Mi amante, y la fe
Firstly and most importantly, i must say a HE-UGE "hurro" oh wait i mean "hola" Miguel, usted es muy atrativa! *wink wink nudge nudge* Screes of brownie points to Miguel... he is my hero and when i find him i will demonstrate my riotous profusion for him!! I am still giggling away about it all....
Go los latinos!!
And secondly, something that popped into my head yesterday, when i talk about blind faith, i am not talking about stupidly believing something without ever questioning or theorising about it... I realised that the idea of blind faith first came to me in 5th form french, mainly when i began to learn about irregular verbs. Sometimes the rule behind an irregularity is so confusing that it is much easier to just believe that the verb is irregular, and not question why.
For example, the verb "aller" to go. In the present tense you say "je vais" and in the future tense you say "j'irai" none of which seem to be related to 'aller' at all... For some of the girls in my class, they would get so hung up on these rules and irregularities that they couldnt understand, that they would become bogged down, get frustrated with the language, and some of them eventually quit because the complexities were too confusing. Seeing any parallels?
For me, i found that the easiest way to get through was just to accept that "aller" turns into the stem "ir-" in the future tense, and learn that. Once i began to try and fathom out all the underlying details, it detracted from the basic purpose - to learn the language.
Now sometimes this allegory isnt applicable - sometimes we genuinely do need to learn the reason behind the rule, in order to better understand it, but i guess its up to us to discern the difference between when finicky details or confusing aspects are bogging us down, and when it is necessary to probe deeper.
So i know the whole blind-faith debate is kinda over, but i was only reminded about this yesterday in french class, and how i first discovered this concept when learning a foreign language, but yet how applicable it is to Faith and Christianity.
So perhaps its not 'blind' faith, but knowing when to question, and when to simply believe what you have been told.
Perhaps i could go down another path here - the whole 'how do i know its not a good idea to stick my finger into the power point' problem. On the one hand, just believe your parents when they tell you not to because its bad, on the other hand, you could research why not to, before making up your own mind about the matter.
Sometimes it just detracts from the bigger picture - that your Creator has told you certain things. Need you question everything? Or simply believe that he has told you something because he has your best interests at heart?
So when the French teacher said "its an irregular verb. Thats just the way it is" do you believe her? or set out on your own research?
Interesting question.
6 Comments:
Good post.
I agree, and proceed, to provide oppurtunity for us to disagree :)
Its not about not processing, but rather, to what level we process.
In your french example, you could process it at a case by case level, which wouldn't be helpful, or a rule based level, which would be helpful in your case, or from a language-history\linguistic level, which might be helpful for you, provided it doesn't take away from the level that matters. (In this case these other levels are important to other people - e.g. someone learning one phrase, or a linguist, analysing the language)
For example, in the tongues, you can process it to an experiential level, a biblical level, and a scientific level. (To mention a few) It is not necessary to process to a experiential or scientific level, but I think processing it a biblical level is still important. Thus, faith is not blind, yet it doesn't require a lobotomy.
Christians need to analyse things at the God level, and I think a great deal of this is mapped out by the bible.
"Its all about abstraction hierachies!"
Ack! once again my plans at obtaining first post-age are foiled by the Notorious Nathan! Curses! back to square 1 again!
I understand and agree, that sometimes you just gotta have faith! :)
but yeh, i do believe that while one sort of faith is just as good as another, an informed faith will help when going into situations that are hostile towards Christianity. it can help you appreciate where the person is coming from, and thus, help to reach them better! :) but yes. i will not rabbit (or squirrel!) on! :)
And much RESTEC-P to you Squirrel Girl! You managed to cover tongues and blind faith in one post! from spanish to french you do it all!man, all these talented linguists over the place! I feel humbled! :)
By the way, did you notice your ads include references to Squirrels? good work! ;)
It might be interesting to link this in with tongues again (at the risk of starting the thing off again)
hmm yeah, well i wasnt actually talking about tongues at all in this post, Nathan... thats a different issue...
And yes, i am going to talk about the tongue thing, and close it up for me, once and for all, in the near future =) just have my patience my pretties!
He he... Sammo one day you will beat the comment-meister and have first-comment rights!! one day... hold on to the dream *grin*
oh yeah, Sam, you're right... i did cover a FORM of tongues though - the foreign, earthly kind... he he... so maybe inadvertantly the tongue debate is infiltrating all that we do.. heh heh heh
Hey, I wasn't implying that what you were talking about tongues, rather, I was applying what you were saying to tongues. Its a good example because thats where the whole issue came from
Post a Comment
<< Home