12 posts tagged “faith”

Why do we all do this? Because the human instinct is to want certainty and security--we must know the truth. This fear of uncertainty is what creates religious and non-religious dogma. Perhaps a non-cliche example of this is contemporary atheists. They think they have the truth. Or think they have found the truth in science. But we all lie to ourselves out of fear: "Rationality will lead me to the truth. Truth for everyone! Faith will lead me to the truth. God for everyone!"  But truth cannot be evidenced simply by a nonbelief in God or the scientific method or faith or rationality.

Truth encompasses a variety of perspectives and experiences. Yes, faith, rationality, science, all lead us to some form of truth, though with varying degrees perhaps. Truth is created by a group of people, humanity, not just you. If such is the case, isn't it more probable that all of our perspectives include some "seed of truth" (like my friend says) rather than one perspective containing the truth? It is hard for us to realize the truth in others' perspectives because of the barriers created by language, arrogance, and the dogmatic, insecure part of the self. But we must remember, one's individual perspective never has a monopoly on truth. Truth is more than one individual, and odds are your version of truth is missing something, perhaps love, happiness, trust, or the acknowledgment of fate. You will only find out if you are missing something if you attempt to learn from someone, no matter how much you think they may be wrong. This implies a sense of tolerance and respect, of openmindness and inclusiveness.   

Some forms of truth are better than others, but, given the oneness of truth, it is undoubtedly embedded, to some extent, in all of our perspectives, religious or non-religious. We simply must look for seeds.   

One of Nietzsche's greatest fears was that we would destroy a certain faith (i.e. Christianity) only to adhere to another faith. For Nietzsche, this other faith was science. Faith general means to believe in spite of or in contradiction to evidence. Seeing how science is based upon evidence, to say that science has an aspect of faith is somewhat contradictory. Nevertheless, there is a common bond between faith and science--trust. If one has faith in God, one trusts God to reveal some sort of objective truth. If one has faith in science, one has trust in science's ability to present us with objective truth.

Unfortunately, Nietzsche doesn't explicitly state what he means by "faith" when he talks about faith and science. But, while reading this afternoon, I found an aphorism that would hopefully shine some light on Nietzsche's thoughts on science and its faith. I think it shows that he is thinking of faith as a sort of unquestionable/certain-like trust.

We see that science also rests on a faith; there simply is no science "without presuppositions." The question whether truth is needed must not only have been affirmed in advance, but affirmed to such a degree that the principle, the faith, the conviction finds expression: "Nothing is needed more than truth and in relation to it everything else has only second-rate value."

Further on in the same aphorism, he says,

 What do you know in advance of the character of existence to be able to decide whether the greater advantage is on the side of the unconditionally mistrustful or of the unconditionally trusting? But if both should be required, must trust as well as much mistrust, from where would science then be permitted to take its unconditional faith or conviction on which it rests, that trust is more important that any other ting, including every other conviction? Precisely this conviction could never have come into being if both trust and untruth constantly proved to be useful, which is the case. Thus--the faith in science, which after all exists undeniably,cannot owe its origin to such a calculus of utility; it must have originated in spite of the fact that the disutility and dangerousness of "the will to truth," of "truth at any price" is proved to it constantly.

Like Christianity, which says that God is the most important thing, science (and I suppose he is talking specifically about scientism) says that truth is the most important thing. This "will to truth," according to Nietzsche, is "a principle that is hostile to life and destructive." Essentially, it is a concealed will to death.

Nietzsche concludes the aphorism with the following:

But you will have gathered what I am driving at, namely, that it is still a metaphysical faith upon which our faith in science rests--that even we seekers after knowledge today, we godless anti-metaphysicians still take our fire, too, from the flame lit by a faith that is thousands of years old, that Christian faith which was also the faith of Plato, that God is the truth, that truth is divine. --But what if this should become more and more incredible, if nothing should prove to be divine any more unless it were error, blindness, the lie--if God himself should prove to be our most enduring lie?

