What makes you think Faith is a good thing??
1999
In the U.S., faith is regarded as a thing of virture. A 'person of faith' is admired. It might be said of someone that they have "very strong" faith. I take that to mean that this person will believe whatever their minister tells them, no matter how foolish it is. I'm here to say that a 'person of faith' should not be admired, but should be pitied as someone who has lost the ability to distinguish fantasy from reality. Faith is not a virtue. It is a mental defect.
When you stop to think honestly about it, faith is just wishful thinking. It's hoping that reality conforms to what you want to be true. For those who are religious, they don't have faith in things they don't want to be true. They have faith in what they want, such as their hopes of a happy neverending afterlife where they will be reunited with their loved ones, and of a watchful loving heavenly father.
What is it to believe? What, specifically, do religionists mean by the word belief? What differences are there, if any, between religious belief and other types of belief? What does it mean to believe in the bible? And is it possible to have no beliefs?
You can use the word belief as "something I hold to be true", but you can speak with more precision than that. I try never to use the word belief when speaking about what I hold to be true. To me, the word belief implies acceptance without evidence (or acceptance in spite of evidence to the contrary). The word "belief" is often used interchangably with the word "faith". Under this definition, I can confidently say that I have no beliefs. I have "understandings" about things, based upon the information I have. I do not accept things for which there is no evidence, or in cases where the evidence is insufficient. In cases like that, my acceptance of such a claim is withheld. I maintain a very high standard of evidence. In cases of extraordinary or unusual claims, such as alien abductions, ESP, and biblical miracles, the amount and quality of evidence must be higher than when considering more ordinary topics.
What constitutes evidence? A book is not evidence. Someone's oral or written account is not evidence. Why not? Because people have been known to make mistakes. People hallucinate, dream, and even fabricate stories, especially if they will profit or gain power from it. Human memory is unreliable. People can easily misinterpret what they don't understand. Human perception is not perfect. Certain real-seeming events, like near death experiences and alien abductions, appear to have very real explanations in the realm of brain chemistry. A fraudulent "psychic" can have an unskeptical victim completely believe in their nonexistent ESP skills, by using probing techniques known as Cold Reading, Warm Reading and Retrofitting. The victim, a believer in the "powers", actually assists in his own deception by retrofitting the vague statements to his own life and by counting the hits and forgetting the misses. Such experiences, while seeming believable to some people, do not constitute evidence.
What is evidence? Evidence is a measurable or recordable observation-- one that may be independently verified by someone else. It is physical specimens, solid objects. Photographs and video may be easily altered, and with modern technology such fakes can be very convincing. Even without alteration, photographs can be deceiving, such as the "Face on Mars" picture, where the mind of the viewer creates a face from the shadows. But more accurate photos of the same area on Mars shows no face at all. Photos and film, while offering some degree of support, are not absolute evidence. If a thing can be faked, it might have been faked. If we wish to be honest with ourselves, and achieve the highest degree of certainty, we must be skeptical of such "evidence".
For issues which are neither critical nor of an empirical nature, standards of evidence can be relatively low. For instance, if someone states his opinion, an opinion need not be necessarily substantiated with evidence. For claims that are common everyday experiences, there is no reason to demand ironclad evidence; such as a person saying they graduated from college, there is no reason for me to insist on seeing their diploma before I accept their word. Yet if someone claims that they have been abducted by an extraterrestrial spacecraft, or can move objects with the force of their will alone, or possess a statue of Jesus that weeps, then these claims have fallen far outside normal experiences, and the standard of evidence becomes very high. I am under no obligation to accept someone at their word that these occurrences actually happened. And neither are you.
