As I understand it, Faith is the one thing that ALL religions have in common. As all religions lack any significant observable, testable, peer-reviewed, scientific evidence; religions must fill in the gaps of knowledge with “faith”. Some may protest that there really is evidence in scriptures, praying, prophets, miracles, nature, or other seeming logic, but I will expand on those fallacies in the coming articles. For now, I will share my opinion that if there was sufficient testable evidence, then the majority of intellectual truth seeking people would subscribe to that one particular religion, but in actuality we see a wide spread of diverse and contradicting religions with no significant majority present. I would think a loving god would care enough to sufficiently reveal his truth in a clear and understandable way with little chance of accidental misinterpretation.
Personally, I would say that the inconsistencies with religious faith was the path to my atheism. I will now try and best explain the seeming paradox of faith by expanding a few definitions.
- Faith is the belief that something is true. Sometimes, faith can be trusting in an idea that is not yet founded on factual evidence that humanity has scientifically discovered. Sometimes, faith even persists in belief while contradicting evidence emerges.
- Rational thought is the system of using reason or logic to understand and define reality as we understand it. This is a tested and tried system that humanity has developed over thousands of years to the best of our collective intellect.
As a number of religions teach, we must live by faith. Or even further, “faith without works is dead”. This means you can generally be a good person, even a great person (works), but if you don’t believe that Jesus Christ is real despite any scientific evidence (faith), you can’t get into heaven. You might even burn it hell for eternity depending on the particular religion you believe.
As a bit of a thought experiment, let’s assume that a god did create the world, human bodies, our brains, and our capacity for intelligence. This god blessed us and created us with the intellectual cognitive capacity of rational thought. And yet, his most important requirement is for us to suspend this rational thought to have faith without evidence. This is contradictory. Paradoxical. It’s as if god set us up for failure. Seems like an odd system for a loving god.
“The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason” - Benjamin Franklin
I don’t currently know of a teaching or scripture that clearly states why we must live by faith. There are plenty of teachings about the importance of faith, but why and how does faith play a role in god’s plan? Why is this paradox essential? Maybe part of god’s plan is for us to not know why and life is just a test of true character. But this contradicts the teaching of faith without works being dead. Here is my teaching - faith with rational thought is paradoxical. To live this life of contradiction, is to live with cognitive dissonance.
Later I will expand on the fact that faith is inconsistent and how feelings or personal revelations don’t count as credible scientific evidence. For now, I will leave you with this short satirical animation with an impactful message pertaining to today’s article.
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