Good ol’ Dave Lane sent me a good link: Imagine there is No Heaven. While the arcticle lacks any compassion or tact whatsoever, it did illicit a resonant comment from a reader, which prompted Dave to forward the link to me. His confusism was something we talked about for a while way back when I was in ChCh building this site, and I’d have to say that I’ve been re-affirmed again.
some guy named Jake…
I am resigned to living with the ambiguity of agnosticism–literally not knowing–because in matters of faith the void of uncertainty is the only truth. Until and unless someone leaves this plane that we experience with our paltry senses, goes to another, and then comes back and reports on it, we can be certain of nothing regarding faith, either pro or con. And I am neither naive enough to believe that such a journey can exist, nor arrogant enough to believe that it can’t. I don’t know.
Dave’s Confusism…
So for me, the path of exploring faith helps me to live my purpose. So why should I look at my faith as something that has, at some point time, to be carved in stone, made a cornerstone of my identity? Just as my maturity, self image, priorities, and circumstances change every day, why can’t my faith?…
I believe that while the desire for faith is fundamental to our human condition, it differs for each of us in flavour and associations. As a result, my faith of one is one that is allowed to be ethereal, impossible to pin down precisely, sometimes internally inconsistent, but always as honest as language allows it to be. I call my faith confusism, because I like the idea of embracing change, and don’t align myself with what I see as a prevalent need to apply certainty to something which is inherently human and therefore subject to emotion, irrationality, and - sometimes uncomfortable and unsettling and sometimes altogether delightful - chaos.