If by beliefs we mean "accepting ideas or claims to be true without supporting evidence", then I maintain that I have no beliefs other than a few personal opinions, which do not require to be supported by evidence. That is what it means to have an opinion. This article deals with a different subject relating to beliefs. The word "belief" may, in a general sense, be substituted with the phrase "accept to be true." This is probably a more common understanding of the word, and from here on out, that is what I mean by the word belief, in order to get my point across to those people, unlike myself, who use the word belief. For example, I don't "believe" in evolution, I accept it, based on the evidence. It doesn't need belief... it has evidence. An overwhelming amount of it. Those who claim not to "believe" in it are refusing to accept the evidence based on an a priori adherence to a contrary position... one of a literal creation by some god or gods. To confirm the truth of this, one needs to simply ask them a direct question: "What evidence would change your mind, and convince you of the truth of evolution?" I have received the answer many times. It is a resounding "Nothing". That is because their position was never based on evidence to begin with. It was based upon religious faith. You should be instantly skeptical of people who claim that their position cannot be disproved.
People base their views of the world on what they accept to be true-- their beliefs. In the case of people who view the world as a supernatural place ruled over by an eternal god, they use the word belief to imply that they have an unconditional, unquestioning acceptance of certain specific sources of information (mainly the bible, but also what is told to them by their church leaders). To have strong faith-- to accept what you are told without questioning or doubt-- is hailed as virtuous. To doubt or question is derided as sinful, and believers are told that skepticism harms their chances of salvation. They are also taught that they have a constant eavesdropper, their Heavenly Father, not only listening to their conversations and watching their actions, but even knowing their innermost thoughts. It's no wonder that believers are terrified to doubt or question, and won't even allow themselves freedom of thought.
People of faith should understand something about the way scientifically-minded people come to accept an idea as true. We accept things as true, based not on an automatic assumption of truth, but after careful consideration of all evidence, weighing all sides of an issue, after skeptical criticism and asking a lot of questions of all positions. This acceptance is a tentative acceptance, not a religious belief. Like a fickle spouse that is ready to sign the divorce papers at the first sign of imperfection, the relationship between scientific thinking and the acceptance of ideas is not a faithful relationship.
In our circles, people with a healthy dose of skepticism are considered careful and judicious, while people who exhibit "blind faith" are regarded as credulous and naive, and even foolish. Is far easier, and lazier, to answer the question of how something came into existence by saying "God made it so", than to actually investigate and research the true answer. We think differently, believers and non-believers.
So, while religionists accuse atheists, agnostics and deists of willfully turning our backs on God, rejecting Him like spoiled and rebellious children, we have in fact made an informed decision, based on a careful skeptical scrutiny of all the available evidence. We are compelled by our honest thoughts. But Christians continually accuse us of "willfully rejecting God" because we want to "live our lives without any moral constraints". This is probably the most common accusation. This is what their ministers and priests tell them to believe about us; this is even what they may want to be true... they don't want to consider the possibility that we have actually thought about the situation of belief vs. unbelief. We have gone through a rational process to form an honest opinion. Belief for us is not a matter of choice. We do not believe as we want, we believe as we must. We do not willingly withhold our belief. We could not just suddenly choose to believe the exact opposite-- no more than any religious believer could.
Ask the most devout Christian to suddenly stop believing in the existence of God, and to reject the bible on the basis of its irrationality. They could not do it. Therefore, belief is not a matter of choice. Your belief is based upon what you have hitherto been exposed to. That is why children born of Christian parents believe in Jehovah, and children born of Islamic parents believe in Allah, and children born of Hindu parents believe in Shiva. For a person to cease believing in God, their intellect must be convinced through evidence and rational thought. But to convince a true believer, you must penetrate their armor of faith. Faith is the armor that protects belief. Faith is the blind acceptance that repels the arrows of evidence and rational thought. The armor of some people, admittedly, is so thick, built up by years of indoctrination of the terror of hell, that they are unreachable. There will always be such people. But there will also always be those people who's armor, after careful prodding, will reveal chinks, and who's belief therefore can be assailed with the weapons of reason and fact.
We, the unbelievers, cannot convince ourselves that the naked emperor is wearing new clothes, no matter how hard we try. I could, for example, proclaim that "I believe in God", ten times every day, but I would be lying-- and any god that did happen to exist would know that. My opinions are not a matter of choice. I cannot help believing as I do. A plant that has outgrown its pot, and has since been kept in a larger one, cannot be forced back into its former abode. Similarly, a mind that has outgrown and abandoned religious beliefs cannot return to them. If you wish to convince me that there is a god, then provide the evidence that will change my mind. If you insist that your god will punish me with infinite, eternal torture because of my honest opinion, you will receive nothing from me but my contempt.
