This article is for those who think that faith is a virtue. I would like to propose that it is not.
Over the centuries, the religious have extolled faith as a virtue, as a valid method of seeing reality, and that idea has taken such a deep root in our culture. Rick Warren, author of The Purpose Driven Life declares that faith is “trusting God in spite of unanswered questions and unresolved doubts” and this sounds so deep and comforting but it’s really just a another way of saying, “I don’t understand anything that’s happening and I can’t do anything about it but I’m hoping for the best.” What does “trusting God” even mean when people can’t even agree what “God” means?
Peter Boghossian, author of A Manual for Creating Atheists, defines faith as “pretending to know things you don’t know” and that seems like a very flippant way to put it. But if you happen to be a person of faith and are offended by that, my request is that you forgive the offense for a couple of minutes (forgiveness is also a virtue) and think about it.
In all those instances that you claim faith, isn’t it true that those are instances that you don’t really know but instead simply choose to believe? Because if there were proof and evidence in the first place, then you wouldn’t need to invoke faith. You simply point to the evidence. Take gravity, for example. It would be absurd to talk about having faith in gravity because there is overwhelming evidence for it. In other words we know gravity.
However, when we talk about something like Noah’s Ark and the global flood story – even amidst all the evidence and experts’ opinions pointing out its improbability – a sizeable number of people still choose “by faith” to believe that it’s true, even if they don’t really know whether it happened or not. In fact, they refuse to know. They rarely have the drive to do research and read contrary opinions – perhaps they are afraid that their faith may be shaken and they will no longer be on the list of “good and faithful servants” who never gave up their beliefs, who were foolish enough to test their faith. After all, didn’t God say, “Do not put the Lord God to the test (Leviticus 6:16)?”
So think of all the things you accept “by faith” (like the doctrine of the Holy Trinity) and honestly see if it isn’t true that you are simply pretending to know things you don’t really know.
Faith is not a very good way to live. It kills wonder, inquiry and research. It is not a virtue. And nobody really lives by faith all the time in all aspects of life.
Think about this:
If faith is so commendable, why don’t you simply have faith and pray when you get sick? Why do you go to the doctor? Why do you take medicine?
Why do you work hard to earn money to survive and feed your family? Why not have faith that God will provide? Didn’t Jesus say that all you have to do is to “seek his kingdom” and he will provide food, drink and clothing just as he provides for the birds of the air and the lilies of the field (Matthew 6:25-33)?
For students, why do you study hard for exams? Why not have enough faith that God will provide the right answers at the right time?
Why do you wash your hands before you eat? Or brush your teeth before you sleep? Why not have faith that God will kill those pesky germs and protect you from disease?
Now, I’m sure you have rational and sensible answers for each of these questions and that’s just the point. If you apply reason and rationality to these aspects of your life, doesn’t it make sense to apply it to ALL aspects of your life?
Why do you use reason for practical living yet cling to faith for aspects of your life that are unsure and unknown? If faith were such a virtue, then you would apply it to every facet of your life, not just as a stopgap to fill in the holes in your knowledge and understanding, which is exactly what primitive people did. When they encountered something they did not understand, they would attribute it to either a god or goddess, spirits, angels or demons.
But it is now the 21st century. Reason, science, and logic have been proven to work time and again. When you build an airplane based on scientific principles, it flies. When you use mathematics to put a satellite in orbit, it stays there. When you put medicine through double-blind placebo-controlled tests, you have better assurance that it will cure what it needs to cure.
Now I will admit that there are still many things we do not understand and many things we do not know – but the proven and tested way to gain more knowledge and understanding is not faith, but by applying reason, science and logic.
That is my Holy Trinity.
Originally published in Sunstar Davao.
This article also appears at Freethinking Me.
Andy Uyboco is the Meetup Director of Filipino Freethinkers Davao Chapter and is inviting Davao residents to join their next meetup on January 25, 2014 (Saturday) at 7:30 PM Cafe Demitasse, F. Torres St., Davao City. You may email him at [email protected].
Faith was necessary in the past, when people had hardly any knowledge or control over their lives, to conquer fear. Imagine the world five hundred or even five thousand years ago. People lived short lives and hardly knew what was going on in the world, had almost nothing under control. They need something to guide them, just in order not to go crazy. They needed to believe in life after death, because death came quickly and randomly in those days.
The main good purpose religion actually served in its time was to provide people with an idea of community, and with rules that kept them from degenerating into animals. Why does the story that is called Bible say that Moses came down from the mountaintop with the ten commandments while wandering through the desert with his people? I personally have a hypothesis: because his people began to behave like animals while on the run, which is something that does happen when people are reduced to the bare minimum and no longer care, and he needed some way to stop them – from killing each other, stealing, disrespecting their parents, having sex with the other guys wife and more.
Of course it is rationally better if people follow certain rules, but not for the individual, only for the collective, but in those days, without any other means to discipline people and with short lives were people had no rational reason to care for anyone else, you had to make the BELIEVE. In smaller communities there are personal bonds such as friendship and love that keep people from going too far, but in larger communities people care less about each other, that is also a fact.
faith is not a virtue. it doesn’t work and it doesn’t save anyone. people do the work, we do the saving – yet we remain tainted and pathetic thanks to the invented Almighty who leeches every good work as His benevolence.
between faith and doubt, which puts you at a ready? which helps you think at hard times? often we hear it is by grace that we were saved, we were brought to peace but think..
it is when you doubted your safety that you acted. it is when you doubted the present conditions that you begin to think in anticipation of the future. you are relieved as a consequence of doubt. you are saved by your actions as a result of doubt.
doubt is the real virtue between the two.