I found this particular aphorism to be quite interesting. Atheists, including myself, create a wall between faith and science, with the latter being more objective and truthful than the former. While I still think such a divide is warranted, I can definitely see how an individual's cling to science and it's supposed objectiveness is similar to a believer's cling to God and his objectiveness. There is a point when our trust (faith) in science becomes just as great as a believer's faith in God. What's great though, is that science's nature of inquiry and questioning (something that religious faith does not have) prevents one from becoming too certain in one's scientific convictions.   

There is a devout atheist that writes articles in the school newspaper about the absurdity and irrationality of religion. He has been writing these articles since last year. Given the Christian population at my school, he is constantly pissing people of, which is understandable. As I read his articles, I can't help but notice his tone of belittlement, and I find myself disagreeing with some of what he says. So, I wrote an article in response to one of his:

In Ken Ueda's most recent article, he is correct in saying that not all atheists would agree with his assertion, "Religion is destructive and backwards to human progress," or with his anti-theist position. I, being a nonbeliever myself, do not agree with his assertion or his position. The point of this column is to critique Ueda's most recent article, particularly the anti-theist position he upholds.

The basic premise of antitheism, as described by Ueda, is valid: "people's beliefs guide their actions." He goes on to give some examples that prove this premise to be true. But, his argument goes awry when he uses extreme examples in which a belief would be used to justify a believer's atrocious action to represent the dangerous capacities of religion as a whole: "It shouldn't be a surprise that a fundamentalist that believes that non-believers should be killed takes actions to kill those non-believers."

I'm sorry, but can such an extreme example prove that religion is destructive to human progress? No. Perhaps fundamentalists hold such a belief. Yet how many would actually go through with this belief? How many would actually kill a nonbeliever because their belief justifies his or her action? Not many, if any.

One cannot use extreme examples to show that religion is destructive as a whole, because such extreme examples do not accurately represent the majority of religious beliefs. Moreover, the irrationality of extremists and fundamentalists cannot be applied to all of the religious because the majority of the religious are far more rational than these people. In other words, there is a certain level of rationality that leads most religious people to be moderates, which, in my opinion, is a good thing.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I have more faith in the faithful than Ueda does. The religious are not irrational people. They may be irrational in that they subscribe to a belief that has no legitimate justification, but they are still rational human beings, just not when it comes to religion. With that being said, in our pluralistic society, I think the religious are recognizing that rationality must play a role in determining which beliefs one should hold. In a sense, traditional religious positions must be softened, I think they are being softened, with most people being moderates: religious people use their rationality to reject extreme views that might cause physical danger to others. Of course, pluralism could lead more religious folk to fundamentalism, but I would hope one's rationality would not lead one down such a path. Thus, I think any form of fundamentalism is dangerous, but religion isn't necessarily so.

I imagine that Ueda's response to the above would go something like this: Religious moderates and their religion provide breeding grounds for extremists and fundamentalists. Thus, we should do away with religion to prevent the destruction that could arise from harmful religious beliefs. The thing is, religion isn't destructive, it can be destructive. But what ideology can't be destructive? What ideology isn't a breeding ground for fundamentalism? Is there a difference between secular fundamentalism and religious fundamentalism? No. Both are irrational and intellectually, and potential physically, dangerous. None of this means that we should rid the world of ideologies because of their potentially harmful effects.

The last thing that I would like to address is the quote by Steven Weinberg that Ueda used in his latest article: "With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion." This is a popular quote amongst atheists, and I can see why. It vilifies religion. Yet Weinberg's assertion is patently fatuous. It implies that the non-religious are incapable of doing evil things and only capable of doing "good," which is flat out false. All humans whether religious or not, are capable of doing good and bad. This, I'm sure, is commonsense to most of us, but atheists copiously quote Weinberg as if his statement has validity. See? Even atheists are capable of being irrational.

The ethical as such is the universal, and as the universal it applies to everyone, which may be expressed from another point of view by saying that it applies every instant. It reposes immanently in itself, it has nothing without itself which is its telos, but is itself telos for everything outside it, and when this has been incorporated by the ethical it can go no further.

