The Power Of Doubt

The Power Of Doubt     Want to read this in a different language ? Change the TO field to your own country and click the TRANSLATE button after going HERE THE POWER OF DOUBT © July 2013 Written by David Wicker (Please do not reprint without permission) Haven't we all wondered from one time to the other just what our purpose is in being here ? If we were put on Earth for a reason. What was that reason ?   "Any belief worth having and holding must survive the crucible of doubt." Long ago, back when dinosaurs walked the Earth, man, such as it might be believed back then, trembled in their footsteps and fury. He was afraid. But outside his fear, surely he wondered to himself why he was placed on this great Sapphire Earth of ours and what his ultimate purpose was in being here ? Rainstorms would come and go as they would and mankind discovered caves in which to keep himself dry from the downpours, but then something incredible would happen. Lightning ! Flashing down from the sky and it was so powerful that it could split a tree right down the middle ! And there was the booming and frightening sound of the thunder besides ! Likely here we may have had our first god for mankind to fear and revere combined. Likely further mankind went to great lengths to make tribute. Perhaps leaving a pile of sticks or edible berries outside in a ritualistic pattern, coaxing the Sky God not to blast down him or his fellow man during the 'raining of the heavens.' And then there might have been gatherings of people who formed basic committees to see others were safe from the lightning and respected it besides with great incantations and reverence. With grunts and squeals and the starting rudiments of language and conversation, mankind at this time could have showed respect to the feared lightning and dared not even come near the fires it left behind, for that was a sacred thing to them. But as all mankind is destined to fight against one another it seems, some skeptical and curious tribes may not have believed it was a holy or reverent sign at all but a simple manifestation of the weather in the sky - and yet still didn't understand it. But they doubted enough of what their leaders told them, that it was enough for them to consider the possibility. Was this the first doubter, and the first intelligent person on Earth ? Perhaps. And as we have always seen in the patterns of man, the other tribe cried sacrilege to this and sent out hunting parties to kill all those those non-believers with sharp clubs who didn't think the lightning was in fact the perfect sign of an angry god against his people, against the dissidents and doubters. It could have happened. After all, it was the sky god's will that the non-believers be punished. The warring tribe could say they were operating under 'orders' from this deity for the demise of the other intelligent and questioning tribe. Expiation. But, in time, after a great many people were killed in bloody conflict over the belief and power of the lightning. Eventually hands would be shook, if not entirely in mutual respect, and one tribe would go one way with their beliefs while the other tribe went in the opposite direction. One tribe fully believing in FAITH in the lightning, that it was an outward and visible sign of an angry sky god whereas the other tribe DOUBTED this, and went their own way to solve their own puzzles about it and perhaps the rest of the world. And in time the tribe that doubted of it's holy meaning would learn of fire and it's use long before the tribe that still felt it was blasphemous and sacrilegious to even come near the flames or light it left behind. One tribe might eventually die out because of their FAITH and fear of fire, and the other tribe would go on to LIVE, because of their DOUBT. Is it not possible that we today can see mankind in the same predicament and situation today for 2012 ? It is said that faith can move mountains, and while I believe that is a very true statement, the sad fact is, that mountain would NOT be moved unless it was our creator's will, with the belief of faith that it needed to be done. With DOUBT, you shift that mountain on your own accord because you are curious to know what lies beyond and beneath it. Reaping what you learn. The intelligence to be gained in it's sifting of the earth, the history it reveals, and the elements that could be collected. Today we live in curious times. We have so many different kinds of religion, all hearkening and hailing back to ancient writings and beliefs. And while I cannot deny that following these beliefs in many ways would not make you a good person for society, I feel you can be a BETTER person - if you doubt it. For I solemnly believe that we were not placed on this great Sapphire Earth to be mindless puppets to a great creator, wherever they may be. No, I think we were placed here to DOUBT everything. For it is only in DOUBT can you grow. Where you can move beyond believing in something that has no absolute and substantial proof. Don't you think our creator wherever they may be would want their most beloved creation to doubt - to leave the playpen we started in and finally explore beyond our planet, beyond our galaxy, and ultimately past all the barriers and prisons we still have set forth in our minds today based solely on blind faith ? Doubt fueled our imaginations. Dreams were made from it. Plans were drawn up because of it. And schemes were constructed by it. I know years ago I was told the Apple ][+ computer's hardware was not capable of having double-pixels across, that I was limited to 280-pixels across and that was all there was. I was shown this in a hardware manual and I was told it was physically impossible to get more than that many pixels across and I was wasting my time trying to go against that. I doubted this. I persisted, I slaved and fevered over a curious method, an experiment of mine. I knew there was a method where you could get 4 rudimentary colors by shifting the 8th bit which took the modulos of 8-pixels across and moved those 7 -pixels over a half a step. In this, because I DOUBTED the limitations set before me, I wrote a program to flip rapidly back and forth between two-screens, 60 frames-per-second, the same as the human eye, to give the APPEARANCE of 560-pixels across. And because the eye could not see the difference, I circumvented the hardware with a software solution. Because of my ingenuity I was encouraged later to write an article for publication for Call A.P.P.L.E. explaining just how I did this and to go into a little bit about the power of DOUBT and imagination because it was to THAT I claimed is what caused me to persist in working so hard at it. People said years ago that if man was intended to fly he would've been born with wings. And no, he wasn't. But today man does fly, and you have to almost laugh to see how ridiculous it is the method that we do so, by shooting hundreds of pounds of jet fuel out the backside of an over-sized not entirely aerodynamic vehicle and using Newton's law of thrust to keep it air-borne. Wings of course help too, but ultimately a commercial airline could not take off or land solely because of wings. We HAD to have something else, and that is jet fuel. We were not born with wings, but our MIND doubted others' beliefs saying we could never fly. We doubted their words, that it was impossible and in fact made it probable and today a fact of life. Because of DOUBT and we have telephones, we have electricity, we have the Internet, we have cellphones, we even have microwavable French-Fries (and man those are tasty). Without DOUBT mankind is nothing. If you take all doubt away and stick solely and only with faith, that our destinies are ruled by the gods, then you might still have a very poor man indeed, even now wrapped in bearskins and still cowering in the caves hiding from the thunder and the lightning and mumbling and chanting prayers to it. No, I believe we were put on this Earth of ours to DOUBT. And I mean doubt everything ! We have scientific principles, laws, we call them, of electricity, of the atom, of everything in the universe. And the only way we are going to get beyond these limitations, to find this new science, is to DOUBT them and find a new way of approaching a problem. For nothing is so impossible as the person who does not try. We see these great science fiction shows that talk about faster-than-light travel, or teleportation, or phasors, and while it all looks great on the screen, someone somewhere - will eventually doubt it is all just merely cinema and today in fact works quite hard at making it a reality for mankind. Because they DOUBT the natural laws of science, they doubt our understanding of the atom and they seek to go - beyond all this - to discover the new untapped science. Today in your life, we have many things to hold faith in. And while I cannot discount your beliefs nor warn you of the dangers by setting these limitations upon yourself. I do put it upon you, today, to take a little time out, and DOUBT some of the things that you take for granted in the world today. Especially those that cannot be proven with stone cold rock hard facts. Be the new person that creates the new science, the new understanding, the new philosophy. And expect someone - somewhere in turn - to DOUBT it, to expect you to prove your theories and ideas. And maybe you won't be able to. But maybe in time in you will with hard work. And even if you don't, someone else could take up the mantle of your ideas where you left off and continue your work. Because they doubted you were wrong. And as the limited species we are, we can grow and flourish in this doubt, because no-one works so hard at improving themselves and their ideas as those who ... doubt them. Enjoy the rest of your evening people. And please be careful out there whatever and wherever your lifepath may lead you ... Return back HOME   You are Earth Visitor #

