Truth, Reason, Doubt and Faith - Part 3 of 3

Belief: if I accept and hold to a religious mindset, then after death I’ll be rewarded with heaven.  If I reject this mindset, I’ll be punished forever in hell.                                                 

Truth: this life is truth.  The opportunity to do what either benefits or harms creation and humanity is truth. The opportunity to live in gratitude for what has been received is truth.  Once someone dies, that person no longer remains a member of humanity, and isn’t seen again, that too is truth.  Life therefore, is incredibly precious; it’s an opportunity without equal.  Life is precious for everyone, not just a select few. 

We don’t know how we got here…we don’t know what happens after we die.  This too is truth.  It’s a really big truth, and somewhat uncomfortable not to know.  If I surround myself with more comforting ‘beliefs’ that insulate me from others, from the state of the world, and from making a real difference here and now, then I have walled myself into that prison or fortress.

If I face my fear, acknowledge that I don’t know how I got here, nor where I go after, and then get about the business of paying attention to what I have to work with, and applying reason, compassion, logic, and love to whatever situation I find myself in…wouldn’t I be doing something positive and wouldn’t that be a grateful response to the opportunity of life that I’ve received?

Nobody within humanity has ever claimed to have created the world and itself.  There is, at least to date, more evidence that something outside of this creation put everything together, than there is for some sort of cosmic accident being the origin of what we see all around us.  Therefore there is at least the appearance of some concrete evidence for a Creator, even if some of that evidence is the lack of anything against it. 

We have the evidence of creation itself as testimony to the character of a Creator.  We see that creation is provided for; we see an interconnectedness, and interdependency between remarkably different creatures.  We see that mankind is somehow different.  Creation doesn’t need mankind; it can manage on its own.  Mankind is unique, with tremendous capacity to cultivate great good or to inflict great evil.  What is mankind's purpose?

To paraphrase Ecclesiastes 12:13...perhaps the whole point of life is this:  be grateful for being here, with honour and thankfulness, and employing reason and thoughtfulness, both enjoy and care for what you have been entrusted with, leave it as you found it, ready for the next person to enjoy, for this is the whole duty of man.

Truth, Reason, Doubt and Faith - Part 2 of 3

Belief is opposed to truth.  To ‘believe in’ something means to have faith that something is so when there’s no factual evidence for it.  Put another way, if there’s evidence of something, if it’s true and verifiable, there’s no need to ‘believe’. 

To hold to ‘belief’ when it separates you from others, when it sets you apart in your mind as special or different, effectively walls you off in a prison of your own thoughts. A prison or a fortress, but a separator nonetheless.

This prison’s keeper is fear and ignorance.  It traps and holds some otherwise very intelligent people.  It causes endless divisions and quarrels.  It sets some apart in their thinking that they’re better than others; not because of anything they’ve actually contributed to the world, but because of what they believe in their own minds. 

For example:  a person believes fervently that they are saved from eternal destruction because they ‘believe in’ God/Jesus/Allah.  Because of this belief, they hold they will go to heaven but everyone who doesn’t believe as they do will go to hell.  They believe there’s nothing they can do to earn heaven, it’s a ‘free gift’, but they do have to believe and not doubt.  It doesn’t seem to register that acceptance of this ‘gift’ constitutes an action; that one has indeed ‘earned’ it because of a specific action taken.  Most maintain that it’s ‘God’s grace’ (and their action of acceptance) that sets them apart and destines them to ‘eternal life’ in ‘heaven’, that those who’ve ‘rejected God’s grace’ and not ‘believed’ are destined for ‘eternal torment in hell’. 

This is somewhat simplified, of course.  Many believers hold that your actions in life matter, though there’s great leeway in exactly how much they matter.  Some hold that you must faithfully observe various rituals through life, others that you must do ‘good works’ though what those are is usually open to interpretation; others insist you must submit to authourity (usually theirs) and not question or rebel but patiently accept in faith. 

The grand motivator for this belief and its lifestyle is the ultimate goal of heaven, or the punishment of hell.  Now there is NO proof of either heaven or hell of course. If there was, there wouldn’t need to be ‘belief’ because there would be proof.  See how belief is opposed to truth?  Hold tight to your belief; if you can do so all the way to death, then the prize is yours!  If this sounds silly, it is.  It’s ludicrous. It’s a deception, but a powerful one.  

Belief is a dead end unless it motivates one to act in ways that don’t destroy or harm, but instead build up, cultivate and encourage.  To leave the world as you found it is a high calling indeed.  It’s quite debatable whether you need belief to do this, its possible it may hinder more than help.

Truth, Reason, Doubt and Faith - Part 1 of 3

Most people think of religious faith in positive terms, such as:

trust in God and in his actions and promises.

