Colours

Call me delusional or otherwise, but I think that a life worth living is one that has not lost its 'colours', so to speak. Not everything has to be explained, and neither can everything be explained with solely faith, or science alone. I'd rather be a fool than a cynic.

If everything conformed to what people determine to be 'rational', 'logical', and 'empirical', then life would be rather dreary now, wouldn't it? And think about it, a lot of things in rational, logical, empirical science are theories. A theory is defined as such: A proposed explanation whose status is still conjectural, in contrast to well-established propositions that are regarded as reporting matters of actual fact. Some scientific theories require us to take a step out of our comfort zones, or a step of faith, if you will, to accept it. You don't see gravity, but you trust that it will do the job of pulling you back to earth when you jump. And yes, it is called the theory of gravitation.

Don't get me wrong now. I am all for science, and logic, and empirical evidence, and the like. But just because I am an advocate of the scientific method doesn't make me a mutually exclusive subscriber to it. I think there is room, in all our lives, for the natural, and the preternatural. To take it one step further, I think we need both the natural, and the preternatural in our lives. After all, isn't balance the key to life?

In my humble opinion, it is easier to explain something than to see the preternatural at work. To me, the divine can be so subtle that we may overlook it. But I want to have space in my life to recognize what I feel is the divine. What people call coincidences, I call divine appointments. To me, that makes life easier to live; that Someone out there is looking out for little old me, than the random occurrence of one out of the billions of permutations that could have occurred.

It has been said, that we humans have a god-sized void that nothing else can fill. That's perhaps why many people are looking for something as elusive, as ephemeral as the divine, the preternatural. To me, it doesn't exactly matter what god you choose to fill that void with. But I think it is a better life to live if we have a little faith, a little hope in our lives. Yes, science doesn't explain everything, and yes, faith doesn't explain everything either. People may think that it is too ridiculous to try to attribute incomprehensible things to the divine, or it is too convenient to ascribe divinity to things that we can explain using other more 'rational' methods. But the way I see it, the divine may be above reason, but it is not beyond reason. Otherwise, it wouldn't be 'divine' now, would it?

I sure hope that you noticed, that I am not making a case for any particular religion, or anything. I am merely stating, in generic terms, what I feel about the preternatural and divine. I just think that the acceptance of the supernatural can, and should, go hand in hand with the natural. I feel that we all need to believe in something greater than ourselves, whether we choose to acknowledge that or not. We all need a sense of awe, of splendor, of glory, and of whimsy.

To make a rather poor analogy, if science were the shades black and white, then faith would be the colours. Mixing the two would not make either lesser, but rather, each would be enhanced by the other. Blind 'faith', without rationality and logic, is without depth. But rationality and logic, without faith, is monochromatic, and frankly, quite dull. Shades, and colours exist whether you see them or not, whether you choose to see them or not.

Just don't lose sight of the shades and colours of your world.