Phoenix
by Dale J. Sprague
White Papers
Faith
In the east, a life of a member of a state department was premeditatively ended by an act of faith in the name of its God. In the west, a member of faith was summarily wasted and disposed for the sake of the state. And long ago, when Adam ate the fruit of the tree of 'good and evil,' for the sake of the good did good dawn its stony mask of death and rise above life. From the tree of 'good and evil' did good'will pursue and kill its object of evil, having made its prayer law for all.
Poor reason knows only the sign posts of apparent facts. And the course of practical reason runs strong, only as much as the facts are strongly apparent. Yet, the spirit of reason only wishes to venture..it cares not whether facts are artificial or not, whether based on articles of faith or not. And so it happened, that faith was deceived by hate and its progeny..greed, pride, and its other siblings, into thinking its tenets of faith as fact. And so it followed through the darkest valleys of fear that the only course that reason could take was through facts of faith. Subsequent acts of faith made rivers run red, for such faith having pandered itself as the only course for reason, has for millennia made its intellectuals wholly subjugated and cloistered within its articles of fear. Such tyrrany of mind has proven itself to be a clever predator..making any vision unlike itself, its mortal enemy, and kind hearts, its slaves.
There is faith, but it does not compete with reason, or with the perspectives that reason may take to its environment. Nor does faith offer itself as an abolute tenet of a god, declaring "The God," and war on all others. Rather, faith is quiet and personal, and dimensioned as a human is. As individual'minded as it is social'minded. As deeply vital and moonbound as it would be shallow and earthbound. A particular article of faith is a species of mind, a distillation of tradition, of all feelings and aspirations, of all what reason could ever aspire, being far more ordered and envisioned in the dark than what reason could ever bring to light.
The power of faith dies when its article is reduced to a mere fact. Yet, long ago, out of the garden of life did the fruit of 'good and evil' become seeded, and it flourishes when humans live as gods..larger than life.