The Follies of Faith (part I of II)
Jesus said, “If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.” (Matthew 17:20)
You know, I agree with Jesus when he says faith is powerful. He’s right. Faith is a very powerful thing, much more powerful than we stop to realize. The Bible is replete with examples of this. Take, for instance, the book of Hebrews as it gives us an extensive list of other great works of faith…
“32. And what shall I more say? for the time would fail me to tell of Gedeon, and of Barak, and of Samson, and of Jephthae; of David also, and Samuel, and of the prophets: 33. Who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions. 34. Quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens. 35. Women received their dead raised to life again: and others were tortured, not accepting deliverance; that they might obtain a better resurrection: 36. And others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment: 37. They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented; 38. (Of whom the world was not worthy:) they wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth. 39. And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise: “ (Hebrews 11:32-39)
Faith is an incredible thing, but I don’t think this list is fair. It mentions only positive things from a Judeo-Christian standpoint wrought by faith. I think, to be fair, we need to focus on some of the many negative things faith has been primarily responsible for…
By faith, radical Muslims fly planes into buildings, killing thousands. By faith, suicide bombers explode themselves on sidewalks full of people and on school buses full of children. By faith, large groups senselessly riot over the publishing of stupid Muhammed cartoons and call for the life of the artists that produced them. By faith, Jewish and Arab teens throw rocks at each other, stab each other, and get together in mobs to beat their enemies to death with makeshift blunt objects, in the absence of a handy gun or sword. By faith, dedicated Muslim families place their own babies and young children in front of U.S. tanks as they roll through town, trying to clear out terrorist cells. By faith, reporter Nick Berg had his head sawed off by extremist Muslims while videotape rolled and caught his silenced screams and gasps for breath as he died. His severed head was placed upon his body. By faith, Muslims, Jews, and Christians gather in large numbers, to assemble at the Wailing Wall, nodding and praying, rocking back and forth, in adoration of a god who sits by and lets the never-ending holy land dispute go unresolved, allowing the respective religions to remain bitter enemies for centuries, even amidst the desperate cries of some of their own representatives for the senseless violence to stop. By faith, a Muslim man is moved to throw acid in his sister’s face, grossly disfiguring her, because she was raped and is no longer a virgin. By faith, a Somalian Muslim man brings his young daughter to the village elders so she can undergo cliterodectomy before she reaches sexual maturity to help ensure that she will never be tempted to know sexual pleasure, and therefore, be tempted to cheat on her future husband. By faith, a number of Christians on December 31 of 1999 quit their jobs, loaded up their cars with toilet paper, bottled water, canned goods, and bibles, in fear of all the computer systems crashing because of Y2k. By faith, some preachers behind this panic told their congregations that this would be the beginning of the “antichrist” and his reign of terror, as he reset all computers and began to takeover everything, thus, beginning the tribulation period. By faith, Christians have awaited the return of Christ for centuries, gathering outside of their houses on rooftops, selling their possessions, waiting to be raptured up to heaven. By faith, U.S. courts refused charters to atheist organizations who publicly declared their intentions to speak out against Jesus and his church. By faith, green wood was used to fuel the fires of stake burnings to ensure that the impenitent heretic burned slower and suffered longer before expiring. By faith, a working class, divorced mother of two breaks her arm at a local Pentecostal assembly, after a crowd of fellow idiots spin her around by her arms to get rid of demons, but drop her accidentally. By faith, a number of charismatic preachers end up in the obituaries due to snake bites. By faith, a woman is encouraged to leave her husband and break up her marriage as a preacher tells her she had no right to get remarried. By faith, another woman in the same situation is caused to worry endlessly whether or not God will forgive her for staying with a man after she has been divorced and remarried with questionable scriptural authority. By faith, monks, priests, and Catholic church officials are prevented from marrying or enjoying any conjugal benefits. By faith, a number of young baptized men go to their fundamentalist fathers and ask what can be done to keep from being overcome with the temptation to masturbate, since it is a temptation they cannot escape from. By faith, dedicated single men entering the ministry, after finding that they are unable to fight off their own lusts, decide that if they are not married by a certain point in time, would consider castrating themselves (I have actually seen students say they would do this!). By faith, a Church of Christ Scientist family refuses to medicate their children when they are sick, allowing the children to die. By faith, a strict father charges into his son’s room and smacks him in the face, and tells him to, “Shape up and be a man!”, and “Be the man God wants you to be!”, destroying his child’s respect for him, and his religion.