I think, you would want to see the side of the Catholics as regard to this topic. This is the encyclical of Pope John Paul II entitled “Fides et Ratio” (Faith and Reason). If you think the Catholics do not want to look at the arguments of the people opposing them, I think you should consider that the Catholicism have survived for about 2000 years. We all want the truth here, because it is the only one that can set us free. 🙂
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/en…
Lucifahhh!!!
I want to criticize this article not because I disagree with the central claim that “Faith is not a virtue”, but because it’s somewhat dismissive of it. To begin with, I don’t believe in virtues. “Virtue” simply amounts to behavior that is encouraged within a specific framework.
First of all, the problem arises because your essay attempts to apply each (Faith and Reason) to a very specific problem. This is an epistemological dilemma. However, the fact is that these two concepts do not exist within the same continuum, nor are they meant to delve into the same type of problems. Reason attempts to make sense of the external world using the human senses (assuming the validity of such sensory data). This is what results to technology and human advancement. Faith, on the other hand, is an internally directed question of meaning. Meaning is something that senses alone cannot determine since it relates to human experience. Note that “human experience” here is not the same as hormone-neurotransmitter interactions in the brain. It simply what it is, like explaining what love feels like or describing the color red. It’s something that cannot be put into words. Given that, it simply doesn’t make sense for each to overlap with the other. Underlying faith in specific set of principles is a necessity to keep even reason from collapsing in itself. Faith in our reasoning gives us conviction in our own conclusions. Faith that sensory data is indeed representative of an “objective reality” gives the scientific method its validity. No theory of knowledge can move forward without forging its own postulates and assumptions to believe in.
I personally am a functional atheist, yet I adore nature as a mirror to the human soul. It’s innate complexity inspires the very same feelings of reverence towards the transcendental I get when viewing art or reading a particularly well-written book. As such, I can’t help but feel that the deeply pious view their respective religions in the same manner. Who cares whether some holy ghost created the world in seven days or not? Faith is not an attempt to pursue truth. Rather, it’s an attempt at creating personal truth as a means of forging a purpose. It may not amount to bringing man closer to time travel, but it’s still a desperate pursuit for many.
Of course, it’s when people attempt to bring up faith in an argument of reason (or vice versa) that it becomes unbecoming. One cannot be compared with the other. Faith is not a virtue. True, but neither is it necessarily a shortcoming.
Qilin: Your usage of the word “faith” is different from how most of the religious would use it — which is the Hebrews 11:1 definition – “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”
People DO use “faith” to make sense of the external world – they pray for healing, for parking spaces and for the weather. That’s what I was addressing.
In that context, they CAN be compared with each other, and it IS a shortcoming.
I guess that what Andy is trying to point out, is that faith CANNOT BE MEASURED in a world governed by accuracy and precision in all aspects of the human experience.
Perhaps until we humans can take full control of every part of our body like our heartbeat and other thousands if not millions of processes inside our body or make our hair grow with our own free will, have a clear view of our future, fully control the weather, pass our knowledge to our offspring automatically upon birth without needing to teach it as proof of our so called “evolution”, or even just have a solid scientific explanation of the source of our consciousness and manufacture it by our own means, there will always be a need for faith. Until then I wouldn’t put my trust in the limited power of reason, science, and logic. I’d be long decaying in my grave before humans can achieve that(if it ever happens) so I’d better put my faith in the true living God, Jesus Christ who showers me with love and promises eternal life in His Kingdom that cannot be shaken. Reason tells me it is not sound to have full trust in the finite wisdom of this perishable world, science tells me it has its limitations and cannot comprehend everything through scientific means for it doesn’t even have full understanding of the materialistic universe and has no hope of knowing even a little about the spiritual reality, logic tells me that it’s absurd to even think that a creation can hope to understand or explain its Spiritual Creator by its own scientific means other than what is allowed and provided by the Creator Himself through His Word and Spirit, let alone believe that our consciousness and intellect is a result of “natural selection” and governed by a mindless “natural law” that nobody created or designed like saying we can “accidentally” create a complex robot with the ability to think of its own and be aware of its own existence by mindlessly mass producing televisions.
The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit. (1 Corinthians 2:14 NIV)
People asking for proof before believing and still does not believe when given proof is nothing new, this has been happening since long ago.
He answered, “A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. (Matthew 12:39 NIV)
But remember this, God is still God whether we believe in Him or not, and like it or not He will someday judge us and if not because of His “grace” that we have a chance for salvation if only we are humble enough to accept the fact that we need Him and accept His gift.
For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 6:23 NIV)
People who have not been taught critical thinking from childhood will fall into many errors in thinking. Even people who think they are careful logical thinkers will fall into error. We are setup by our minds to believe what ever pops into our heads. If we have not guarded our inputs from all the propaganda and mind control directed against us we will make bad decisions. One researcher in Sweden has shown that it is better to be ignorant than be misguided by bad information.
Read more: Why ‘developing vs. developed’ world is now meaningless,
According to his research most of the people in the world are working with bad information. For one thing, discoveries are very had to keep up with. Too hard for many to understand. Therefore devious people offer devious solutions.
Link did not copy. Google Hans Gosling at Gapminder and take his ignorance test.