We don't need faith.
Freethought values inquiry and real-world evidence. I don't see faith as evidence for a position or justification for action.
So what's faith? Let's look at some quick definitions:
Paul of Tarsus says in his letter to the Hebrews in the Christian bible: "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."
The Book of Mormon describes faith: "And now as I said concerning faith – faith is not to have a perfect knowledge of things; therefore if ye have faith, ye hope for things which are not seen, which are true."
So faith is the "evidence of things not seen" and having faith is having hope for things which are not seen, but which ARE true.
I know theologians and apologists have written – and will write – countless books, taking apart and putting definitions of faith back together. But I think these two humble definitions, straight from the books of fairly widespread religions, aren't a bad place to start.
The first thing that stands out to me in these two passages is the use of the word "see." I've heard apologists claim that having faith in a god is like having faith in the wind (or something else you can't see with your naked eyeballs). I don't think this comparison works; we can measure wind, we have loads of evidence for the existence of winds. I think the term "see" is probably meant to mean something closer to "detect." I hope that serious people don't mean to claim that knowledge of everything not detectable by the naked eyeball is faith based.
One of Mark Twain's characters said, "Faith is believing what you know ain't so." I see faith as belief without or in spite of evidence or proof.
Here's another definition: "a belief or notion, not based on reason or knowledge, in or of the ominous significance of a particular thing, circumstance, occurrence, proceeding, or the like."
What has more "ominous significance" than the possible existence of a heavens or hells, or gods or devils, or angels or miracles? This last definition is the dictionary.com definition for the word "superstition." What makes a faith different from a superstition? Respect, or demands for respect?
Is that harsh?
How many times a day are people of no faith told that they can't "really" know right from wrong, or be "truly" good? How often are people of no faith told that they can't "really" know love due to their lack of faith? How many people of no faith, or the "wrong" faith, are told they deserve to be tortured after they are dead, or told that they deserve misfortunes that befall them, due to their relation to faiths?
How many people have hidden who they really are and what they thought in order to maintain their relationships with faithful friends and relatives? How many people have been ostracized and rejected by those who should have been closest to them because of some slight to a faith?
Is THAT harsh?
I think most of us want to do what is right by ourselves and others. We want to take positions that reflect reality as closely as possible. We want to have a meaningful relationship or three. We want to be happy as we go about our life. We can have all of these things without faith.
Faith isn’t noble and it doesn't make one noble. There are millions and millions of faiths, held to dearly, sincerely believed, all differing from one another. There are vague faiths, specific faiths, kind faiths, hateful faiths, peaceful faiths, violent faiths, tyrannical faiths, groveling faiths, happy faiths, sad faiths, on and on.
Each one is as valid as the next.
Faith is used to justify charities and atrocities, kindnesses and horrors. If faith really justified a position or an action then all sincere faith beliefs and faith actions would be justified. But we all look at actions taken by one faith group or another, and condemn them. We all look at the faith based positions held by some others and find them strange, or ridiculous, or appalling.
We don’t need faith to justify the kind things we think and do, and we can’t afford to have faith excuse the rotten things we think and do.
I had a co-worker years ago who I would sit with, along with others, now and again at lunch and breaks. One day, she said her “sweet” niece had come out as gay, and my co-worker now saw in her niece an “abomination.”
She had presumably known, loved and thought much of this person all her life. And now, through the eyes of faith, she was tempted to see, in that same person, an “abomination.”
How many times have well-meaning people been led into mindsets similar to this? There is certainly an abomination in this story. The abomination is the "F" word...Faith.
We don't need it.
roy | Mar 8, 2013 | 9:11am
Consider: What man has more faith than a Physical Scientist? Who comprehends better what a small volume of space we have to experiment in, and yet BELIEVES that the Laws he accepts are good wherever you go - knowing all the while that we can never get there to see for ourselves.
I do not want to live in a world without the works of people like Pascal, and neither do you. I have faith to believe that of you.
The rain falls on the just and the unjust. Atrocities are spread around likewise. SEE: Bathsheba. I also believe that we are each endowed with conscience, and following that, we are honoring the God that put it in us.
peace, dude.
wrdickson | Mar 8, 2013 | 9:35am
Physicists are pretty clear that the laws of physics as we understand them so far may be a local phenomenon. They (some) may consider the universality of those laws to be a reasonable working assumption so that they can continue their work, with the understanding that the work may well need to be revised or thrown out at a later date if new data requires it.
