The Need to Believe - Zach Black | Forum

"Faith is rooted in fear. A fear of the unknown. The unpredictable."

That doesn't make sense. That statement is a contradiction. First you state what faith is- 'rooted in fear', you then state it's a fear of the unknown and there in is the problem, that is not what faith is. Faith is trusting in the unknown. Faith is the opposite of fear and the unpredictable has nothing to do with faith.  

"Why would Organized Religion launch crusades to exterminate entire cultures, population and races?"

It's not so much control as it is self perpetuation, in this case meaning perpetuation of culture and genes, as for populations, that's for the practical purpose of preserving resources. Remember, "Self preservation is the highest law". Self preservation like perpetuation isn't limited to the ego- individual identification.

Quote from Kmag

Quote from ol' grimey

"Faith is rooted in fear. A fear of the unknown. The unpredictable."

That doesn't make sense. That statement is a contradiction. First you state what faith is- 'rooted in fear', you then state it's a fear of the unknown and there in is the problem, that is not what faith is. Faith is trusting in the unknown. Faith is the opposite of fear and the unpredictable has nothing to do with faith.  

"Why would Organized Religion launch crusades to exterminate entire cultures, population and races?"

It's not so much control as it is self perpetuation, in this case meaning perpetuation of culture and genes, as for populations, that's for the practical purpose of preserving resources. Remember, "Self preservation is the highest law". Self preservation like perpetuation isn't limited to the ego- individual identification.

Faith as in religion, does not trust in the unknown; why does it need punishments, hell and sin if it is based on trust? It controls with fear, God will strike you down...Fear...You will burn in hell...Fear. Also how was faith conceived; also from fear of the unknown; the basic worshipping of a Sun God was fear of not knowing how the Sun moved across the skies. The sentence "Faith is rooted in fear. A fear of the unknown. The unpredictable." makes perfect sense.  

Faith as defined by religion- trust in what's not objectively seen, yet subjectively experienced; it's trust in the OBJECTIVELY unknown. Trust in an afterlife, not fear of death, trust that there are supra personal life forms, not fear of being the only sentient life form in the universe...

So I say again it doesn't make sense, in that it goes against the fact of people of faith not matching to that "faith= fear" premise.

Quote from Kmag

Quote from Zach Black A forward I wrote a couple years back for a book called ' The Satanic Bible- New

The universal need to believe should be looked at as a mass induced psychosis. A protective mechanism early man evolved after the horror, uncertainty and isolation he must of felt leaving the comfort of the jungle for the open fields towards the unknown.

And that is exactly where the fear that started it all came from; sadly we are now wiser and should be more intelligent, so why on earth is religion based on the man in the sky still thriving? How does it survive? Your writing certainly makes the mind think more about that. It is because religions focus on the weak to recruit. Missionaries heading out to the " uneducated" in other cultures to hand out the Bible and word of the Christian God in return for food and water. This is how religion thrives based on fear and punishment; the illusion of Hell still controls those who know no better. 

Religious faith is based on word of mouth - those with faith for some reason choose to trust what another testifies to.

Faith in oneself is an awesome thing. When I face situations which are challenging or a bit scary I centre myself and try to pick up on the energy around it... Sometimes I will feel - Okay... It is safe to proceed. Other times we are not thinking and we get a slap in the face that tells us to stop or deviate or retreat - trusting this is faith. I don't know whether these things are based in energy or instinct or a whisper from beyond a grave, or all of the above, but they are very reliable. 

So I think faith is a good thing when it is something you have developed. But when we put faith in another's words we have to remember that the another is only a human like ourselves. 

Without faith in ourselves we would never step away from the mob or out of our comfort zone. Without faith we would never advance.

"Religious faith is based on word of mouth - those with faith for some reason choose to trust what another testifies to."

That's because of the trust in the validity of the testifier's experience and it may even be confirmation of/for their own experience. If you never been to the Bahamas before, you trust it's a nice place to visit based on the experience of one who has been and is describing/testifying about their wonderful experience, leading you to have faith in the awesomeness of the Bahamas, though you never been there before yourself and so you extol the virtues of a trip to the Bahamas to any one who would listen.

What is blind faith? Thinking you are going to land on your feet if you jump from a 6,000 ft. building. People of faith lack such blind faith.  You shouldn't demand that second hand information about religious experience

should be automatically dismiss. Remember the second hand information you received about the Bahamas in which you Have the faith that it's as nice as you heard.