I am tired of being told by the religious that there is something wrong with me for not believing that the bible is true. I am tired of being told by the religious that there is something wrong with me for not believing that the God of love, in an act of rage, destroyed the earth and virtually every living thing in a worldwide flood, despite physical evidence to the contrary. I am tired of being told by the religious that there is something wrong with me for not believing that a snake and a donkey spoke, that sticks were turned into snakes, that people were made from dirt, that a woman was turned into a pillar of salt, that God performed such a silly and useless miracle as turning water into wine, and for not believing that the bible is a good book.
What if my understanding of the world is wrong? What if all the evidence for a natural origin of life and humanity has been misinterpreted by all the scientific and educational institutions of the world, and my godless view of the universe is invalid? Well, to quote Robert Green Ingersoll:
"Why," they say to me, "suppose [our religion] should turn out to be true, and you should come to the day of Judgment and find all these things to be true. What would you do then?"
I would walk up like a man, and say, "I was mistaken."
"And suppose God was about to pass judgment upon you, what would you say?"
I would say to him: "Do unto others as you would that others should do unto you." Why not? I am told that I must render good for evil. I am told that if smitten on one cheek I must turn the other. I am told that I must overcome evil with good. I am told that I must love my enemies; and will it do for this God who tells me to love my enemies to damn his? No, it will not do. It will not do."
But I don't think this is a situation which is going to occur. I don't accept it, because there is no reason, no evidence, to do so. I am unconvinced. I am an atheist.
Question everything, whether it is a religious or secular idea. Take nothing on faith. Why should you? If a thing is real, then it leaves traces, clues, evidence of itself-- all things that can be examined independently by more than one person. A true idea has no need of any faith. Only a lie ever used a miracle to substantiate itself. To quote Benjamin Franklin: "The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason." And to quote Dan Barker: "If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can't be taken on it's own merits." As Mark Twain once said: "Faith is believing in what you know ain't so." The truth does not have to be believed.
I don't use evidence to support my position-- my position is formed from the evidence. This also answers the argument that religionists make that atheism is also a religion, and that it requires just as much faith as any other. Wrong. Atheism is literally defined as a lack of belief in a god, and an absence of any religious faith. Atheism is the state of being unconvinced. It is rational skepticism, taking nothing on faith, and only accepting events based on rigorous examination of physical evidence and common sense.
Some Christians claim that they are using their Reason. But do they? Is their faith formed from their way of thinking, or has their way of thinking been formed from their faith? Believers extoll their faith, bragging about the level of their own, and constantly reinforcing the level of their brethren. As a part of this faith, they refrain from expressing doubts about the existence of their deity. You do not hear this in discussions between believers, and certainly you do not hear it preached from the pulpits. A doubt is a crack in the armor of their faith-- the armor that protects their beliefs-- a crack which could widen into feelings of outright disbelief if left unrepaired. To this end, the believer staunchly claims that he or she believes "absolutely" in the existence of God, and that the bible is the "Word of God". If then, someone has effectively eliminated the possibility of entertaining the thought that the alternative position might be true, can it be said that that person is using reason?
The use of faith as a means to ascertain the truth is in direct opposition to rational thinking. How can someone say the following: "I believe in the existence of God absolutely, with no doubt at all, and under no circumstances will I consider the idea that God might not exist. No information, no line of thinking, no rational argument, no evidence, could possibly change my mind, and will not even be considered,"-- how could they say that and not realize that they have given up their power of reason?
Reason is the mental ability to make an informed decision by the weighing of evidence, or observing the self-evident, in combination with experience, which guides one's decision process toward what seems reasonable, possible and likely. This process is totally circumvented in the phenomenon of religious belief, beginning with the indoctrination of the very young, who are unable to use the processes of rational thought. As people grow older, they are able to break out of this mental slavery if they follow their natural doubts and allow themselves to use their powers of reason, and disregard their personal wants and desires, as relating to the promise of eternal life, and their fears regarding everlasting torture should they think for themselves.