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The Power of Faith
Faith is The Enemy
The Leap of Faith
Chain of Faith
Blinding Faith
Beheading in Islam
This page has been written in response to the many e-mails I get that tell me that atheism is just as much a faith as a belief in God is, just as irrational.
As I set off to write this page I don't know exactly what I will conclude, but I am going to examine what faith, belief and hope mean. As usual this work comes with my total “wash my hands of it all” warranty, this is just what I think, I have not spent years researching the subject, I have not traced the meaning of the words through time and across different languages. This is just my ideas on the subject. I hope it will be enlightening, have faith in me, I believe I may have got it right.
To me faith is a combination of belief, without proof and with hope.
Belief is a very fluid concept that runs across a huge spectrum from the the kind of belief you have when you guess an answer in a quiz to the kind of beliefs that you would die for, or more usually, kill for.
I believe that Alabama exists, a belief that is as close to certainty as I get without direct personal experience, I have never been there but the idea that there is no Alabama and everybody who has mentioned it to me is in a huge conspiracy to deceive me over the matter is too fanciful a concept to take seriously; I "know" Alabama exists. I have a confident belief that Birmingham is a city in Alabama and a less confident belief that it is the largest city in Alabama. If I was asked in a quiz what the largest city in Alabama was I would say Birmingham. I would not be sure it was true and if I was told it was not I would accept it, but I would want to know what the correct answer was.
That shows three levels of belief. There is in fact (I believe it is a fact) a continuum of belief. In some ways it can be argued that knowledge is too absolute a concept, how can we know that we can know? But we all know what each other mean when we talk about knowing a thing to be true. At the certain fact end of the continuum of belief there are things which we have experienced directly through our own regular senses and which are totally in tune with our expectations and other beliefs and those of everybody else we meet. These are known and uncontroversial beliefs such as “I believe that I am taller than most men.” We have no reason to doubt such beliefs and if anybody doubted them you would be confident of defending your belief with easily available evidence. These pure facts are uncontroversial because they can be proven easily and do not jar with your common sense.
From this high ground of certainty we can explore other valleys of increasing doubt. In one direction we can move away from certainty by going away from direct observation with our own regular senses. My belief in the existence of Alabama is further down the slope into this particular valley. Also in another direction we can travel to experiences through our less objective senses and those senses that are not in the big five. Taste is a more controversial sense, more subjective, and inner feelings and perceptions of voices within our heads are even further removed from the high ground of uncontroversial knowledge, although the person doing the “knowing” has no doubts.
Then we have to look at the rest of the world. Reality is not democratic. Truth is not relative. But there is a sense in which being in the majority opinion can help you increase your level of knowledge”. If you happen to believe that black people are naturally inferior to white people your sense of knowledge of this “fact” will be lessened if you spend your time living in a modern University while it would be strengthened if you spent your time propping up particular bars in Alabama. When people around you agree with your beliefs you feel vindicated, when they disagree you feel persecuted. Many people change their minds on issues by osmosis rather than logical persuasion, the strain of holding views that contradict those of the people around them is too much and they simply find it easier to change their beliefs rather than constantly defend them. The process is known as selling out, or coming to your senses, depending on whether the observer subscribes to the old or new views.
Faith is more than just a belief.
Belief and faith are not perfect synonyms. It is quite possible to believe in something while lacking faith in that belief. Such as my belief that Birmingham is the largest city in Alabama. That belief that has now escalated after I have just checked it out on two of my many Encyclopaedia discs. The biggest cities are listed as Birmingham, Mobile, Montgomery (state capital) and Huntsville. My belief is now strong enough that I haven't bothered to check it out with the other discs.
Faith is belief without proof. Taking something on faith means believing it without firm proof of your own senses.
I have never knowingly seen Jupiter. I have suspected on a number of occasions that the “star” I was seeing was in fact Jupiter but I have never been sure. You could say that I have faith in the existence of Jupiter. To deny the existence of Jupiter would entail me changing so many of my current beliefs that it is an untenable position. If you wanted me to believe that there was no Jupiter you would have to do an enormous amount of work. I have faith in Jupiter, I belief that it exists and I believe that my faith is justified by reason. If you want to prove otherwise you will have to do the work, I will not help you out by speculating. I am confident that I could find the necessary information to predict where and when Jupiter would appear and I could make a positive identification of Jupiter through my binoculars on the next clear night. But I wouldn't do it. Belief in Jupiter is rational, disbelief is the irrational belief, it would be up to you to disprove the existence of Jupiter, a much harder task.
I think that the typical Christian's faith in God is rather like mine in Jupiter. They believe in what they believe and they believe that they are right to believe it. They also take it as read that the contrary view is the one that needs the burden of proof. I doubt that any neutral observers would agree, if such a being could ever be found.
The Christian faith is part of a whole raft of interlocking concepts, a memeplex, that reinforce each other. Faith is a large part of the success of that memeplex. The faith meme tells you that believing something with faith alone is actually morally superior to believing something because you have reasonable proof. Faith is so hard to fight because it neutralizes the opposition. The shakier the foundation of proof on which a Christian stands the more moral he is being in maintaining his faith. If you could find documentary evidence that Jesus died as an infant then the Christian's moral stance would be heightened. The less proof there is that their story is true the more moral they are to believe it. Remember that Thomas was derided for wanting to see evidence of the resurrection of Jesus. Derided for being rationally sceptical.
The morality of faith is such that it inverts all other forms of logic and makes belief in whatever faith justifies into the highest virtue. This makes attacking the faith almost impossible. The harder you attack with logic the more you reinforce the moral superiority of the faithful. And what other weapons do you have? The Christian is immune from logic, cocooned with faith. No Christian, Jehovah's Witness, Moslem or Jew need fear any logical argument as long as they keep their faith.
Defending an idea with faith is similar to cheating in a playground game - you can't kill me I'm invvinsdibul! You can't be invvinsdibul though cos I said it first! You can never win the game fairly, but you can never lose it according to your own rules.
Is atheism a faith?
It can be. Some atheists no doubt do hold their beliefs in a similar way to those who believe in religions. I don't think that I do. I do not deny the possibility of God in an absolute way. I believe that God is an invention to explain gaps in our understanding. I know why the idea is appealing. I know why the idea has spread and resisted being debunked. I cannot see how I could know whether or not a God could exist. I do see how any number of stories about gods can and have arisen.
I do not feel any reason to want to hope whether God exists or not. There are so many conflicting ideas about the nature of God that I do not know what to think about him. Would he forgive me for doubting him, because he made me as inquisitive and sceptical as I am? Would he smite me with a thunderbolt and cast me into the depths of hell for doubting him? Would he see me as a better soul because of my freethinking use of the gifts he gave me? None of those “possibilities” seems convincing. I have no doubt that many people reading this will have no doubt what the true answer is. I have had enough e-mail about His Truth as written in His Holy Bible. Dozens of mutually contradictory evaluations of the same words.
It is simpler to say that I just don't believe in God, certainly at the moment, and I see very little possibility of me changing my mind. I cannot see myself “repenting” on my deathbed or under extreme danger. The idea that there are no atheists in foxholes is absurd. Extreme terror of imminent death would not make me decide that two plus two is eight so why should it change my mind on any other idea I hold?