Similarly, I consider it a reasonable working assumption that werewolves, Sasquatch, and deities do not exist, with the understanding that these assumptions may be overturned at a later date if new data requires it.
Little faith required. A certain minimum is required to assume that we are not, e.g., brains in jars being fed false and arbitrary stimuli, but I don’t find the argument that if we believe that much without evidence we must be open to believing anything at all without evidence very convincing.
tekvet | Mar 8, 2013 | 11:07am
Excellent piece, Greg. It astounds me how seemingly reasonable people often use religious beliefs as excuses for behavior they’d ordinarily be ashamed of displaying. Accountant caught embezzling? Well, he tithed to the church so he’s not all bad. Child beaten by her mother? It must be part of god’s plan and we just have to find the lesson in it. Are all religious, faithy people monsters? Of course not - but I think they are good people not because of their faith but in spite of it.
And just because I’ve always hated that cliche, let me complete it…. The rain falls on the just and the unjust—except that the unjust stole the just’s house and now it’s not raining on the unjust.
David Rosman | Mar 8, 2013 | 12:31pm
In general, those of Faith either have a misunderstanding of, or reject out-of-hand, the ideals of science and the scientific method. A true skeptic is not afraid of questioning the perceptions of truth, which is what science does. Scientists are not out to prove a hypothesis right, but try to disprove the “proofs;” and if the hypothesis does not hold up under scrutiny, science looks again and deeper.
Those who hold faith, as Greg rightly points out, base their “proofs” on something that cannot be tested. There is no evidence that serpents, donkeys and other creatures spoke in clear and comprehensive human language. No evidence of the Red Sea parting or that Noah’s ark existed. No evidence that prayer can stop the sun in its tracks to aid one army over another. No evidence that prayer heals the sick or that the dead go to heaven or paradise. We can say for certain, as Robert Ingersoll said in his Eulogy to a Young Child, that the dead no longer suffer.
I have yet to hear a convincing argument from those of faith (Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Shintos, etcetera) why their faith cannot be placed in the same category as the “dead” religions of the Greeks, Romans, Norse, Pagans, or native Americans; as myths. If the dead religions are myths, then why are today’s religions not placed in the same genre? Can modern religions be proven without use that religion’s holy writings or non-scientific theories?
As an atheist, I do have a form of “faith,” my own mythology. I have faith in the natural goodness of Man, in Secular Humanism. I know as fact that one does not need a fear of a fictional sky god to be a moral and upstanding member of society. Greg Lammers and others of our small but active atheist community are prime examples. And though my own myth is sometimes jolted by evil people, experiments and observations of the Human Spirit, more often than not, appear to support my “faith.”
Chris | Mar 8, 2013 | 12:36pm
Roy, a scientist doesn’t have faith. They have reasonable educated guesses that they continue to test. You are putting science in a false box that you created. Let’s put god to continued tests and see what happens. Or Jesus. Maintaining loyalty despite a lack of supporting data would then require faith. Data separates faith from fact.
Greg Lammers | Mar 12, 2013 | 1:49pm
Thank you to everyone for reading and commenting.
Science is built on observation, reasoning from observation, and always further testing. To examine how the world works, and use that knowledge is not faith. To think that things will happen as they’ve been observed to happen is not faith but a reasonable conclusion: balls fall down when dropped, fire burns, these aren’t faith beliefs.
The choice of Pascal as someone I wouldn’t want to live in a world without is kind of funny (Roy, I’m guessing you’re referring to Blaise Pascal). While we can honor Pascal for his contributions to math, science, and prose, he also spent a lot of time with theology tricks. The famous “Pascal’s wager,” which he promoted, is not so much an argument as it is some kind of insult-threat-joke. I hope, for his sake, that he meant to amuse rather than influence others with it.
Steve Swope | Apr 8, 2013 | 9:37pm
Greg, it was good to meet you the other day. I liked your previous piece and felt some common ground - I’ve had moments when I wondered if it was safe to “come out” as who I truly was, how I really felt.
Here, I sense that you’re dumping all forms of religious behavior or adherence into a fairly limited and not completely accurate box. You seem to focus on “beliefs,” which as far as I’m concerned, are not what Jesus of Nazareth taught about (though many of his followers have hyper-focused on them).
