Faith for Ignorance

I have often wondered a lot about the concept of faith and how it actually works. Is there a mechanism for faith? Is it completely random? Is it logical or illogical? Subjective or objective? Certainly if anyone knew how to tap into the tiny little faith that moves mountains, then our world would be a far different place. Since this is not the case, am I safe to say that true faith is exceptionally rare and only a few individuals on Earth actually possess true faith? Honestly, I’m not sure. It is very confusing because I hear many people who profess they have faith.

The idea of faith can be applied in many different ways. After all, most of us have faith in many things, such as a roof that will not leak, a car that will start, a sun that will rise, food in the grocery store, and pretty much everything we take for granted. There really is no guarantee that any of these things will work the way we want them too. Not even the sun, really. But since the chances of these things working are high enough, we assume they will work every time.

The next application of faith is directed towards those who hit the end of their rope in some way such as an individual who has nothing to lose and is ready to take on an incredible feat in the face of slim chances. Consider the classic story of a man who has lost everything in his life. Maybe he lost all his belongings, or loved ones, or perhaps he is in a situation where he will not make it out alive. All he has left is his life and maybe a purpose to go along with it. There is a saying, “never contend with a man who has nothing to lose”. Why is that? Because he can leverage everything, namely his life, against a single purpose without remorse, without hesitation, and without a doubt. This is a powerful situation and can often create heroes.

In both these situations, doubt is the key element. When Peter walked on water in front of Jesus, it was the first thing he did when he realized he was doing the impossible. He doubted his ability, whereas a few minutes before he simply stepped right out of that boat without hesitation. Perhaps the elimination of any and all doubt is the first step towards true faith.

There is another application of faith that disturbs me somewhat. It is the faith that people claim when defending their religious beliefs. Those that follow a particular religion are usually very loyal to it. There can be many reasons for this loyalty, the most common being the nature in which they were raised. Conversion is another. But rarely, if ever, are people loyal to a religion because it filled them with the divine knowledge to answer the great mysteries of God and spirituality.

Religions can be deep and extensive knowledge of an entire religious doctrine can take a lifetime. Most people do not take knowledge of their religion to that extreme. However, there will most likely come a time when their belief is challenged. When this happens the person is obligated to defend their belief. If the challenger is witty or knowledgeable enough to break through the defense of the loyal defender, then the defender of the religion, in a plight to save his belief, must throw up his hands and say, “That’s where you need faith!”

This demonstration of faith is about as common as there are followers of a religion. This is not a demonstration of true faith; it is a mask for ignorance. It is, however, effective against a challenger because there is no argument against it. People who do not question and investigate their own beliefs must mask their ignorance with this so called, “faith”. Faith in this sense is none other than a fallacy.

My favorite example of faith comes from 1 Samuel in the Bible. King Saul was in a tough spot against the Philistines who were encamped against him. On top of that Saul’s company of troops had no formidable weapons of war. The only swords were on Saul and his son, Jonathan. Furthermore, Saul had angered God by presenting an unlawful sacrifice. Saul’s doom was pronounced by Samuel himself. Samuel was God’s prophet who basically carried the actual word of God as directed.

However, one day, Jonathan decided to get closer to the Philistines. He took his armor bearer and when he arrived, he said, “Come let us go over to the camp. Maybe God will work for us. For nothing restrains the Lord from saving by many or by few.”

The armor bearer agreed. They then proceeded to kill twenty enemy combatants by themselves. After this there were earthquakes and various other signs of God allowing the rest of Saul’s company to achieve victory.

I believe Jonathan demonstrated true faith in this story. Did Jonathan consult God? Did he pray? Was he certain of victory? The answer is no to all these. He went into a situation where the outcome was completely unknown. On top of this he was laying his life, and his armor bearer’s life, on the line. Single handedly attacking an encampment was suicide without divine intervention. Nevertheless, Jonathan believed he was doing God’s will.

Jonathan wasn’t certain God would help him. After all, he was Saul’s son and Saul was not favored by God. Since Jonathan believed that defeating the Philistines was God’s will, he decided to carry it out and let God decide the outcome. If he died, it was God’s will. If he defeated the Philistines, then that was also God’s will. Jonathan was willing to accept either outcome provided it was God’s decision. As a result Jonathan, literally, moved mountains. This story can be found in 1 Samuel 14.

