"I'd like to give my testimony that I KNOW the church is true. I KNOW that Joseph Smith was a prophet...." If you have gone to a L.D.S. church house on fast Sunday you've heard this repeated over and over again. It get really exciting when some one switches the order or adds something new to it. I want to focus on two words repeated in both sentences "I know."
Knowledge is a great thing, it can give you great strength and power. Knowledge can save your life, or it can help you save another persons life. Knowledge, to me, is the reason we exist. As Carl Sagan beautifully put it, "We are a way for the Universe to know itself"
So how does someone come to "know" the church (whatever church it may be) is true? They read their religious book or books and pray about it. Then after their god, who ever it may be, "reveals" the truth to them they now know WITHOUT A DOUBT, that their church/religion is true. If you take the time to ask them how they came to know this they say, "a feeling", or "a voice", told them it was true. If I hear voices I'm crazy, but if a religious person hears them it's sacred?
How often do we all get warm fuzzy feelings in a dramatic movie? I watched the movie "Blind Side" a couple weeks ago, there were a couple parts in the movie that gave me a "warm feeling" inside, does that mean it was a work of god? No, it is a story that makes you feel good, much like religion. I'd live to like in ecstasy for all eternity, I'd also like to have unlimited money and a house that cleans its self but that doesn't make it so.
It is a religious practice to block out anything that doesn't fit in with their point of view, that's why when you have a discussion with religious people the conversation always ends in them saying "I believe the church is true and nothing will change my mind." It feels nice to know that you'll never truly die, and that there is someone who will always love you, even when you really fuck up big time, but as I said before, that doesn't make it so.
Knowledge comes from studying a topic completely and unbiasedly, from all sides. Ignorance is not knowledge, let us not confuse the two.
"Knowledge will forever govern ignorance, and a people who mean to be their own governors, must arm themselves with the power knowledge gives." — James Madison
I hate it when people say they know because they can "feel the spirit". By their description I've "felt the spirit" many times while listening to music or watching movies that were likely created by atheists. The problem with the "I know" statement is that people have had it drilled into them since they were a little kid. You say "I know" enough, eventually you think you really do. It almost makes me sick to watch parents whispering that standard testimony to their kids.
ReplyDeleteWhen parents whisper to their kids who are giving a "testimony" it bothers me. First their kid doesn't understand what they are saying and second it's brain washing. It amazes me that the people who fuck kids up the most are their parents.
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