Reviews

[Mark]

Everyone has faith. To be human is to believe something. Its when people start to believe that THEIR faith is the only CORRECT faith and that all otber faiths are the reason for mayhem destruction and the general chaos that peoe start getting righteous, and then they get angry, and the Us vs Them stuff starts and people get hurt, cuz THEY are tbe reason God doesn't bless all of us. THEY are the reason why God has no mercy. Amen

[dw817]

Hmm ... You bring up some points I hadn't considered. So you are saying that we have a merciless God because certain religious people WANT us to believe this ? That's a part of the equation I did not think about.

Certainly I want us to all just try and get along and from my experiences with religion in real life, it does seem like there will always be conflict and confrontation of one's beliefs, especially if they do not follow a worn path.

[Mark]

No, I'm saying to be human is to have faith. Some people insist their faith is the only faith. This leads to problems.

[dw817]

I have faith, Mark, in kindness. I think it can be found everywhere if you just around a little bit.

Sometimes I think people in this world say it is dirty, filthy. Everywhere they look is grime and mud and decay. And then - they go to a stream and wash their glasses for the first time and realize - hmm - maybe they shoulda done that all along as it was what they SAW from their glasses rather than what the world was really like. The world can be a beautiful place - but first - we have to be beautiful people, both inside and outwards with our actions.