How long can this list be? Much longer than it is, that we know. Faith is the motivating factor in an untold number of negative things. What little good can come of it is either delusional, rare, questionable, or superfluous at best. But the list I made a theist could respond to. I know how I would have responded to these points as a minister. I could wax quite eloquent doing so, arguing that bible faith, properly applied, is good and spiritually profitable. But for every explanation I would give, an entire group of believers would have their own explanations for what they believe is spiritually valuable.
For starters, I’d have pointed out that God wants us all to work and not futilely wait for the coming of Christ (2 Thessalonians 3:10-14), that God does not encourage berating children, nor how this father was too hard on his son, “fathers provoke not your children to wrath.” (Ephesians 6:4). I’d have said that medicine should be used per the principle of I Timothy 5:23, and on and on I could go, justifying my version of Christianity. But for every bone of contention that my faith, "correctly applied," would produce good fruits, another religious leader, a believer in some other sect or faith, will have a different take on things. A radical Muslim will defend his exhaustive methods to rout his enemies whom he thinks have taken his land, and might go so far as to include a justification for throwing acid in the face a woman who lost her virginity before marriage in a rape. A believer in a number of tribal faiths will defend the removal of the clitoris as sacred tradition, similar to circumcision. Such a leader might even point to alleged reduced infidelity rates among their women, or point out that taking pleasure away that is never known to a person is not missed or cruel. A snake-handling pastor will defend their faith based on Mark 16:9-11. A conventional dispute with the pastor will not change his views on the scriptures, and it will be just another religious division in an already divided religious world. No one will have solved anything by arguing, and faith will still be the root cause of all of these evils, justified or unjustified. This makes faith a bad thing, a thing so easily abused and capable of being misdirected that the negative applications of it far outweigh any good that can come from it.
Of course, faith goes beyond mere dogma, beyond some bland rule book. Religious faith, though irrational, is personal and captivating, seemingly grafted deeply into the heart of the faithful. It makes man capable of what he otherwise wouldn’t be capable of, and this is why it so very often results in folly. (JH)
“32. And what shall I more say? for the time would fail me to tell of Gedeon, and of Barak, and of Samson, and of Jephthae; of David also, and Samuel, and of the prophets: 33. Who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions. 34. Quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens. 35. Women received their dead raised to life again: and others were tortured, not accepting deliverance; that they might obtain a better resurrection: 36. And others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment: 37. They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented; 38. (Of whom the world was not worthy:) they wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth. 39. And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise: “ (Hebrews 11:32-39)
Faith is an incredible thing, but I don’t think this list is fair. It mentions only positive things from a Judeo-Christian standpoint wrought by faith. I think, to be fair, we need to focus on some of the many negative things faith has been primarily responsible for…
By faith, radical Muslims fly planes into buildings, killing thousands. By faith, suicide bombers explode themselves on sidewalks full of people and on school buses full of children. By faith, large groups senselessly riot over the publishing of stupid Muhammed cartoons and call for the life of the artists that produced them. By faith, Jewish and Arab teens throw rocks at each other, stab each other, and get together in mobs to beat their enemies to death with makeshift blunt objects, in the absence of a handy gun or sword. By faith, dedicated Muslim families place their own babies and young children in front of U.S. tanks as they roll through town, trying to clear out terrorist cells. By faith, reporter Nick Berg had his head sawed off by extremist Muslims while videotape rolled and caught his silenced screams and gasps for breath as he died. His severed head was placed upon his body. By faith, Muslims, Jews, and Christians gather in large numbers, to assemble at the Wailing Wall, nodding and praying, rocking back and forth, in adoration of a god who sits by and lets the never-ending holy land dispute go unresolved, allowing the respective religions to remain bitter enemies for centuries, even amidst the desperate cries of some of their own representatives for the senseless violence to stop. By faith, a Muslim man is moved to throw acid in his sister’s face, grossly disfiguring her, because she was raped and is no longer a virgin. By faith, a Somalian Muslim man brings his young daughter to the village elders so she can undergo cliterodectomy before she reaches sexual maturity to help ensure that she will never be tempted to know sexual pleasure, and therefore, be tempted to cheat on her future husband. By faith, a number of Christians on December 31 of 1999 quit their jobs, loaded up their cars with toilet paper, bottled water, canned goods, and bibles, in fear of all the computer systems crashing because of Y2k. By faith, some preachers behind this panic told their congregations that this would be the beginning of the “antichrist” and his reign of terror, as he reset all computers and began to takeover everything, thus, beginning the tribulation period. By faith, Christians have awaited the return of Christ for centuries, gathering outside of their houses on rooftops, selling their possessions, waiting to be raptured up to heaven. By faith, U.S. courts refused charters to atheist organizations who publicly declared their intentions to speak out against Jesus and his church. By faith, green wood was used to fuel the fires of stake burnings to ensure that the impenitent heretic burned slower and suffered longer before expiring. By faith, a working class, divorced mother of two breaks her arm at a local Pentecostal assembly, after a crowd of fellow idiots spin her around by her arms to get rid of demons, but drop her accidentally. By faith, a number of charismatic preachers end up in the obituaries due to snake bites. By faith, a woman is encouraged to leave her husband and break up her marriage as a preacher tells her she had no right to get remarried. By faith, another woman in the same situation is caused to worry endlessly whether or not God will forgive her for staying with a man after she has been divorced and remarried with questionable scriptural authority. By faith, monks, priests, and Catholic church officials are prevented from marrying or enjoying any conjugal benefits. By faith, a number of young baptized men go to their fundamentalist fathers and ask what can be done to keep from being overcome with the temptation to masturbate, since it is a temptation they cannot escape from. By faith, dedicated single men entering the ministry, after finding that they are unable to fight off their own lusts, decide that if they are not married by a certain point in time, would consider castrating themselves (I have actually seen students say they would do this!). By faith, a Church of Christ Scientist family refuses to medicate their children when they are sick, allowing the children to die. By faith, a strict father charges into his son’s room and smacks him in the face, and tells him to, “Shape up and be a man!”, and “Be the man God wants you to be!”, destroying his child’s respect for him, and his religion.
