the Presidency. At the time, the mustard seed metaphor made me wrinkle up my face in disgust. Sentimental American codswallop. I found the concept so foreign and I was angry that the leader of the Western world was charging into wars and deciding fate, based on this mustard seed faith of his. Where was the proof? Where was the science?
At around about the same time I had various people try to pursuade me into religion. One friend took me to his evangelical Christian church where they all closed eyes and swayed to Christian pop music, others argued about science and faith with me at University. It all seemed like nonsense to me.
But….everyone has some sort of faith. It might be faith in science, or faith in nature, or faith in Allah. Faith in 7 billion forms (souls?) makes the world go around.
The default in life is entropy – things fall apart inevitably – and so we need guidance to help us in the slog of keeping things together day after day, lest we default to a survivalist, bestial way of living. When you place something at the top of your life’s mountain – an ultimate value – you then orientate your life around this ultimate value. In this way faith guides your actions no matter who you are. What is in question is the ultimate value of choice. Only relatively recently have we killed God as the ultimate value guiding our lives, leaving the question up in the air:
God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?
Friedrich Nietzsche
What do you place as your ultimate value in life? Do you place love at the top? Compassion? Nature? Prestige? Socialising? Being fit and skinny? The options are endless and the question has been part of human existence forever. It is older than dirt. This means you have to choose your ultimate value to live by, and if it is not God at the top, then what replaces God?
Chimpwithcans 