"A faith is not acquired by reasoning. One does not fall in love with a woman, or enter the womb of a church, as a result of logical persuasion. Reason may defend an act of faith - but only after the act has been committed, and the man committed to the act. Persuasion may play a part in a man's conversion; but only the part of bringing to its full and conscious climax a process which has been maturing in regions where no persuasion can penetrate. A faith is not acquired; it grows like a tree.
From the psychologist's point of view, there is little difference between a revolutionary and a traditionalist faith. All true faith is uncompromising, radical, purist; hence the true traditionalist is always a revolutionary zealot in conflict with pharisaian society, with the lukewarm corrupters of the creed. And vice versa: the revolutionary's Utopia, which in appearance represents a complete break with the past, is always modeled on some image of the lost Paradise, of a legendary Golden Age...
Thus all true faith involves a revolt against the believer's social environment, and a projection into the future of an ideal derived from the remote past. All Utopias are fed from the sources of mythology; the social engineer's blueprints are merely revised editions of the ancient text."
Arthur Koestler penned these words in the 1949 book The God that Failed. It was a collection of six essays by famous ex-Communists. I found the text to be very relevant today. The author's membership of the Communist party was the result of an acquired faith - a 'region where no persuasion may penetrate.' What a sad prophecy of fundamentalism in our society. Now I need to read further, to understand how he broke the hold of this 'future ideal derived from the remote past.'
2 comments:
Thanks for bringing this book to my attention again. I've been meaning to read it for years. That quote is brilliant.
After getting more than 10000 visitors/day to my website I thought your thelockeronline.blogspot.com website also need unstoppable flow of traffic...
Use this BRAND NEW software and get all the traffic for your website you will ever need ...
= = > > http://get-massive-autopilot-traffic.com
In testing phase it generated 867,981 visitors and $540,340.
Then another $86,299.13 in 90 days to be exact. That's $958.88 a
day!!
And all it took was 10 minutes to set up and run.
But how does it work??
You just configure the system, click the mouse button a few
times, activate the software, copy and paste a few links and
you're done!!
Click the link BELOW as you're about to witness a software that
could be a MAJOR turning point to your success.
= = > > http://get-massive-autopilot-traffic.com
Post a Comment