Gnosis - the faith that knows (revised)

PISTIS SOPHIA Blind faith is dangerous. Faith centered around experiential knowledge is not. Faith comes by experiential knowledge, or as it is called in the Greek Gnosis, a word used many times in the New Testament, AND numerous other Hellenistic writings. Blind faith is the opposite of that, in fact it is the kind of faith that ignorant, primitive peoples operate under. These are the kinds of people who usually believe anything, and have no problem being the slaves of religion. Faith, real, true faith that the Knights of the Keystone Order ascribe to, means to know something and ACT upon what you know. This is not what is taught in most Churches, Mosques, or Synagogue's. Most of what is taught there is blind faith, just believe what we are telling you, and don't dare try and question us. Most people in the three major religions of the world, struggle in their faith. It is very common for people in these three religions to constantly be struggling in their faith, even though most dare not admit to it, since admitting to it might mean you are of the evil one, and others may not look up to you on your super high Spiritual Plataea. They may see you for what you really are, a doubting Thomas. If you have to try your hardest to keep the faith, then it is almost certain that you are operating in blind faith, and have no idea what it is you really believe in. Truth is, you have never tasted or experienced any aspect of your religious beliefs. However, that is how most people live their lives, and what is truly sad, most people seem to be okay with it. Going to church on Sundays, hearing a sermon, and taking communion is much easier than going on a spiritual journey which could take a life time. Blind faith is emotional, in fact that is all it is, there is nothing logical about it. Blind faith lives by what it feels rather that what it KNOWS ( Gnosis). And that is the problem. Emotions are wonderful, and can be the spice of life. But irrational emotions, based on blind faith, are dangerous, and usually leads a person down the path of constant failure in nearly everything in their lives. Blind faith IS failure, over and over again. Most people who operate out of blind faith go from high to lows, and lows to highs. Their lives are like a constant roller coaster ride, up one minute, down the next. This is because they have actually never experienced what it is they claim to believe in, and are only believing what some one else has told them. So, their faith, or blind faith rather, takes them on an emotional roller coaster. When they are feeling good, they have alot of faith, when all hell is breaking loose, and they feel like crap, they have low faith. As if faith has different levels. There are no levels of faith, you either believe something, or you don't, point blank. Even reading the religious texts of your so called faith is not experiencing it first hand. Sure, you are beginning to obtain knowledge of your faith but there is a difference between head knowledge and experiential knowledge. Knowledge of Dogma does you no good without experiencing it first hand. If I were to say to you, "feed the poor" and all you did was hear or read what I had said, without doing what I said, you would have no experience with it at all, in fact, all you would have is a head knowledge. But if you were to experience feeding the poor for yourself, first hand, the purposes behind why I said it would become more clear to you. You would have experienced helping someone who may not have other wise been able to help themselves. The same thing goes for most knowledge in the world. Corresponding actions along side of instruction is of a much greater benefit than sitting in a class room and reading what others have done. It's okay to read what others have done, and even learn from their successes and mistakes, but unless you get out there and do it yourself, you will not have any successes or mistakes of your own. Success and failure lead to experiential knowledge. Truth is most of us have come from some kind of religious background, whether it be Orthodox, Fundamental, contemporary, etc. Most of us have had to take what we have been taught, throw it out the window, and start a journey on our own. Alot of us have read the religious documents of our faiths, and now that we see clearly, we can see that most of what was taught to us is not even in the religious writings of our faiths, and what is in there was twisted to fit a specific churches or persons dogma. Most of us have now learned alternative philosophy, science, other religious writings and customs of peoples around the world, and we can clearly see that to many of these other peoples, blind faith is looked upon as anathema to their ways of life. In fact, the people of the East are one such peoples, who despise mythos and prefer to experience their religions first hand, and not on the experiences of others. How boring is it to live off the faith of another, off the experiences of another, why not experience them for yourself, and see if what you have been told is true or not? So in this we say, that it is Pistis Sophia and not purely faith that gives the individual what they need to connect with the divine nature. Pistis Sophia, wisdom faith, the faith that knows, the faith that comes from experience and experience which comes from action, and action which comes from knowledge. For example, I have boiled water at a specific temperature many, many times and now I know, that every time I place a pot of water on the stove and raise it to that specific temperature it will boil. I believe so strongly that the water will boil at that temperature every time, that I do not even question whether it will or not. This is experiential faith, this is Pistis Sophia, this is Gnosis the faith that knows.