[Mark]

That is a good faith to have. :) I've always felt more at peace in the wild then in a man made building, but then I wouldn't want to go live in a cave full time!

[dw817]

I think if I saw lightning as a caveman, being the guy who always likes to learn stuff so people can go OOH and AHH I would want to figure out how to make my own. Not necessarily worship it or even try to understand it - just be jealous and - say, man I wish I could do that. Story of my life. :)

[Mark]

tornadoes, earthquakes... clouds and stars... all would be cool to make!

[dw817]

Well, maybe all we just really need to do is twinkle a little bit. As for tornadoes and earthquakes, I already have my fair share of nightmares.

You might enjoy reading, Rose Estes' "Revolt Of The Dwarves" sometime. The story includes a fairy who kidnaps a young boy and shows him, in no better words to define, "The heartbeat of the universe," and his place alongside it. It's really quite interesting.

[TheFrogster]

It was too long for me to read all the comments after the post. I'm a Christian. I chose to doubt what I believed before I was a Christian when I didn't believe in Jesus. And as a Christian , I still have doubts about things I don't understand.

Where did you originally post this?

[dw817]

It was in Xanga but it's so darned busy in there right now and the search isn't working I looked for, "Power Of Doubt" and I can't find it !

I extracted this from my downloaded archive and used my conversion utility to insert the correct image. Then I extracted it to Seamonkey, inserted the new margins, inserted the new top and bottom bits, changed the font size, removed the links, renamed the carnivores (cause maybe they don't wanna be named), re-posted it, re-connected the language selector, then saved it all kit & kaboodle right in here. :)

[TheFrogster]

That's a lot of work. It turned out good.

[dw817]

Thanks ! With Xanga shutting down, in a ways I was going to try and back up some of my better work in here if and when future Xanga does appear. I would never leave Writer's Cafe (or shut down as some seem to have), but leave it up and open.

However I am ever and always on the quest to find the perfect blogging site - so far WC is it.

[TheFrogster]

I've heard good things about blogster, not blogger, but I think you tried it and said you had troubles getting on it. Maybe you should try it again.

[dw817]

I cannot do Flash, javascript, CSS, Inline, or any of my advanced tools & tricks. Blogster is off the list.

At this point I CAN do all of my tricks on WordPress (with effort), but I still don't like the fact they don't have something like this in WordPress:
http://www.writerscafe.org/writing
and
http://www.writerscafe.org/writers

If they did, and I could do true word-searches for all posts in WP, I would be there in a heart-beat. As it is, none of these are available.

[TheFrogster]

I found this on WP. Is this what you're looking for?

http://wordpress.com/#!/read/topic/writers/

[dw817]

OMY, this is not bad Froggy. Not bad at all, and I can do searches for other pages here too. Hmm ... Well, their GUI still sux (I'm sorry it really does). :D And no private messages which I gotta have. I guess I could make a list of what I'm really looking for in a blogging site sometime.

Let's see how future Xanga is going to appear in Wordpress, when it's time, however - which - according to you they pushed back the termination date another 2-weeks ? How fortuitous of them. :7

Right, so Xanga² will really be the deciding factor of ultimate destination blogging site I think. At some point I was gonna check these out:
http://www.slideshare.net/bankofd3/250-free-blog-sites-13245793

I do need to update my review on Wordpress, however, while they don't have folders to keep track of your images, they =DO= allow up to 3GB storage for images w no restrictions (true alpha transparencies, true GIF animations, and images up to any size - no rescale), not bad for noobers.

I'm still a little worried WC is gonna lower the boom on me in here for pictures. I've uploaded HUNDREDS and all are decompressed .PNGs for maximum sharpness, something's gotta give somewheres, it can't truly and for real be infinite uploads as it appears to be.

[TheFrogster]

Yeah, I don't know why WP doesn't have private messaging. Did you see that Xanga did an update?
read moreYeah, I don't know why WP doesn't have private messaging. Did you see that Xanga did an update?

http://thexangateam.xanga.com/774253132/our-vision-for-xanga-20/

[TheFrogster]

http://thexangateam.xanga.com/774253132/our-vision-for-xanga-20/

[dw817]

Yep, they extended the date, despite the fact the CEO was verbally heard saying there was no way to extend it. Leave me raw-ther suspicious. :7

[TheFrogster]

This is an update on Xanga 2.0, not just an extension.

[TheFrogster]

I noticed I can't edit comments on here also.

[dw817]

Well, you can if it's the initial comment. But there is the added advantage of being able to at least delete your comment and re-enter it if you so choose. As I said, I'm still looking for the perfect blogging system. I'll definitely keep you informed. :)