Monday, January 01, 2007

people believe what they want to

Email from my sister on 12/11/06:
I found this article online--It's really interesting; it sketches out the development of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception (which we just celebrated last Friday!).

http://www.davidscottwritings.com/immaculateconception.html


It occurs to me that people just believe what they want to: when necessary, creating a logical framework to support the beliefs they want to hold. This framework is usually used as a justification for the belief, or better yet (sarcasm) to give reason to inflict their beliefs on others. If it's logically consistent, it must be true! Well, no...

You'll find at the end of the article that some miracles happened after the belief became mandatory; I'm not trying to explain that away, just find the whole thing to be... interesting.

Thus goes religion.

3 comments:

Jon said...

Yeah, my reason for loving Dec. 8 has absolutely zero to do with the IC dogma. For me, it's just a joyous time of celebrating Mary, the Buddha, and all who are involved in the endless ways of being and bearing light.

The priest who gave the homily on Dec 8. is a subtle mystic. He preached on the meaning of the Feast of the IC as "a celebration of the power of God to preserve from sin." The mystics heard what he said. The religious what they thought he said.

People hear what they want to, too!

Trevor Harden said...

I remember making those arguments myself. I had multiple conversations in college w/ friends where I justified my faith by "proving scientifically" (for instance) that creationism was true. Gasp. I look back and am embarrassed. I also see that in many ways I was also talking MYSELF into believing something was true.

anonymous julie said...

Jon - I hope you didn't feel attacked by my post here, not my intention at all! People do hear what they want to (sigh).

Trev - fortunately my "whoa Jesus" days were relatively brief and inflicted upon relatively few... looking back, I'm also pretty embarrassed, although I also miss the security of thinking I knew how things are. Ah well...