I haven't had much time to read lately. But when I find some time, I usually pick up a book and just skim through it. Well, Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling was on my computer desk this morning, so I started skimming through it. I eventually get to the part of the book where he asks the question "Is there such a thing as a teleological suspension of the ethical?" Here I started actually reading.

I must admit Kierkegaard's language is quite abstruse and I can't exactly follow is logic most of the time. So, I'm asking for clarification about his faith paradox. He describes this paradox twice.

For faith is this paradox, that the particular is higher than the universal--yet in such a way, be it observed, that the movement repeats itself, and that consequently the individual, after having been in the universal, now as the particular isolates himself as higher than the universal.

First of all, what is the "particular"? Secondly, how does isolation of the individual result in the individual being higher than the universal?

The next description of the paradox is more elaborate.

Faith is precisely this paradox, that the individual as the particular is higher than the universal, is justified over again it, is not subordinate but superior--yet in such a way, be it observed, that it is the particular individual who, after he has been subordinated as the particular to the universal, now through the universal becomes the individual who as the particular is superior to the universal, for the fact that the individual as the particular stand in an absolute relation to the absolute. This position cannot be mediated, for all mediation comes about precisely by virtue of the universal; it is and remains to all eternity a paradox, inaccessible to thought. And yet faith is this paradox--or else (these are the logical deductions which I would beg the reader to have in mente at every point, though it would be too prolix for me to reiterate them on every occasion)--or else there never has been faith....precisely because it always has been. In other words, Abraham is lost.

So the paradox is inaccessible to thought. That helps a lot. 

  When we investigate what Christians mean by their peculiar use of the word faith, I think we come to the remarkable conclusion that all their accounts of it are either unintelligible or false. Their most famous account is that in Hebrew 11:1 "Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." This is obviously unintelligible. In any case, it does not make faith a virtue, since neither a substance nor an evidence can be a virtue. A virtue is a praiseworthy habit of choice, and neither a substance nor an evidence can be a habit of choice, When a Christian gives an intelligible account of faith. I think you will find that it is false. I mean that it is not a true dictionary report of how he and other Christians actually use the word. For example. Augustine asked: "What is faith but believing what you do not see? (Joannis Evang. Tract., c. 40, 8). But Christians do not use the word faith in the sense of believing what you do not see. You do not see thunder; but you cannot say in the Christian sense "have faith that it is thundering," or "I have faith that it has thundered in the past and will again in the future." You do not see mathematical truths; but you cannot say in the Christian sense "have faith that there is no greatest number." If we take Augstine's see to stand here for know, still it is false that Christians use the word faith to mean "believing what you do not know," for they would never call it faith if anyone believed that the sun converts hydrogen into helium, although he did not know it.
  A good hit of what Christian really mean by their word faith can be got by considering the proposition: "Tom Paine had faith that there is no god." Is this a possible remark, in the Christian sense of the word faith? No, it is an impossible remark, because it is self-contradictory, because part of what Christians mean by faith is belief that there is a god.
  There is more to it than this. Christian faith is not merely believing that there is a god. It is believing that there is a god no matter what the evidence on the question may be. "Have faith," in the Christian sense, means "make yourself believe that there is a god no matter what the evidence on the question may be. Christian faith is a habit of flouting reason in forming and maintaining one's answer to the question whether there is a god. Its essence is the determination to believe that there is a god no matter what the evidence may be.

-Richard Robinson

What do you think? Is his analysis of "faith" accurate?

  Kierkegaard and the later existentialists and theologians who have followed in his steps direct our attention to the limits of reason. But they overlook the crucial difference between responsible and irresponsible decisions. There are situations in our lives when all the reasoning of the world cannot tell us what to do. We reason one way and another, and we weigh the interests of all the people who are likely to be affected by this decision or that, and we still do not know what to do. Should we conclude then that all deliberation is a waste of time, and always beside the point, and that it would be just as well to throw a coin, to count our buttons, or to act on impulse? The person who does that acts irresponsibly, even if by sheer luck he should do something that turns out well. The person, on the other hand, who does reflect on the probable effects of his decisions on the people who are likely to be affected, who relies on reason and on evidence, if only to eliminate some choices, acts responsibly even if he later finds that he has done the wrong thing.