How long can this list be? Much longer than it is, that we know. Faith is the motivating factor in an untold number of negative things. What little good can come of it is either delusional, rare, questionable, or superfluous at best. But the list I made a theist could respond to. I know how I would have responded to these points as a minister. I could wax quite eloquent doing so, arguing that bible faith, properly applied, is good and spiritually profitable. But for every explanation I would give, an entire group of believers would have their own explanations for what they believe is spiritually valuable.
For starters, I’d have pointed out that God wants us all to work and not futilely wait for the coming of Christ (2 Thessalonians 3:10-14), that God does not encourage berating children, nor how this father was too hard on his son, “fathers provoke not your children to wrath.” (Ephesians 6:4). I’d have said that medicine should be used per the principle of I Timothy 5:23, and on and on I could go, justifying my version of Christianity. But for every bone of contention that my faith, "correctly applied," would produce good fruits, another religious leader, a believer in some other sect or faith, will have a different take on things. A radical Muslim will defend his exhaustive methods to rout his enemies whom he thinks have taken his land, and might go so far as to include a justification for throwing acid in the face a woman who lost her virginity before marriage in a rape. A believer in a number of tribal faiths will defend the removal of the clitoris as sacred tradition, similar to circumcision. Such a leader might even point to alleged reduced infidelity rates among their women, or point out that taking pleasure away that is never known to a person is not missed or cruel. A snake-handling pastor will defend their faith based on Mark 16:9-11. A conventional dispute with the pastor will not change his views on the scriptures, and it will be just another religious division in an already divided religious world. No one will have solved anything by arguing, and faith will still be the root cause of all of these evils, justified or unjustified. This makes faith a bad thing, a thing so easily abused and capable of being misdirected that the negative applications of it far outweigh any good that can come from it.
Of course, faith goes beyond mere dogma, beyond some bland rule book. Religious faith, though irrational, is personal and captivating, seemingly grafted deeply into the heart of the faithful. It makes man capable of what he otherwise wouldn’t be capable of, and this is why it so very often results in folly. (JH)
6 comments:
Wow!
It takes faith for so many things. It takes faith to know that what I wite in this comment box stays as I wrote it. It takes faith to know that when I flip on a light switch there will be light.
The difference between blind faith and real faith is having the knowledge of what you have faith in.
Blind faith is what most of those things you listed were accomplished by not real faith.
I have faith in God. Why? Because He has shown Himself real and alive to me. I can't make anyone else believe me they have to have that experience themselves. I took a step of faith when I accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. I know it was real. How do I know? Because I was there.
It's no different then knowing that if you get into an elevator that you wont fall 10 stories to your death. There is knowledge that this machine will do what it is supposed to do. Then you still have to have faith that the people that made it did it right. Then you step in "by faith" and go down at the right speed and not out of control. This can be explained in so many area's of life. The steering wheel in my car is the same thing.
I don't have BLIND faith. I don't just follow God because someone told me to do it. I follow because I know He is real.
When a man will take an airplane and dump it into a building killing others then he is not following my God. He might be doing it "for a god" but it is not my God.
My God says to love your neighbor as yourself. That is not the command of a God that would want someone to kill 200 plus people for the "glory of Alah (spelling ?)."
I also believe it takes faith to be an atheist. You have to have a lot of faith in believing there is no God at all. At least an agnostic says that he does not know for sure if there is an all powerful god.
