In looking at something, there are things to learn which will help in keeping a person from an experience that could be potentially harmful; In such cases, a person would be wise to learn from the knowledge gained from the "looking at" rather than seeking to experience the feeling itself before making a conclusion, which could have easily been made just by looking. If I was to say to a person "do not put your hands in a snakes face because it will bite you," and then show video of such cases happening, it would be wise for the person to listen to my advise rather than concluding that he could not really know what would happen unless he experiences it him/herself.
As follows, there are certain things that a person could only know from looking along. In areas of emotional hurting, a person could not claim to know anything about such pains unless he/she has experienced such pains. Furthermore, I would say that a person could not simply know of emotional hurt just because they themselves have felt a certain kind of emotional hurt, but, rather, the person would have to had gone through hurt which is the same or at lest similar to the hurt being felt by the person they are comforting. for example, when you loss a family member, you get people who try to comfort you by saying "I know what you are going through," but I find that method of comforting to be invalid simply because you can not know what a person who just lost their family member is going through unless you have lost a family member to the same degree (of importance or value to you) as the person you are comforting. even more specific, you can not comfort someone who lost their father by saying I know what you are going through on the basic that you once had a cat that died. The degree of emotional hurt just isn't the same (it could be possible that the cat was as important to the person comforting as the father was to the person being comforted). As I see it, all you can say is "I know their is pain that comes with losing someone, I know you are in that pain and I know how hurting feels," anything beyond this, is just venturing into the unknown (unless the person tells you how their hurting feels).
This, I believe is one of the reasons Christ died on the cross; by such death, the apostle paul can conclude that God is a God who is able to sympathize with us rather than a God who know our pain just from "looking at." Here, though, I am not saying that God would not have known how we felt just from looking at our pain (He could because he is God), I am saying, though, that there could be, and indeed there are instances in which a person says "how can God know my hurt." But knowing that God actually went through pain infinitely worse than any pain we could ever experience, helps to feel comfort because you know that the creator of the world really does know what you are going through, even if no one else understands.
There are, still, some instances in which but cases of looking at and looking along are beneficial, even necessary. A person may learn how to build a car just by looking at it, but the same person might tell you most of the "real" experience came from building a car by themselves, this is a case in which looking at gave something valuable and looking along also gave something equally valuable.
In cases of religion, there are roles in which looking at and looking along play. When it comes to having a personal relationships with a particular god, just looking at isn't going to serve any purpose other than to conclude that those people really believe what they are saying about their particular god. It also follows that just because you believe a particular go exists, doesn't led to the conclusion that such a god does exists. In the case of the savage who dances to Nyonga because he believe it would bring crops and babies, a person could not just simply see I know the dance works just because i believe it. As it follows in this particular case, we know that rain and crop does not come from dances. By this, i seek to show how moral or religious relativism (what is true for you is true for you and what is true for me is true for me) just doesn't hold up.
I feel, though, there are Christians who respond to their faith by just saying they believe it, with (as the Apostle paul say "have a reason for what you believe") no reason for the basis for their faith. Believing in something does not make it true or false. So, in this case, looking along something alone does not make it valid (if this were the case, every religion would be true) but just believing in your mind that Christ died on the cross, also, does not mean you have eternal life (looking at and not looking along). A true believer must both look at and look along.
Yemi I like the tie back to the comfort that one can find in Christ because he has experienced worse pain than we can possibly imagine to the looking along. You also make a good point in that quite often in modern society Christians often justify what they think by saying because I believe and that this is truly not good enough because it does not provide a satisfactory response to someone who is interested in becoming a christian and wants to know more.
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