Page 120 - The Irony Board
P. 120
Into the Cosmos
Bookmark
Faith is not
Defeat defended,
If it is
In fact intended
Just to show
Where thinking ended.
The need to believe is a strongly anti-intellectual instinct. It uses
the mind to exclude evidence and argument contrary to a self-
protective set of absolute values and expectations. In this regard,
Gluckman views faith as a pathological response to emotional stress.
But it need not be: he conceives an honest faith to be a conscious
acknowledgement of the limits of one’s understanding, a temporary
point in the evolution of wisdom. Even the total lack of faith can
become irrational if it turns to nihilism; conditional levels of
phenomenal expectation are necessary for sanity (this subject was
presented earlier, at length). Thus, the bookmark: without it, one can
forget that the last word has yet to be read.
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