There are two poles-Faith and Fear. Faith is taking a leap into the unknown, Fear is recoiling from the unknown, seeking comfort in the safety of true and actual narrow mindedness, if not outright blind ignorant  denial of taking a flying leap into hidden/occult terrain of religious/spiritual experience. Is it not blind faith to assume that some one likes you, or whatever, simply because they smile big as they rub/pat you on the back and caressing your arm?  what of their subjective experience of thinking about how they would love to chop off the arm they are caressing, get my drift?

Your Bahamas example works... If I wanted to travel to the Bahamas (which I do btw), before I finalised my decision I would do a bit of research. If I went based solely on advertising or rumours I would be a fool. And then if it didn't work out a fool would then blame the testifiers when really it is their own fault. 

Testimony can colour and expand our thoughts but it should never dictate them. 

We do that with each other here all the time... We listen to each other. Sometime we are inspired to further investigate an idea, and other times we just think the person is on crack (or at a different branch of their journey that doesn't apply to us at present). We don't just blindly adopt another's ideas. 

I do agree with the idea of polarities though - love(or as you say faith) and fear can be found to be the only two drivers if you get to the very base of it. About twenty years ago I had a fellow try to tell me that there was a third option and that it was control and I said "No" because control falls under the umbrella of fear. Yin and yang is not a new concept.

Interesting, that Bahamas thing is the second or third time I said something relating directly to you, uncanny but not surprising. But any road, you're taking that example a little too literally, but to build on it let me point out that people of faith don't just take any and ever body's word at face value, they cross reference the testimony with information/research (scriptures...) and if not that, even plus that, people of faith cross reference the testimony of others with their own experience and understanding. In Life there is universal commonality in people, but likes and dislikes/attraction/aversion... are not where it's at. In this case, we all have our own personal interpretation of things dealing with religion, the occult, spirituality... yet the commonality is that we are all essentially two poled as subject and object; two simultaneous views of the same  thing, it's a part of the human pattern and also a part of the human pattern is faith, it inexorably plays out in our lives and fear exists as faith's opposite, not in the sense of opponent, but more in the sense of interdependent opposite; they go together, fear to give faith meaning and faith to do the same for fear. In other words we can't escape faith, nor can we try to minimize or trivialize it, it is a part of us. Fear is there to be  challenge for faith to be challenger. religious, or spiritually mystic minded people, or people of the kind of faith the thread is referring to do not flea from this in abject terror escaping in "spiritual Pipe dreams" (remember Laveyan Satanism is  materially orientated and that's no more THE Truth as the spiritually orientated model, yet both rely on faith in conviction all the same). So people of faith do not let testimony dictate anything to them no more than their counter part let testimony dictate to them, if this wasn't so, then the thread itself would not exist, as it is with the repeating of an exclusive materialist thinking, that may or may not actually be how the author sees or thinks of things, apart from the mistaking of the model, the guess for/as the gospel truth and this is a case of the pot calling the kettle black.

"We don't just blindly adopt another's ideas."

This is in fact what goes on. What is the main Satanism back of SIN? The Laveyan materialistic model, which is a bit of Jewish here and nowness thrown in with Some Randian Egoism and Libertarian leanings thrown in as one of many models on the same theme, yet hoarded as the "one and true Satanism"....because Lavey said so. That's taking another's ideas at face value and in a sense just blindly adopt it, convinced that is how you saw the world before you agreed to what you were told based on some one's testimony that you agree with based on their invoking punditry; "He's called Dr. Lavey, because he's been around the block, so that means he knows and can only know better than me. He has accreditation of some kind or other after all, so if he says that spiritual perspective of things is phewy, then I agree, I (think) that's where I'm coming from too, because he only showed me one side of things, discouraging me from the other side of things, calling them 'spiritual pipedreams'. Now I am seeing the world through Lavey's strictly materialistic model, which is the only true model and any other Satanist with any other model is a pseudo Satanist, or a reverse Christian; a 'Christian Satanist'. How is that any different from what the perceived enemy of the Satanist, the Christian... do? After all isn't Laveyan Satanism the inverse of the spiritual model called RHP with the same denigration/invalidation in respects to it's opposite model as it is the same on the other side in regards to the LHP? 

In other words, Lavey and his materialistic predecessors and successors testify to the implied Absolute Truth of Laveyanism and it's materialist approach/perception/orientation and the author/SIN adopts the model and same attitude of invalidation to the spiritual model over all, though in this case the same invalidation in regards to faith. The memorize, summate and repeat approach, void of any real understanding due to a myopic/tunnel view of the universe... Wise understanding do not come from just seeing heads, refusing to flip the coin over and examine it's tails side also, convinced and insisting that the coin has only the heads side, the same as their counterparts on the right do for the tails side of the coin.

"A forward I wrote a couple years back "

And here we are a couple years later and he remains in the same place, still and rigidly unmoving.