   The whole point of an education, and not only of philosophy, is to make people more responsible. One cannot teach one's students, nor even oneself, always to do what is best; but one can try to teach oneself and others to become a little less impulsive and irrational and more conscientious and responsible. Nobody favors always acting with an utter disregard for evidence and reason; but some people admonish us to throw both to the winds when it comes to the most important choices which is rather like being very careful when walking, but shutting both eyes firmly when one drives at high speeds; or like choosing one's dinner guests carefully, while picking the name of one's bride-to-be out of a hat; or like playing cards with great care but also being addicted to playing Chinese roulette a new game that consists of pointing a revolver now in this direction and now in that, spinning the chamber and pulling the trigger, knowing that there is one dud in the chamber and hoping for the best.

-Walter Kaufmann, The Faith of a Heretic

A few weeks ago I went on a shopping spree. Lately, one of my favorite spots to shop at has been Express. Their clothes are hella expensive, but the graphic tees are reasonably priced. To my amazement, some of their sheets have really awesome statements on them: "Change is the only constant" and "Truth over Faith," just to name a few. Well, I got both, and the latter one is causing my mom to give me flack over it. My mother is sweet. She knows that I am a free spirit, blunt, and an atheist. She is worried that my shirt may offend people.

I'm about to go out to dinner with some friends, and decided to wear my "Truth over Faith" shirt. Now, I can see how this statement may offend religious people, but it really shouldn't be that offensive. To the religious person, truth is derived via faith, so the statement is quite contradictory from this perspective. To me, however, I see truth as being much higher than faith, and, if anything, faith leads us to a weak type of "truth."

I'm not really bothered with my mother giving me flack over this shirt, but something about this little situation does bother me. How many people wear religious themed shirts? A ton of people, including most of my friends. Some of these shirts might say things along the lines of "I <3 Jesus" or shit like "WWJD?" Do I complain about the statements on these religious themed shirts? Uh, no. If I did, that would be ridiculous. Why should I be offended? I might utterly disagree with such religious statements, but I'm not offended by what these shirts might say.

Is it because my shirt challenges the taboo of criticizing religion? Is it because my shirt goes against what most people believe? I find it ridiculous that my thoughts, words, and feelings must be sensitive to religion and the religious. Now, I'm not going around saying "Oh, man, you are friggen weaksauce for believing in God," but if I want to challenge the status quo I'm going to do it--in a reasonable manner. Honestly, I think shirts are a great medium to express one's self tastefully. I see nothing wrong with my "Truth over Faith" shirt. Why should you?

Kierkegaard is usually considered to be the founding father of existentialism. Considering that most existentialists are atheists, it is kind of ironic to think that the founding father of existentialism was a theist. Not only was he a theist, but he was also an extremely religious Christian--so much so that he even broke off his engagement with his fiance because he felt that if they were married he couldn't really pursue his ministry.

I haven't read any of Kierkegaard's works, mainly because his theism bothers me. But, I suppose this is the atheist in me. Regardless, though, this shouldn't keep me from reading his works and learning from him. I definitely need to work on this...

Don't get me wrong, from watching Solomon lecture about Kierkegaard, I can honestly say that he does make some points that I fully agree with. Kierkegaard went after the Christianity at his time. Anticipating Nietzsche, he claimed that most Christians were simply followers in a "herd." He also thought that Christianity wasn't about doctrines or rituals. Christianity is supposed to be about commitment. He accused Christians of hypocrisy and, as Solomon puts it, "empty belief conjoined with banal social membership." Even more radically, Kierkegaard believed that one is a Christian all by oneself. The fact that other Christians exist is irrelevant. Even as an atheist, I can agree with all of this.

