Faith?        

 

Harry T. Cook

By Harry T. Cook
12/12/14

 

All signs point to a resurgence of "faith-based" politics that almost surely will produce legislation and resultant policies that will have their ground in uncritical religious and ideological belief systems.

The words "faith" and "belief" have together become a corrupting and dangerous influence in the world. An imam, a would-be suicide bomber, an evangelist, a bishop, even a president of the United States -- each is permitted to defend his or her choices by appealing to "faith," the validity of which one cannot determine, and to "belief," which one is supposed to tolerate rather than challenge under the rubrics of "everyone is entitled to his own opinion" and "it is wrong to criticize or challenge another person's religion."

By faith, the Crusades were undertaken; to defend belief, so-called heretics were incinerated; on faith, some people still believe Earth is but 6,000 years old and those who teach otherwise are anathema; for the faith, ISIS extremists behead people who fail to be proper Muslims.

In each case, the particular article of faith or tenet of belief cited is purposely placed beyond empirical testing and open discussion. Warrant for trust in such articles and tenets springs from so-called sacred texts, the contents of which are also supposed to be beyond ordinary textual investigation, and which are to be taken as the express law and will of whatever god is imagined therein. "It says in the Bible," "It says in the Koran": These are the justifications given for so much of what the Scots poet Robert Burns called "man's inhumanity to man."  

What is called for in the 21st century is courage, not faith; knowledge, not belief. Courage is that which enables a person to seek for and deal with what is real, rather than what is imagined or wished for. Knowledge is that which is arrived at by observation and rationalized experience. Courage to seek knowledge, rather than to rely upon blind belief in what some religious or political authority claims to be true, is the key to establishing a just society founded on reason.

It is an act of courage to accept that one's strength, intention and aspiration are found within one's self and, because we are not unconnected in this world, also in others. We do not know if such qualities repose in the presence of an unseen deity that may or may not be caring of our welfare, or may not be at all.  

It is an act of courage to propose for consideration a hypothesis that fits with the known facts, rather than one that does not in an attempt to prop up some cherished belief. Charles Darwin observed the fauna of Galapagos Islands with no agenda other than finding out about them. But it was an act of courage, not faith, that prompted him to publish his all-important Theory of Natural Selection which, when married to genetics, became the baseline of modern medicine -- and the b�te noire of fundamentalist Christianity.

The courage to search for and act upon knowledge regardless of sectarian demands will be what saves America from becoming a theocracy. History bears witness to the fact that widespread reliance upon faith in unseen deities and the laws said to have been laid down by them (always mediated by a ruling hierarchy and defended by personal preference) leads inexorably to theocracy, meaning government by ruthlessly applied central authority and suppression of dissent.

Uncritical tolerance of faith and belief systems will lead us there. A belief-based system -- a religion, in other words -- must be judged on the behavior of its adherents toward others, and by no other standard. The Jesus of the New Testament prescribed just such a standard: "Turn the other cheek toward the hand of the one who hit you (instead of hitting back), walk the second mile voluntarily after the first that was required, love both enemy and neighbor, give up that shirt you're wearing today as well as your coat to the one who has neither, and forgive as often as it takes."

Beyond that ethic, where religion is used -- especially in league with government -- to restrict human rights, to bless unjust wars, to maintain class supremacy, to dictate who can and cannot marry, to prohibit women from exercising their reproductive rights -- theocracy has come into its own.  

It's actually been around for a while. The constitutions of at least two states I know of -- Maryland and North Carolina -- require candidates for public office to espouse belief in God. Which one is not specified. Article VI of the U.S. Constitution saith plainly: "No religious test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office of public Trust under the United States." Even now the Legislature of my state (Michigan) is on the verge of enacting a "religious freedom" statute that, in effect, would license bias and discrimination.

Theocracy is a real threat. Let the theocrats concentrate on the ethical core of their system and promote respect for the dignity of each and every human being: a faith worthy of the name.