Faith ...or Belief?

Location: Small town outside Lisbon, Portugal

Time: July 2013

"And there under the roof, was the place where "Our Lady of Fatima" appeared to Lucia, Jacinta and Francisco, the children of the house. Now if you will go there, pray, burn a candle, and have faith, Our Lady will listen to you. Don't forget, this place is very, very special," says the tour guide getting of the air conditioned bus with an "Our Lady of Fatima" super-souvenir-store ticket which offers a gift of a glowing little statue for every 15 euros you spend there in her hand, walking towards, along with many people, the grand church standing at the end and the highest point of a vast, concrete area.

[caption id="attachment_438" align="alignright" width="300"] "Sanctuary of our Lady of Fatima"-Where the first sighting took place. Millions of Christians flock here every year.[/caption]

This is Fatima, the "Sanctuary of Our Lady of Fatima", to be more precise, where, supposedly, Virgin Mary appeared to three little children for the first time in 1917 and first told the children to build a small chapel for her. Later came the "secrets", directed mainly at Lucia, the youngest of the three; "Our Lady of Fatima" told Lucia in one of her apparitions that World War I, which was going on at the time, would end in a year if Lucia, her brother and her cousin prayed to her. And, in fact, World War I ended in 1918, a year after these apparitions began.

Later in her life, after another "secret" from Our Lady of Fatima, stating that Lucia would be the only one to live through her teenage years, was "proven" to be true, Lucia had a dream. In this dream, a bishop dressed in white was tumbling across the market place, and seemed to be in distress; and when there was an assassination attempt at the Pope, also known as the Bishop of Rome, a few days later and he survived a  gun shot wound "which should have killed him", as his doctors put it, he stated that he "became a believer" - along with many, many other people.

Now what stands where Lucia supposedly saw Our Lady of Fatima for the first time, is a poly-carbon room, with a statue inside so deeply embedded behind the bullet-proof glass and the stone walls, risers, and all sorts of assortments, that it is barely visible. And also some three million people who migrate there every year who believe.

 

These people believe in the power of their prayers, and they do not only believe, but they have faith in it. They may believe the story of "Our Lady of Fatima", but they have faith in her when they buy candles in shapes of various body parts which they or someone close to them needs to survive, they have faith in her when they close their eyes tight with tears welling up around the corners and ask for forgiveness, they have faith in her when they travel thousands of miles and walk 100 meters on their knees to the church.

Faith is a subset of belief. Faith entitles power and hope. Belief entitles a set of mind.

Lucia had faith in "Our Lady of Fatima" when she sat on her knees in front of her bed before going to sleep and praying that the bombs and the crackling radio broadcasts her parents always listened to nowadays and the death all around and the men disappearing from around her to stop. But whether WWI ended because Lucia believed "Our Lady of Fatima", took her word for it, or because the nations were far past emaciated, is up for discussion.

And the main difference between belief and faith is that belief doesn't require the participation of the single most important bundle of muscle in our body pumping red hot liquid through our veins and into our souls; the heart.

Knock Knock

Avoid the black cat!

Salt over the left shoulder.

Knock on wood.

Rabbit's foot.

Wear the evil eye.

There, all set to go!

All of these actions are things we do every day in order to set our lives on track. When we see a black cat, we expect our day to go terribly wrong. When we pass under a ladder, we live through the day frightened of what may happen.

These superstitions are nothing more than stupid beliefs we cling on to in order to have an "external force" act on our lives, change its current projectile and destination. We think that wearing an evil eye will protect us from a car crash, so we drive more recklessly. And when we don't actually crash into the back of a truck, we think it is because of the "eye".

When we see an owl on the sedge of our balcony, we expect someone to die in the following 24 hours. At least that's the way things work in Turkey.

If we have a rabbit's foot around our necks, well, then, we will ace the physics test!

But actually all of this is caused by logical fallacies. We only notice that there was an owl on our balcony if someone dies that day and we assume a causality. We can always perform poorly at an exam, but that one single time you may not be wearing your evil eye, and, again, we do the best thing humans do, the thing we are all professionals at; we assume. So these traditions are born by your very own mind tricking you. Like every false, hollow, seemingly-useful-but-really-not-worth-a-dime thing on our planet today,superstitions, too, are created only by humans.  They are all things humanity sticks onto to be able to blame something else for what happens to them. Superstitions exist for the same reasons that religion exists for. All these false beliefs are built on the same, selfish, arrogant idea: something went wrong? blame it on someone else.

So, we do knock on wood when we see a very pretty baby, or when someone mentions something horrible happening to another person. I personally do not believe that me knocking on the aged furniture at our house, not even real wood, probably, would delay the Reaper and turn him the wrong way at the intersection just down the road from our home, but my grandma does, and she tells me to do so, insistingly.

Even the most skeptical person on the face of earth, the scientists at CERN or the astronauts in the space shuttle looking down on our blue marble, has an instance of doubt when a black cat walks across the road right in front of them, or when a mirror shatters into a thousand pieces in their apartments.

So when I take the IB exams next year, I won't depend on an evil eye to protect me or a knock on the table to get me a 7. But, just to be safe, I still will wear my blue necklace, be careful around mirrors for the couple of weeks before the exams, pull my hair if I see a black cat on the street while waiting for the bus, and knock on the wood if anyone mentions failing the test or getting a bad grade, because you never know. Someday, those guys at CERN or USC Research Team may just announce that knocking on wood increases your intelligence and awareness.