FAITH IS NOT A VIRTUE
Faith is popping up all over, in the media and in public discourse. Politicians all need to make some expression of religious faith; the public would never support a faithless leader. We have faith-based charities, faith-based education, and faith-based lobby groups. Everyone from disaster victims to the miscreants that caused the disasters are breaking into tears and blubbering about their faith; the media and the public lap it up. Faith appears to be not just universally accepted, but universally considered among the highest of human virtues.
Faith—unquestioning and often literal belief—however, is among the worst ideas that humans have ever invented, far worse than the idea of God. It asks us to believe for no reason other than perceived authority. As events have shown us again and again in all parts of the world, for all of history, perceived authority does not deserve unquestioning obedience!
As a schoolboy, I learned through the week that in every field of intellectual inquiry one needed to investigate questions, objectively gather evidence, and either prove or disprove hypotheses. To believe without evidence is to risk folly. Then on Sundays I would often find myself listening to sermons extoling the importance of faith. A popular topic was how the Apostle Thomas, Doubting Thomas, was wrong to not accept news of Jesus’ resurrection without seeing the risen Lord for himself. The other apostles were “blessed” because they believed in the resurrection sight-unseen. Faith is invariably held up, by religious leaders, as the highest virtue. Sitting in the pews, I identified with Doubting Thomas. How could there be two standards for truth: faith in religion and proof for everything else?
It is more important to oppose the cult of faith than it is to debunk the existence of God. While it highly unlikely that there is a God that takes humanlike form and spends His time worrying about us, the existence or nonexistence of a higher power, is probably unknowable. But it can be said with certainty that faith has held back human progress and repressed people for millennia. Faith is so dangerous because its retrograde effects are not confined to religion; they spill out and are used by opponents of reform and change to stifle dissent in politics, technology, and economic development. In Europe, technological and social progress was hindered during the Dark Age and Middle Ages—over a thousand years—because the Church used the power of faith to impose a moratorium on progressive ideas not just in religion but also in science and in society at large, forbidding experiments, such as those conducted by Galileo, which might uncover facts contradictory to revealed truth.
When my wife was a child in China, during the Cultural Revolution, she and the people of her village were near starvation as a result of foolish, ideology-driven, government policies. Yet the Communist government told them that they lived in the richest and most prosperous country on earth, and the people took this on faith. She said that they actually felt sorry for the miserable wretches who lived in poor countries like the United States. Unquestioning belief in the pronouncements of authority—religious, political or other—is path to folly that humanity must learn to resist.
The idea that some answers are Unknowable is a key tenant of this work; and this understanding is the direct antithesis of faith.
Faith—unquestioning and often literal belief—however, is among the worst ideas that humans have ever invented, far worse than the idea of God. It asks us to believe for no reason other than perceived authority. As events have shown us again and again in all parts of the world, for all of history, perceived authority does not deserve unquestioning obedience!
As a schoolboy, I learned through the week that in every field of intellectual inquiry one needed to investigate questions, objectively gather evidence, and either prove or disprove hypotheses. To believe without evidence is to risk folly. Then on Sundays I would often find myself listening to sermons extoling the importance of faith. A popular topic was how the Apostle Thomas, Doubting Thomas, was wrong to not accept news of Jesus’ resurrection without seeing the risen Lord for himself. The other apostles were “blessed” because they believed in the resurrection sight-unseen. Faith is invariably held up, by religious leaders, as the highest virtue. Sitting in the pews, I identified with Doubting Thomas. How could there be two standards for truth: faith in religion and proof for everything else?
It is more important to oppose the cult of faith than it is to debunk the existence of God. While it highly unlikely that there is a God that takes humanlike form and spends His time worrying about us, the existence or nonexistence of a higher power, is probably unknowable. But it can be said with certainty that faith has held back human progress and repressed people for millennia. Faith is so dangerous because its retrograde effects are not confined to religion; they spill out and are used by opponents of reform and change to stifle dissent in politics, technology, and economic development. In Europe, technological and social progress was hindered during the Dark Age and Middle Ages—over a thousand years—because the Church used the power of faith to impose a moratorium on progressive ideas not just in religion but also in science and in society at large, forbidding experiments, such as those conducted by Galileo, which might uncover facts contradictory to revealed truth.
When my wife was a child in China, during the Cultural Revolution, she and the people of her village were near starvation as a result of foolish, ideology-driven, government policies. Yet the Communist government told them that they lived in the richest and most prosperous country on earth, and the people took this on faith. She said that they actually felt sorry for the miserable wretches who lived in poor countries like the United States. Unquestioning belief in the pronouncements of authority—religious, political or other—is path to folly that humanity must learn to resist.
The idea that some answers are Unknowable is a key tenant of this work; and this understanding is the direct antithesis of faith.