Likewise, commenter David Rosman is arguing against a limited subset of religious people (those who don’t like modern science) as if they were the only religious people in existence. The logical category for both arguments is the straw-man fallacy, I’d suggest.
I’m not saying that religion is required for morality or is the only “truly human” way to live. But neither is it the bête noir of humanity. Like anything else, people can and do use religion as a “cover” for what they want to do anyway; that’s not an accusation against religion but against human selfishness.
Greg Lammers | Apr 10, 2013 | 12:19am
Steve, It was good to meet you the other day as well, I think we do share a lot of common ground.
If I engage in a fallacy I want it pointed out, so thank you. The charge of straw-manning, and that atheists don’t really understand faith is routine. I think much of the fault lies with defenders of faith who attempt to put faith beyond criticism by placing it beyond definition.
Often when a nonbeliever takes issue with faith she’s told that she just doesn’t “truly understand.” When the nonbeliever asks what she doesn’t understand she is then given increasingly vague non-starters, or descriptions of feelings. I’ve been told more than once that a particular faith is beyond words, or I need to pray (!) and then see how I feel, or I have to accept it and THEN I’ll understand. These are cop outs.
I’d say faith is very much about beliefs. Isn’t Paul’s “evidence of things unseen” a reference to beliefs? If faith wasn’t invested in belief could heresy exist?
If faith (or the widespread respect of faith) disappeared we’d still have problems that are part of being human and living in human society. But we’d have more ownership of our kindnesses and our cruelties, we wouldn’t have faith as an excuse.
Steve Swope | Apr 10, 2013 | 9:38am
Greg, thanks for the continued dialogue! I think our primary point of difference here may be that “there are Christians, and then there are Christians.” In other words, Pat Robertson and I would both call ourselves Christian, but we’re VERY different in our approach to faith. I suspect the type of “believers” you and others tend to encounter are those for whom rational thought and science are anathema. Trust me; those are not the only people of faith in the world!
My faith, for instance, doesn’t revolve around whether or not (or how) Jesus performed a certain miracle or returned to life after being executed; it is centered on whether I live in accordance with the things Jesus of Nazareth taught and the behaviors he exemplified. I’ve read several books over the years that suggest Jesus’ true importance is to demonstrate authentic human living - the best of humanity.
I agree that “more ownership of our kindnesses and our cruelties” would be a good step in solving some of humanity’s problems. What I know is that some folks have the ability to do that sui generis, from their own internal resources.
But others find themselves in situations - psychological or societal - where they need some sort of framework that says, “in spite of what you see around you and in you, there is more to life and living than that; here’s another way, and here’s someone who somehow was able to transcend ‘the way the world works’ to show the rest of us how it can be done.”
You and other nonbelievers rightly want to be judged on the basis of what is best within you and about you. We believers - particularly those of us on the liberal/progressive side of things - would like the same thing: to be judged not by the fanatics who claim the label “Christian” but by the best within our traditions.
wrdickson | Apr 10, 2013 | 12:45pm
To me, that belief that there is “more to life” is a claim of fact that requires evidence. Now, it may work for you — the belief itself may help you get through the day — but barring evidence to the contrary, I must conclude that you are doing it through your own internal resources, just like I am. It’s just that one of those internal resources is that belief.
It’s not really any different than me saying to myself: “OK, if you get your taxes done on time, you can have a beer as a reward.” It’s a way to psyche yourself up to overcome obstacles. The difference being, of course, that I actually get a chocolate bar.
Steve Swope | Apr 10, 2013 | 3:31pm
WR, one might say that your denial (mentioned above) of the existence of Sasquatch is just as much a “belief” as mine in a deity, or that David Rosman’s confidence in the “natural goodness of man” - widespread evidence to the contrary! - is as much an article of faith as mine that there is “more to life.”
In the Matrix movies, Neo was convinced that his perception of the world was absolutely real, until he was given the opportunity to see reality “behind the curtain.” And yet, he could just as easily have been manipulated and tricked by the second view as the first.
There’s a writer’s device sometimes used in fantasy stories. A character will have an adventure and then waken from sleep, realizing it was only a dream - until he notices something in his waking world that has never been a part of it, but was part of the supposed dream-world. And the question comes: which is the dream and which is reality?
