The Power of Belief

Saturday, 31 December 2016 14:44 Written by
The Power of Belief. Faith comes from desire, demonstration and repetition. Picture: Gety Bisagni - Looking at the Moon. The Power of Belief. Faith comes from desire, demonstration and repetition. Picture: Gety Bisagni - Looking at the Moon. The Power of Belief. Faith comes from desire, demonstration and repetition. Picture: Gety Bisagni - Looking at the Moon.

Some people cling so strongly to their beliefs that they cannot accept or share the ideas of the others.

Now, let’s have a closer look at the power of belief, and its ability even to harm people.

It is easy to prove that beliefs are almighty and lead to any kind of power.

For example: armies are useless if soldiers do not firmly believe in the cause for which they are fighting, or, if mercenaries do not trust their commander to be victorious.

Similarly, law is useless if people fail to comply with it.

Religious beliefs often turned out to be more powerful than the State.

Therefore, we can assume that beliefs are the crucial power underlying social relations.

Beliefs are traditionally considered to originate in the mind, however, this refers exclusively to their recent origins: in fact, at a deeper level, there is always a power acting in the name of some doctrine.

Today we tend to reject the ability of reason to influence our actions, yet, the scientific progress indicates quite the opposite. 

Scientists actually prove that a certain intellectual attitude may lead to military power and wealth, which were the aims of everyone, therefore this new intellectual attitude prevailed over the obscurantist one, in spite of the power of tradition, the control of the Church and feelings pertaining to the Catholic theology.

Some say that orthodoxy and virtue will bring us to Heaven after death; I like to believe in this assumption, therefore I will probably believe in it.

The objective of faith is no longer science or the scientific evidence of some facts, but rather the pleasure aroused by the belief itself, together with an assertive strength intense enough to make  the belief plausible.

The power of propaganda falls precisely within this category.

It is good to believe in pills, since they allow us to hope for a better health; and you are more likely to believe in them if their properties are often repeated and emphasised.

The propaganda relies on desires already existing, but replaces the scientific evidence of the facts with constant repetitions.

Faith, if it is not a mere tradition, is the result of three factors: desire, demonstration, repetition.

Without desire or demonstration there can be no faith!

The creation of a mass faith, i.e. endowed with a social importance, requires all these three elements, albeit to different extents, so that the amount of faith remains unchanged.

In order to force people to believe in something with poor evidences, a more insistent propaganda is required with respect to beliefs supported by strong evidences; they both meet the same needs and offer the same satisfaction; and so on.

As already anticipated, the propaganda must rely on existing desires: an illustrative example is represented by the failure of the State propaganda opposing the national sentiment.

Power, once applied to a belief, tends to combine with other forms of power and aggregate and usually culminates with State monopoly.

 

However, it is worth mentioning some important examples relating to beliefs.

The most interesting one is represented by the scientific thinking.

Nowadays, science is encouraged by the State, but in the past, the situation was totally different: Galileo was forced to retract his theories, someone objected the appointment of Newton as "Master of the Royal Mint", Lavoisier was guillotined because "the Republic does not need any scientists."

Yet, these men and other scientists laid the foundations for the modern world, and their impact on social life was stronger than any other historical figure, including Christ and Aristotle.

There is just one man whose importance is similar to the ones above: it is Pythagoras and his existence is uncertain.

Read 5219 times Last modified on Saturday, 24 June 2017 12:06

Power and limits of fanatic doctrines.

The power and the strength of a community does not only depend on the members or components and on their number, but very much on the economic component, but even more on the doctrine that prophesies and that everyone carries out. Let's see therefore how a fanatical doctrine (and we see even today with the Isis) often increases a community's power.

Today they are trendy, perhaps more than before, their influence on power has great practical importance, so a nation or group of fanatics has odds of success in war, this is a major impediment to democracy and democratic peoples in general; it has more success than a nation where there is a large population of wise men.

Consider this in the light of history.

It is possible to note that cases in which fanaticism led to success are much more known than those in which they failed, because these events remained in the dark.

Certainly a too quickly examination can mislead; it is obvious that if we stay on our guard is easy to avoid it.

A classic example of the fanatic power was that of Hitler's national socialism, but today we have to remember that the maximum fanatic power example is represented by the history of Islam.

Muhammad did not ever add anything to the knowledge and material resources of the Arabs, yet few years after his death they had acquired a vast empire by defeating the powerful neighbours; the religion founded by the Prophet was material and essential element to the success of the nation.

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