This sounds good, but it’s kind of a dead end.  What remains in the mind only has no real benefit to anyone.

If trust in God is further defined as something that motivates loving, caring behaviour in the truster, that’s good, right?  If trust had a clear purpose or direction, it could be good.

The word ‘faith’ actually means:

any set of firmly held principles or beliefs; a system of religious belief  

strong or unshakeable belief in something especially without proof or evidence

conviction of the truth of certain doctrines of religion, especially when this is not based on reason.

Note that none of these definitions have anything to do with actions.  They describe a mindset only.  And it’s a mindset that's quite deliberately opposed to reason and grounded in nothing! 

I’ve had much discussion with people very firmly grounded in their faith. Often, they’re quite deliberately opposed to reason, they see it as a ‘destroyer of faith’.  They will, in what they consider a strong act of faith, actually shut out reason!  If faith is opposed to reason and not based on evidence, what are they really grounded in? 

They’re grounded in their own mindset.  They’re grounded in a system which is opposed to truth!  Yes, they are!

This is the definition of truth:

the actual state of a matter, actual existence, the state or character of being true

conformity with fact or reality, precision, exactness; an obvious fact

verified or indisputable fact; the quality of being true, genuine, actual, or factual

Religious belief that’s opposed to reason is opposed to truth.  Period.  It’s a prison of one’s own making.

Dark Night of the Soul

Lately I’ve been hearing of struggles people have been having with their faith, many of them refer to the experience as a ‘dark night of the soul’.  Mostly the opinion is that this is a negative thing to be feared, though some who’ve come through it claim it’s strengthened their faith. 

So what is faith?  It’s defined in general as ‘complete trust or confidence in someone or something’ and more specifically as ‘strong belief in God or in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual apprehension rather than proof’.  I think the second half of the definition is more applicable to the most common understanding of the word.

Interesting choice of words…’based on spiritual apprehension rather than proof’.  The definition of apprehension is not a positive one: anxiety or fear that something bad or unpleasant will happen.  The definition says that it’s this apprehension, this fear of something bad happening, that’s the foundation of one’s belief…rather than proof or reason being the foundation.

This is wrong.  Just plain wrong.  We are reasoning, thinking beings, each of us capable of leadership and co-operation for common good. And for cultivating and drawing out great things from creation, ourselves and each other.  Yet on the whole, we don’t use our individual and community reasoning capacity to test and evaluate and choose the best way, with both short and long term vision in mind.   

We separate, divide, bicker, follow, ignore…and fear.  Instead of facing our fear, both individually and together in community, we retreat into ‘faith’, holding it up like a shield against reason.  Yet in doing so, we remain in a prison of our own making.  A prison of apprehension. 

Of course, we are reasoning beings, and every so often the need to reason things out becomes a driving force within us.  And we look at our faith with open eyes.  It’s at that time that we face a crossroads within ourselves.

For most, they struggle through this dark time of doubt, and reaffirm their ‘faith’ even more strongly.  But for some…there’s light on the other side.  It’s hard to lay down the shield of this kind of faith, and instead pick up the two edged sword of reason and trust.  It involves looking honestly and without motive at what truth really is.  And isn’t.

If you’re facing such a dark night, or want to be prepared for one…start by looking around you in creation.  The evidence of the Creator’s character is there.  Stop just taking people’s word for things, do your own honest investigating.  Examine yourself for motives…especially hidden ones.  When you hear something, or read something about the Creator…examine and test it against what is already evidenced in creation.  Hold your beliefs loosely…truth doesn’t need you to hold on to it or defend it.  It’s outside of you.  Your beliefs, on the other hand, are a human invention that can be damaged or lost.  Or given up for something better.

Two goats...

You’ve got a goat inside. It has two sides. On the one hand, you can’t live without it, and it’s not at all bad. Maybe it’s like one of those nice goats that provides milk, wool and playfulness. On the other hand, it can get into some awful habits that can prove pretty embarrassing in your relationship with others. Even more embarrassing when it comes to your Creator.

So, you need to split that goat into two goats. And then send one of them away.
There’s a caveat here, something you really have to know: You can’t send a goat away unless you first take ownership of it. You gotta know, “This is my goat. It’s part of me. What it did, I did. I take full responsibility.”

Once you’ve done that, you can wave goodbye, close the door, and never let it back in again. Then get to work on raising up the other goat into a truly divine offering.

That sounds pretty simple, but I have to bring it up because most people seem to find it real hard. We tend to think the scapegoat is our mother, father, fourth-grade school teacher, wife, husband, job, employer, rush-hour traffic, pharmaceuticals, condition, or some crazy rabbi who gives nutty advice.

You can’t send the goat away as long as you deny that it’s your goat.

(Slightly edited article originally on www.chabad.org, written by Tzvi Freeman)