For example... Noah's Ark. When I was a kid I blindly accepted this story at face value. As I matured, I grew to realise that it quite possibly happened in one way - a bloke probably did build a big boat because he knew heavy rains were coming. Did he hear the voice of God? I don't believe that unless you interpret God as his higher conscience. I do believe he received a clear message however, and that he trusted it. Noah was actually able to trust his inner voice, although, he probably thought it was God. Did he take two kangaroos on the ark? Hell no. He probably didn't even take two of everything that live in his area - he probably took livestock so he could breed them and continue to feed his family into the future. Even many Christians will have reached the last two conclusions... Those who still take it at face value have little power to think for themselves.

I tear apart every book I ever read, and every speaker I ever listen to like I do this story. Even the Satanic Bible... I have only read it once - not long after I joined SIN. It sat very well with me and gave me a greater understanding of what Satanists actually believe, although I am aware there are many different branches of Satanism. Most of what Anton said resonated with me because I could recall events in my own life where it applied. Because of this I could deduce that at least as far as philosophy goes we are on a similar wavelength, so I can keep an open mind about stuff that I had no experiences with - I could take his words seriously. There were a couple of things which I didn't 100% agree with but they were insignificant(so insignificant I can't even remember what they were) and it didn't take away from the quality of the book in general. 

What, do you think I am going to read a book and just blindly adopt everything it says to. What, are you crazy? I actually don't think Anton Levey would want people to blindly follow him... That concept in itself goes against free thinking. 

"We don't just adopt another's beliefs..." Let me rephrase. I don't just blindly adopt another's beliefs. Maybe you do... 

As for fear... Fear is a necessary part of our make-up designed to aid preservation. It is only when it becomes unbalanced that it is a problem. Like everything I guess.

Right, most of what Lavey said resonated with you, as it does with any whomever read the Satanic Bible. The only difference being Laveyans agree with everything or damn near everything Lavey says, you've been on SIN long enough to know that. Laveyans take Lavey's words in a very dogmatic way; if he said spirituality is a pipe dream... they agree to it all and run with it. In fact the very body of the OP is indicative of that.

Can a very specific personal psychological characteristic(s) and a particular model of the universe, along with the tinted glasses view of things truly resonate with any one who isn't the same kind of person Lavey was?

Laveyans not only go with what resonates with them in the Satanic Bible, but also agree with the psychology of the man; a misanthropic sociopath, his strictly materialistic model and anything else that has nothing to do with common sense, as the whole package deal of what he terms Satanism; the man, his psychology and his orientation is not separated from those resonated things. Case in point, you said reading the Satanic Bible has allowed me to know what Satanists believe, without making the distinction between Laveyan and any other form of Satanism, because Lavey had said that his alleged codification is the "one true way" of Satanism, the same as any staunch Laveyan would. The Satanic Bible states what Lavey thinks Satanists believe because he and his inner most circle, or perhaps only he believed these things and of course Satanists that existed contemporaneous to him and perhaps before him, he and his cronies and ass lickers merely dismiss them as "Devil worshippers", "pseudo Satanists", "Christian Satanists..." All classed as not really being Satanists because Lord Lavey hath Spoken it. So shall it be written, so shall it be done, right?

 Just blindly adopting something does in fact go against free thinking, then why do Laveyans do it (this both a rhetorical and non rhetorical question), whilst claiming to be all for free thinking, only to discourage any type of thinking that's not fawning over and repeating Lavey, all the while continuing to claim to be about free thinking in a cult (of personality) way?  All in all The satanic Bible's only relevance is in essence, meaning it destroys the flesh shaming we inherited from such figures as St. Paul, St. Augustine... It allows for a reclaiming of the function of the flesh as a sacred thing and not as something shameful, wicked, dirty, sinful and so on, as those figures mentioned above had the west believing for all the time it has, all based on their own psychological makeup, tinted glasses...

"As for fear... Fear is a necessary part of our make-up designed to aid preservation."

Fear is this and all what I said and as all of the above, fear can not be known as fear without it's opposite and vice versa; interdependent opposites. Would or could you know what up is, without knowing what down is and vice versa, what left is without know what right is, joy without sorrow and so forth and so on?

Quote from Agent It is a matter of faith. Look at it like stick people on a piece of paper. All they can see is what appears on the paper. Now write something on the paper, and they will only see what appears on the paper. They cannot see the hand or the pen; all they see is the writing on the wall. So it was with the patriarchs. They could not see God or the Devil. They could only see miracles  By the way the scriptures are written in parables. Religion interprets these parables for us to mean something else. So people argue against religious interpretations such as Calvinism, which is not a true definition of the parables.