To deny without absolute proof otherwise is true faith.
I believe with absolute proof that God is real. Because I know that God has shown Himself to me.
Faith, it is very powerful. Good and bad.
The difference between blind faith and real faith is having the knowledge of what you have faith in. I would go further. The difference between blind faith and belief – not any kind of faith – is that it is founded in observation, deduction or induction. I believe or have faith that the sun will rise tomorrow because it rose yesterday, and the day before. That is considerably different than your faith in your god. You have not seen your god. You have only had an emotional experience when you could only conceive the physical and mental state as that of ‘god’.
He has shown Himself real and alive to me. I can't make anyone else believe me they have to have that experience themselves. I took a step of faith when I accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. I know it was real. How do I know? Because I was there ... Could not the same be said of any Buddhist, or Muslim, or Hindu? They know that Shiva or Allah is real because they have experienced visitations by them, as do those that have seen ghosts, or aliens, or the Loch Ness monster. I hope you get what I’m saying, cooljazz. There isn’t a discernable difference between your faith and the faith of those that would bet their life that Elvis has not left the building.
I don't just follow God because someone told me to do it. I follow because I know He is real. You’ve got yourself a problem, in that your statement is biting its own tail. Other than your own personal experience, not a bit of the universe gives any credence to the existence of any god. In fact, there is not an iota of evidence out there for the existence of your god. Other than your own personal feelings, of course.
It just feels right to believe, but feeling right doesn't make it real. If you were to ingest a hallucinatory drug, you would not say that the experience was real. It felt real to you, but it was the way in which your brain reacted to a stimulus. Were you praying, chanting, or engaging in any other repetitious experience at the time of your 'visitation'? Perhaps you were listening to music or meditating. Your brain could have been in a suggestive state, or you experienced trauma, the loss of a loved one or something else shocking.
I also believe it takes faith to be an atheist. You have to have a lot of faith in believing there is no God at all. An analogy of sorts: if I was to tell you that I am friends with my dog and he follows me around, telling me to help the poor, feed the hungry, and indiscriminately shoot my neighbors, you would call me mad. Yet, I’m dyslexic. If he was instead ‘god’ and I was mistaken, then my actions are legitimate? Are you now engaging in 'faith mode' when you reject my god, but not my dog?
If I quote scripture while dashing the little babies against the rocks, is that better, or more inspired by god, than a purely secular maniac?
Another analogy: You do not believe in Allah; I do not believe in Allah. Thus, do you practice faith in your rejection of Islam? Or do you find it as preposterous as following the teachings of Zeus or Aphrodite?
To deny without absolute proof otherwise is true faith. I believe with absolute proof that God is real. Because I know that God has shown Himself to me. Problems with the broken record, cooljazz? What absolute proof have you? I’d love to see it. In fact, I’m sure all of us damn mean atheists would be overjoyed to see proof. Present it, cooljazz.
So now there are two kinds of faith:
A): Real Faith, when you correctly believe what Christians tell you to believe.
and
B): Blind Faith, that everyone else besides Christians use.
If you don't believe the right thing you're just using the wrong faith silly!
The point is, people, the system of faith itself is flawed.
It's not a question of having a right vs. wrong kind of faith. The system is bad.
Faith is so easily misdirected and abused that it creates chaos. It is a flawed approach whereby people, without evidence, follow their own religious teachings and their hearts, and this is dangerously exclusivist and contradictory, not to mention unfair to competing faiths. But none of these faiths are any more certain than their competitors anyway.
So rational people should reject faith. It should not appeal to them.
(JH)
talkandwalk,
No matter if you believe God exist or not doesn't change the fact that a God must exist.
Why?
I love it how you end your comment with the same dogmatic assertions that we are constantly inundated with.
A blogger can have faith that their statements here might be heard through the reading eyes that see them, but the truth is, unless someone directs the path to this website, the words will have no meaning.
Thomas Aquinas may be helpful here in clarifying something -- what faith is needed for, where it works, and where it doesn't, "If our opponent believes nothing of divine revelation, there is no longer any means of proving the articles of faith by reasoning, but only of answering his objections--if he has any--against faith." He admits this directly after quoting Gregory the Great, "faith has no merit in those things of which human reason brings its own experience."
Now, talkandwalk, I think you'd admit that these two persons knew more about Xianity than you do...so, please reveal to me, let's say I'll grant that each has a "measure of faith", as you said -- we'll even call this measure our presuppositions.
Now, where should we "put" our faith, how should we use it? Should we justify our beliefs with experience and induction? What things that some say requires faith in God does human reason fail to make sense of? And what gaps in knowledge do we have that God fills and makes sense of?
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