I don’t have a stake in what your answer is, or how you define reality. But allow us the freedom to choose the reality that works for us, that helps us transform and advance our lives. Those of us on the liberal/progressive side, at least, aren’t interested in forcing you to go along.
wrdickson | Apr 10, 2013 | 4:33pm
A working assumption is not a denial. It’s generally accepted, I think, that the burden of proof is on the positive claim. If you say I owe you $20, it’s not incumbent upon me to prove that I don’t, it’s incumbent on you to prove that I do. Similarly, if someone tells me that there are Sasquatch roaming the woods of the Pacific Northwest eating all the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopi, I’m going to assume that’s false barring some strong evidence to the contrary.
The idea that a negative assumption takes as much faith as a positive claim requires that both the negative and positive possibilities are at least similarly plausible. Is it possible that I owe you $20? Sure, through some complex series of events, perhaps $20 I borrowed from somebody else and forgot about is now owed to you. Is it as plausible as the possibility that I do not owe you $20? Not really, no.
I wish I could say, “if it doesn’t matter to you whether something you believe is actually true, then sure, go ahead and believe what you want.” But when I see people dying of whooping cough because of entirely preventable declining herd immunity, I start to think that training and encouraging people to believe what they like regardless of the evidence and choose their own reality is a very risky proposition indeed.
Greg Lammers | Apr 11, 2013 | 3:16pm
Steve, I think this statement hits very close to why I reject and mistrust faith: “But allow us the freedom to choose the reality that works for us, that helps us transform and advance our lives.”
I enthusiastically support freedom of thought and expression, even of ideas I may find repugnant. I think this is consistent with my firm support of blasphemy and that no opinion should be immune from criticism, denunciation, ridicule. No opinion should be illegal, or privileged.
We don’t get to choose reality, reality is what happens whether we choose it or not. And as we’ve seen again and again, many choose worldviews (or have worldviews chosen for them) that demean them, and others. Nobody has a total grasp of the sum of all that exists, but to willfully choose to live in un-reality is madness.
Steve Swope | Apr 11, 2013 | 7:48pm
So “nobody has a total grasp of the sum of all that exists,” but you get to tell me that I “choose to live in un-reality”? That sounds as if you think your perception of reality is better than mine.
Throughout recorded history, people have had experiences that do not completely mesh with generally accepted “reality.” Does your disbelief or skepticism trump what they themselves have experienced?
I haven’t had any of those experiences, and I don’t know how to define those I’ve heard or read about. But I have to trust their witness of their own experience more than my lack of knowledge, skepticism, or disbelief.
Unless, that is, I think I’m smarter than everybody else…. I don’t think you do. But sometimes, when you “enthusiastically support freedom of thought and expression,” you get something you didn’t bargain for.
Yes, there are plenty of repugnant ideas out there - that’s why I tend to give short shrift to “beliefs” and look for the behaviors those beliefs generate.
Greg Lammers | Apr 12, 2013 | 11:25am
Steve, I didn’t intend to claim that you personally live in an un-reality of your choosing, but that it is crazy for one to do so.
People have indeed reported fantastic experiences, and I don’t think they’re all insincere. But we can’t honestly take much from another’s bizarre personal event. To reference Thomas Paine: “a revelation is revelation to the first person only, and hearsay to every other.”
Beliefs matter because beliefs drive actions. Respect for beliefs gives cover to all sorts of shenanigans and awfulness (you can come up with examples as fast as I can).
The less that people must appeal to superstition, and the more they can point to reality (one that independent observers can investigate and know something of) to justify actions, the better.
wrdickson | Apr 12, 2013 | 12:55pm
As I believe I said in a comment on another post: if atheism does have one consistent “belief,” it’s that not knowing an answer is not a license to make stuff up. When someone has an experience that doesn’t mesh with reality, the thing to do is neither to take them at their word, nor to dismiss their experience out of hand, but to approach it skeptically and try to figure out what actually happened.
If we hear a report from an eyewitness that somebody hovered ten feet overhead for a minute and then flew off, there are many possible explanations. But given what we know about the universe, not all of those explanations are equally plausible. Is it possible that some quirk of gravity or other force that we don’t understand suddenly manifested and allowed a human to fly? Sure. Is it as plausible as the possibility that the observer is lying, or hallucinating due to use or a mind-altering substance or a malfunction in the brain, both of which happen to millions of people every day and both of which we at least partially understand? Not by a long shot.
The thing about experiences that don’t appear to mesh with reality is that they often turn out to mesh perfectly well with reality, once qualified people are given an opportunity to take a good look at them.
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