Wednesday 29 July 2009

on faith


i'm not an 'overtly' religious person. and like most people (i suspect), any thoughts i have on the matter have always been kept to myself, for one reason or another.

i have always been perplexed by faith, Man's need for it, the things Man has done - and continues to do in it's name and in the quest for it. i realised at a very young age that pretty much all pain, war, misery, cruelty, suffering Man has committed and endured has it's roots in religion or faith.

but come the 21st century, we can tweet such inner thoughts. and i did this morning. just the one thought. and the responses came back. so, i thought i'd share them here...

@redalexred said "I like to think it's knowledge without proof."

@simonplotkin
offered "
belief in spite of lack of evidence."

@713punky proffered "
having faith doesn't require proof. faith is a belief that everything will happen as it should."

then added

"
faith is believing that no matter what proves otherwise,, you still commit."

@ilicco defined 'faith' as "
Faith IMO allows u 2blame some1 else when things don't go ur way, & thank some1 else when they do. Keeps u from blaming urself."

what i love about what happened this morning, is what i love about twitter; what to me, is the essence of twitter. every now & then, a tweet will inspire or coax the most head-scratching, heart warming profundities. yes, to the depths of 140 characters; and beyond.

the thought provoking replies also surprised me, in that they made me trawl back through my twitterstream on the bus to work, to re-read my original tweet.

how had i referred to faith? in what context had i suggested or used the word? for, to me, the above responses opened the meaning wide up.

and maybe that was the greatest gift.

faith isn't always of a religious nature. is it? or maybe it is religious by nature?

the individual hearts of the above twitterati seemed to shine through in their responses and made me smile.

i could have told you who had tweeted each of the above thoughts without knowing in advance.

or i'd like to think i would.

either way, i wanted to share.

because these things should be.

i find it fascinating that we all seem to either claim 'ownership' of our faith, or give praise and thanks for it, like it is something bestowed on us. maybe it is.

it seems to me that faith is often blamed for people not taking ownership or responsibility. but, in the handful of tweeted thoughts above, this all seemed turned on it's head. not something i've ever thought of before. i read in there, proud claims on faith. as if to say 'this is my faith, and it makes this possible.'

but then, it was a long bus journey and it's been a long day... and i think too much...

heartfelt thanks to those who answered my random tweet this morning & gave me further food for thought.





1 comment:

Boiler Installation Southwark said...

Could not agree with you more on the point you made where you said that war, pain that men suffer is down to people's different religious views