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Woebeit “I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil,” because my jackleg preacher grandpa, Rev. William Paul Fonteno, engrained the biblical 23rd Psalm’s concept in The Outer Limits of my malleable, infantile mind (with his harsh—razor strap—teaching method), before I attended kindergarten. Even so, oftimes I have cause to pause and ponder whether, or not, it’s folly to test my faith by putting myself in harm’s way. I’m talking, of course, my decision to ride out Katrina’s look-a-like first cousin, Rita, from the comfort of my domicile. On the other hand, common sense has more to do with most of my logical decisions and faith doesn’t always make sense.
Ergo, I’ll defer to Francois Marie Arouet de Voltaire, the 15th century French philosopher who reasoned, “Common sense is not so common,” insofar as it requires critical thinking. Ergo, since I’m into Buddhist philosophy I’m down with its founder, Hindu Prince Gautama Siddharta, who advised: “Believe nothing no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.” Need I explain further why I didn’t pay too much to the talking heads on TV? Hey, they made even less sense than true believers who leaned on their faith in Jesus the Christ. For sure, His primary appeal to humankind very first words to, “Fear not?” In addition, the main reason the evacuation plan didn’t make sense was because it was based on fear.
Furthermore, as many times as the government has duped citizens, e.g., mainstream media, it defies logic to have faith in folks that’s more confused than they are. Hell, it’s just plain old common sense to realize that cars run on gas, thus, the best way to evacuate is via mass transportation. Lest, unprepared, frighten citizens will be trapped in their cars. Common sense notwithstanding, I’d rather be trapped in my house, rather than a car filled with all of my most earthly possessions. Square business, common sense dictates that since most folks appear to be motivated by fear, above all else, panic and desperation all too often translate to road rage. Hence, the last place to be during a crisis is on an open road with a bunch of wild and crazy folks. Then again, this epistle isn’t about common sense, but a very personal test of one’s faith.
First, mayhap, I should qualify my own faith, insofar as the way I’ve always interpreted scripture precludes a Lord and Savior that micromanages the free will that he hotwired us with. Okay, I hear the The Twilight Zone theme, so I won’t mess with your misinformation about God’s wrath. Instead, I’ll share this insight into our free will, gleamed from John Stuart Mill’s book, A System of Logic: “The question whether the law of causality applies in the same strict sense to human actions as to other phenomena, is the celebrated controversy concerning the freedom of the will, which, from at least as far back as the time of Pelagius, has divided both the philosophical and the religious world. The affirmative opinion is commonly called the doctrine of Necessity, as asserting human volitions and actions to be necessary and inevitable.
“The negative maintains that the will is not determined, like other phenomena, by antecedents, but determines itself; that our volitions are not, properly speaking, the effects of causes, or at least have no causes which they uniformly and implicitly obey.” In other words, we create our own disasters and blame our stupidity on God. For sure, courage is a valued human attribute. But, before you start hating on my cool, bravado, check out Antoine Bechara (a professor of neurology at the University of Iowa.), who says I’m crazy.” For real, his study revealed, “Functional psychopaths’ make the best decisions, because they can't experience emotions such as fear.
“Fear stops most people from taking even logical risks— meaning those who have suffered damage to areas of the brain affecting emotions, and can suppress feelings, make better decisions. The ability to control emotion helps performance even in business and the financial markets.” For sure, I understand where Prof. Antoine is coming from. Even so, this earthly life is a crapshoot, ergo, if we bet that our souls are saved by faith… we can’t lose with the stuff we use. I wonder if anybody knows where I’m coming from?