Faith and Reason

Posted: November 11, 2019 in Uncategorized

Only a monster
can save us
from monsters.

Look what we have become
we are frightened of ourselves
with good reason
reason being our best hope faith our false prophet
leading us astray every which way.

Be reasonable first and reason will out
put faith in that
in good faith we can only be reasonable men
reasonable men allow room for faith…
hoping faith can be reasoned with
doubters have their reason the faithful their fervor.

For every library they build churches
for every book they build a fire
when the fires die the monsters return
hungry for sacrifice
reason fled into shadow
its return is no resurrection yet brings hope.

Comments
  1. Lynette Orr says:

    Hi Jack. I read your first poem. I’m not a poet like you and Ron. The only poems I grew up with were in the forms of Hymns. The first one I thought of is “The Solid Rock”
    My hope is built on nothing less
    Than Jesus blood and righteousness.
    I dare not trust the sweetest frame
    But wholly lean on Jesus name.
    When darkness seems to hide His face
    I rest on His unchanging grace.
    In every high and stormy gale
    My anchor holds within the veil.
    His oath, his covenant, His blood,
    Support me in the whelming flood.
    When all around my soul gives way
    He then is all my hope and stay.
    When He shall come with trumpet sound
    Oh may I then in Him be found.
    Dressed in His righteousness alone
    Faultless to stand before His throne.
    On Christ the solid rock I stand
    All other ground is sinking sand.

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    • Anonymous says:

      Hi Lynette, thank you for commenting. I would venture to say that my poem is as close as you can get to the opposite of a hymn (an anti-hymn?). (Some would say it’s the opposite of poetry – it doesn’t rhyme!) When it comes to religion in general, I’m afraid I subscribe to the notion that all religious belief is a function of non-rational faith, and faith by its very definition tends to be impervious to intellectual reasoning. I put what faith I do have in mankind, for better and worse, and that’s what I’m trying to express in this particular poem.

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