On thinking and faith

A proposition: I finally figured out the only reason to be alive is to enjoy it.

The doctrine: I wish to propose for the reader’s favourable consideration a doctrine, which may, I fear, appear wildly paradoxical and subversive. The doctrine in question is this: that it is undesirable to believe a proposition when there is no ground whatever for supposing its validity.

The explanation: Remember that there is an objective reality out there, but we view it through the spectacles of our beliefs, attitudes, and values. The human understanding is like a false mirror, which, receiving rays irregularly, distorts, and discolours the nature of things by mingling its own nature with it.

What is called reality or truth is in fact a sort of Rorschach inkblot, into which each culture, each system of science and religion, each type of personality, reads a meaning only remotely derived from the shape and colour of the blot itself.

However, for most people it is a far, far better thing to have a firm anchor in nonsense than to put out on the troubled seas of thought. There are two ways to slide easily through life: to believe everything or to doubt everything. Both ways save us from thinking. We are not prisoners of fate, but prisoners of our own minds. 

They who joyfully march to music in rank-and-file have already earned my contempt. They have been given large brains by mistake, since for them the spinal cord would fully suffice. They that cannot reason are fools; they that will not are bigots; they that dare not are slaves. Nevertheless, even if you understand, things are as they are and if you do not understand, things still are as they are.

Some scientists claim that hydrogen, because it is so plentiful, is the basic building block of the universe. I dispute that. I say there is more stupidity than hydrogen, and that is the basic building block of the universe. Stupidity is replicating itself at an astonishing rate. It breeds easily and is totally self-sustaining. Therefore, only two things in this universe are infinite, the universe itself and human stupidity, and I am not sure about the former.

One can choose to go back toward safety or forward toward growth. Growth must be chosen repeatedly; fear and laziness must be overcome continually. The true hero is the one who kindles a great light in the world, who sets up blazing torches in the dark streets of life for people to see by. The saint is the man/woman who walks through the dark paths of the world, himself/herself a light.

A possible solution: This is my simple religion: there is no need for churches, temples, or synagogues; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness.

Whatever you do, you first must do in your mind, whose machinery is the brain. The mind can do only what the brain is equipped to do, and so you must find out what kind of brain you have before you can understand your own behaviour. The greatest discovery is that you can alter your life simply by altering your attitude of mind.

We live in an unfathomable universe. All around us are mysteries that we cannot pretend to understand. Life is a tangle of complexities, the synergies about which we can only feebly guess. To survive this uncertainty, to prevent us from going insane with confusion, we automatically try to simplify ‘life, the universe, and everything around us’.

Now, my own suspicion is that the universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose. I have read and heard many attempts at a systematic account of it, from materialism and theosophy to the Christian system or that of Kant, and I have always felt that they were much too simple. I also know now that Creation is too grand, complex, and mysterious to be captured in a narrow creed. That is why we cherish individual freedom of belief. Compare not the differences, but where all the religions meet – there is one God!

Therefore, do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumoured by many. Do not believe in anything because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations.

But after observation and analysis, when you find anything that agrees with reason, or intuition, and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it. Scientists and educators alike need to realise that the educated person is not the person who can answer the questions, but the person who can question the answers.

Now in conclusion, my revised proposition: I do not know why we are here, but I am pretty sure that it is not in order to enjoy ourselves.