Keeping the Faith

"For faith to really be of any value, it must be based on facts, on reality."

Huh? That's a new one on me. I don't need my English degree to know that faith means the exact opposite of this. In fact, according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, faith means, "firm belief in something for which there is no proof", among other things. Why this attempt to confuse faith in the improvable with belief in the demonstrable?

It's easy to just choose to believe something completely if you are so predisposed. If you are looking for a faith-based value system or political ideology (or some combination of both!) that will reflect your own view of the world back to you it shouldn't be hard to find. And believing in something for which there is demonstrable proof doesn’t take faith, it just requires the basic capacity to recognize and acknowledge reality. Faith in the existence of God, on the other hand, is tough stuff. Jesus, for example, thought it would be nothing short of a miracle if his own disciples had a share of faith roughly equivalent to the size of a mustard seed: "Amen, I say to you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will be able to move mountains. Nothing will be impossible for you."

Now, if the men and women who spent at least an entire year of their lives living and working alongside Jesus could only muster (mustard?) this much faith, well... Just don't tell me that faith is an open-and-shut case of recognition and acceptance of the facts. Once you choose to exchange faith for fact, growth and the maturity of wisdom through experience for cold comfort and assurance you can reduce your mind’s ability, even its inclination, to see greater truths, to question and challenge harmful messages that are packaged in faith-based language. Some current examples include the entire movement devoted to the notion that God hates gay people, or those who believe that when Jesus returns to earth after the Rapture, he's coming with a pair of fully loaded sawed-off shotguns.

To what end do we apply our beliefs? In what do we have faith? What earthly purpose does our faith serve? The answers to these questions can reveal if our minds are vibrant gardens of thought and consideration, or stale receptacles of outdated and disproved notions and prejudices. I pose the issue in these terms as a response to those who call themselves people of faith, yet who for years have defined the word "faith" in the narrowest of terms. "Faith" as blind obedience to a particular church's teachings and pronouncements. "Faith" as full and unquestioning support for a particular political candidate or party. "Faith" as actively supporting or engaging in acts of hate and violence because it has been said that this is what God wants. The notion of faith as an evolving process of contemplation and the application of original thought has been overwhelmed by those who would nefariously gird certain political and cultural agendas with the authority of religious conviction. I've recently read a beautiful and succinct rebuttal to these notions in a book review on Amazon.com. The book's author is the former wife of a fundamentalist pastor. In reflecting back on what was obviously a traumatic period in her life she writes that she has come to see spirituality (an expression of faith) as "a road of discovery—not of submission to a rulebook."

The pursuit of faith in God calls on each person who seeks this to strive to develop a deep understanding of who or what God is, and what it is God calls upon us to do as members of the human community. While the question of who or what God is may not be knowable, there seems to be a historic consensus as to what it God calls upon us to do. To close today's post, here are some insights illuminating this basic call, and which provide a good starting point for anyone's faith journey. Shalom.

"...a state that is not pleasing or delightful to me, how could I inflict that upon another?" — Buddhism

"What is hateful to you, do not to your fellow man. That is the whole Torah; the rest is just commentary. Go and study it." — Hillel

"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. This is the law and the prophets." — Jesus

"None of you truly believes until he loves for his brother what he loves for himself." — Muhammad

"This is the sum of duty; do naught unto others what you would not have them do unto you." — Mahabharata

"What you do not wish upon yourself, extend not to others." — Confucius

"Regard your neighbor’s gain as your gain, and your neighbor’s loss as your own loss." — Taoism

"All things are our relatives; what we do to everything, we do to ourselves. All is really One." — Native American Spiritual Teaching

"In happiness and suffering, in joy and grief, we should regard all creatures as we regard our own self." — Jainism

"That nature alone is good which refrains from doing another whatsoever is not good for itself." — Zoroastrianism

-Doug L.

FOR FURTHER REFERENCE

Interfaith Voices Podcast, 'The Life of Meaning: Reflections on Faith, Doubt and Repairing the World' (April 26, 2007)

Utterly Humbled by Mystery ('This I Believe', NPR, December 18, 2006)

'Faith, Reason, God and Other Imponderables' (NY Times, July 25, 2006)