A Great Frustration

"People almost invariably arrive at their beliefs not on the basis of proof but on the basis of what they find attractive."
--Blaise Pascal



The great frustration of one who pursues truth is that few will join alongside him or her.  Few care about understanding and conforming to reality; but many are those who avoid shattering their beliefs in order to discover actual truth or to stare into the terrors and cautions of uncertainty.  Seeing people continually do this after correction only compounds my fury.

To truly aim for truth and truth alone, one must disregard assumptions, traditions, emotional persuasions, and anything that cannot be established on the basis of intellectual certainty.  It is indeed a difficult pursuit, but one necessary to find true knowledge.  I find myself deeply frustrated quite often with how people generally do not intend to surrender their beliefs when they are proven false or unjustified, yet I am instructed to love them as fellow recipients of revelation and bearers of reason and God's image.  Still, I experience deep irritation and even indignation towards most people for their lack of understanding and their indifference towards the acts of shedding beliefs and exchanging them for knowledge.

As much as I admire Pascal for his wonderful insights and devotion to Christianity, he was not a rationalist and believed that God's existence cannot be proven, though he did engage in Christian apologetics and proposed his famous "wager".  The belief that God's existence cannot be proven is indeed false, though many arguments cited in order to prove a deity's existence often do fail or contain overt or subtle logical fallacies.  But he was absolutely accurate in his diagnosis of humanity--many people do not seek proof but appeal or attractiveness when considering a belief.