<<<Maybe that's why I can't have faith. My intellect refuses to assent.>>>
I could "have faith" if I wanted, I think. I believe I "get" what it is, that act of making your brain behave in a certain... supplicant, worshippy way. My mother used to say when I was an adolescent that if I hadn't been raised an atheist, I would have become a nun. (She wouldn't have said that if she'd known what unchasteness resided in my virgin mind.) (In fact, what the HELL was she saying? I had forgotten that.) But anyway, I wouldn't dream of trying to "have faith," or of ordering my intellect to "assent" to anything. It would imo be perverse, like ordering your mouth to gibber or your eyes to cross.
On the other hand, I do understand that some people really get blissful or peaceful or serene or other childlike, lovely feelings they name "spiritual" from those operations, so I certainly don't begrudge them their way of getting through the night.
I sure do hope the practice of those who've surrendered their intellects, or made them "assent," in one fashion or another, trying to force their notions down the throats of others who've made theirs "assent" in a different direction, not to mention forcing them down the throats of those who at least try to use their intellects like adults, however imperfectly they manage it, will kind of die down, though. I mean, the horror of it all.... |