I do have some issues with Kierkegaard, and perhaps those of you who are familiar with him can help me understand him better. The first issue I want to touch on is his notion of truth. Kierkegaard thought there were two types of truth: objective and subjective truth. Objective truth is considered to be truth derived from science. Subjective truth is, well, subjective. Kierkegaard praised subjective truth over objective truth. This does not mean that Kierkegaard disliked science; on the contrary, he was fine with science as long as it didn't interfere with the subjective.

For Kierkegaard, subjectivity is inwardness and passion. According to Solomon, "subjectivity is the realm where we find that very special sense of existence." For this reason, Kierkegaard thought that objectivity should not be allowed to invade the realm of personal meaning and significance, which is the realm of religion. Solomon didn't talk about this, but I get the vibe that Kierkegaard wouldn't want an individual's subjective truth to become objective truth for others, because objective truth isn't as meaningful as subjective truth. So if Christianity is supposed to be subjective, then organized Christianity shouldn't even exist. Organized religion is meaningless.

I understand what Kierkegaard is saying, and to some extent I agree with him. But, I think science has done a lot to help us create more meaningful meaning. Some subjective truths, like those derived from religion, cause us to live in a fantasy world and in denial of the absurd. With science, we learn more and more. Objective truth directly influences what we find to be meaningful. 

And aren't some subjective truths better than other subjective truths? I'm inclined to say "Yes."Nietzsche thought that truth depended upon one's perspective; however, some perspectives are better than others. I agree with Nietzsche, but I don't know how you can determine if one perspective is better than another. Who gets to make that choice? I'm guessing the individual.

I just got back from seeing The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian. I thoroughly enjoyed the movie: the action was great, the characters were great, and some scenes were hilarious. Trumpkin, the good dwarf, is quite skeptical of the existence of Aslan--after all, Aslan hasn't be seen for thousands of years. This dwarf even goes as far as to say that he does not believe Aslan exists. If you do not know, Aslan is supposed to be God in Lewis' series. Essentially, the dwarf represents the people that state they do not believe God exists. Towards the end of the movie, Aslan asks to be shown Trumpkin. Aslan proceeds to roar loudly in Trumpkin's face, showing him that he does exist. The existence of God has been proven! So, it feels good in a movie, but definitely doesn't describe true reality. I did like one theme, however, I doubt Lewis meant what I'm about to say.

Lucy is the youngest of the four children. Like in the first movie, Lucy sees Aslan. Susan and Peter do not believe her but Edmund does; although he doesn't see Aslan with his own eyes, he believes Lucy. To put this in Christian terms, Lucy has "child-like" faith; that is, she trusts her belief in Aslan enough to continue believing in him despite her older siblings wondering faith. You see, as we grow older, we lose our "child-like" faith. We "grow up," which is why Susan and Peter aren't allowed to go back to Narnia ever again; they are now too old.

The older we get the more we question our child-like faith: Why should I believe in something I can't see? It was so easy to do so when I was a child. Why should I believe Jesus was the literal Son of God? It was so easy to do so when I was a child. Why should I believe the Bible is the true Word of God? It was so easy to do so when I was a child. We start to think too much to maintain our child-like faith. Consequentially, Susan and Peter get too old to maintain their child-like faith.

Aslan, at the end of the movie, says something like, "You will never return to Narnia but do not forget what you have learned." To me, and probably not Lewis, this statement shows that we are going to our grow our child-like faith; this is inevitable. Some of us choose and advocate the maintenance of child-like faith. Never question! Never ask why! Keep believing!

But our child-like faith should just be a minor stage in our spiritual development, if any thing. We shouldn't get stuck in our child-like faith; for it is simply a stage we must eventually get over, although most of us do not. The point of child-like faith is to grow out of it, but do not forget what you have learned from it. Through this child-like faith, however brief it is, we learn to question and to continue our infinite search for truth. We learn to accept true reality, despite how hard it may be to understand. We also look for other means of creating meaning: art, music, philosophy, spiritual thought, myths, etc. Child-like faith is for the spiritually weak. By growing out of it, we become stronger and more powerful.