The main point I’d like to make in this article is to point out the misconception of faith as it applies to all the individual religions. Sure, religious beliefs are important and they satisfy many people. But religion is not justified because someone, or even many people, have this so called, “faith”. As far as I’m concerned it is a fallacy whose only purpose is to control the many followers who don’t know any better. The truth cannot be found by a faith that masks ignorance.

Morality and Perspective

By Richard Miller  

     I was asked by my most avid supporter, Leanne, to write some of my thoughts on the issue of situational morality and whether it is changing or unchanging.  Situational Morality, also known as Situational Ethics, is the issue choosing what you consider to be a lesser evil. You are given a couple options and both of them are bad, but one may be more positive than the other. Perhaps you are giving someone advice on a hard decision they have to make. In any case you are weighing things like life and virtue and the cost of sacrificing either one for the greater good.

    When one is faced with such a dilemma, it is natural to reach out to something outside of you and ask for guidance. When asking for guidance you will probably reach out to someone you believe is an authority on morality. This is probably someone you believe is a soundly moral person. This could be a respected friend, a parent or relative, or even God Himself. In any case you are seeking a moral standard to assist you in your decision. You do this to alleviate the burden that has been placed on you to make such a decision. When we are asked whether morality is changing, we are really asking if the standards of morality are changing.

    Here is an example of a dilemma involving Situational Morality also known as Situational Ethics. I’m going to use a military reference because it is familiar to me.

    The Situation: You are the commander of a company of troops and you are ordered to overtake an enemy stronghold. You have 200 men. You are told that you will most likely lose 30 men in your attempt to capture the stronghold. However, if you send 10 men to their imminent death in a diversion, the remaining 190 men can take advantage of the diversion and capture the stronghold unchecked. On one hand you stand to lose a lot of troops. On the other hand you are guaranteed minimal troop loss, but must knowingly sacrifice those 10 men to die. You are the commander, what do you do.

     If you are the commander you might be seeking advice on this situation. You might even be praying about it. Or maybe you don’t care at all. As long as you get the job done, then you are a success and the number of men you lose is irrelevant to you.

    The choice you make in this situation is going to depend on the one thing that has created an enormous amount of diversity throughout history. This thing is called Perspective. Perspective is always changing when you go from person to person, or from culture to culture. Take for example a piece of art, such as a picture or statue. When several people look at this piece of art, they may all have different interpretations of it. One person may think a painting has a sad and dark message, while another may interpret the painting as having happy and hopeful attributes. It’s still the same painting regardless of who looks at it. But it’s interpreted in a wide variety of ways by different people and cultures.

    Morality is viewed the same way as art in this sense with different cultures, different views, and all of them changing with time and place. It is in this sense that morality does, in fact, change. For example, back in the days of the Israelites, it was considered normal for a man to have more than one wife. This was accepted in the culture of that time and even accepted by God. Today the views on this issue are much different in America. Polygamy is looked down on and considered immoral. Those that partake of it are considered on the extreme ends of society. Our American society has dictated the morality of this idea as opposed to the ancient Israelites. Is one wrong and not the other? Are both societies wrong? It all depends on your Perspective.

    So at this point I have declared that morality is constantly changing with the different Perspectives of people and cultures of mankind. As societies come and go, so do the moral guidelines. As the values of life and virtue change, so do the answers to the problems of Situational Ethics.

    However, some people will object to this say that there is, in fact, an unchanging moral standard of which to base all of morality. These people are also correct. There is indeed a perfect and unchanging moral standard, but this standard cannot not be created by mankind.

    An unchanging moral standard can only be created by God. By definition God is perfect, eternal, unchanging, and thus his moral standard is also perfect and unchanging. So naturally, God’s authority and Perspective will survive the test of time and thus create a perfect unchanging moral standard.  If you want to achieve God’s moral standard, then you must achieve God’s Perspective. This is a hard thing to do. Perhaps it is impossible.

   In conclusion, the task of achieving God’s Perspective is often rejected or simply ignored because of what it implies. In order to see unchanging morality, we must see God’s Perspective, in order to see God’s Perspective we must become Godly, in order to become Godly we must turn from any and all sin. The idea of giving up any and all sin gives the vast amount of people reason enough to reject the pursuit of unchanging morality and settle for a slightly more comfortable standard made by the hand of man. Because of this, morality will be forever changing as mankind’s Perspective sways from one place to another.