ode to uncertainty

I grew up in the christian faith and I learned growing up that the worst thing I could have was doubt( the explantion was that it usually had a satanic origin). I was taught that the greatest gift was faith and the best faith to have was absolutist faith..Since I was a very skeptical child I had to hear ad nauseum stories of faith, proverbs about faith, pray innumerous prayers for faith.. None of this worked because I could never understand Why none of the miracles of the past can be recreated today by devoted saint-like persons and also why people who talk to jesus nowdays are placed in mental health facilities and sedated..Treatment that as a child I grew to believe would have help ancient humankind a great deal if it was used on various prophets because many of them seemed to need a good dose of thorazine, especially when they went on and on about women. I am in my forties, now I truely believe that the greatest gift that the universe can give a person is doubt..Doubt is at the beginning of every scientific quest and every philosophical endeavour, without it we would still be in the dark ages thinking fish were created by water. I pray that in every life I have in the future I have doubt and Disillusion for instead of being negative in life they are the whips that spur one to learn and discover..It has always been doubt that caused me to go the library and learn if something is true..I do not nowdays trust anyone who tells me not to doubt to have faith in things, my body, mind and spirit say are not so. I especially do not and will never trust anyone who says to me "Let me have faith for you" what they are saying is "I will do your thinking for you, Liebchen"..I think that phrase is the spookiest I ever heard from a Monotheist. It makes me still shudder and recoil mentally. When I was small I was a devout girl, one is always a true believer before evolving into a skeptic, but modern religion has a huckster quality around it, that I found at odds with The Ideals of spirituality. As a young person I came to believe that the maintream religion had 1600 plus year to change the world and it seemed they still needed to convert every body instead of changing the behauviour of their parishioners which was scandalous most of the time. After going to college and studying socio-paradigms I came to the socialist view that religion is a construct to control the masses and allow the powerful to stay in power..ONe only needs to look at the pope who is more concerned with destroying the power of disobediant catholic politicians than having poor catholics vote for politicians that have their best interests at heart, a bit like muslims voting the way the iman wants them to. It is easy to see why people hate religion, It is really rarely Jesus that people hate. It is the political and social entities that sprang up around him that people are uncomfortable with..I had a friend who is christian ask me why people of my ilk do not trust christian institutions and the overly religious with power..I believe that the christian takeover of rome and the dark ages has alot to do with it..As well as the continued propganda tactics christian institutions and their apologists use..Dissembling, disinformation and distortion of facts that would make a communist propagandist mute from awe and envy. But to get back to doubt, certainty is the hobgoblin of creativity and doubt that is treated like a bastard child by faith is truely a virtue..I never heard any one say that their doubt is the greatest doubt on earth and turn around and kill scores of people to prove it true I have seen people of faith do that in stories of the past and in the present..So I view doubt as a blessing may more people be blessed with it.. merrie part from the hinterlands, blessed be.