The thing about faith is that it is a
matter of faith!
There are a whole lot of reasons not to
believe in the existence of any kind of gods. A lot can be explained
about the way people act without needing any reference to any sort of
outside power or influence. At the same time many argue there are outside forces,
benevolent or otherwise; intelligences and creative forces beyond the
material world as we experience it.
Whenever a person enters into a
discussion about the non existence or otherwise of a deity they enter
it from a position of either faith or unbelief. Though some claim to
hold an open mind, even they are coming at the question from either
‘I don’t know if there are gods’ or ‘I don’t know if life
can be explained without positing the existence of something beyond
ourselves’ coloring their thoughts. Neutrality is impossible.
The atheist, the agnostic, the
believer…they all have positions to defend and places that they are
coming from. Where they are coming from partly determines what they
are looking for and the answer they are hoping for.
'Faith' is a term that can be applied as
much to an unbeliever as a believer and all those in between. The
atheist has a 'faith' in their rational abilities as being able to
reveal absolute truth. The agnostic has 'faith' that an answer can’t
be known. The believer seeks to state that certain things can be
known that reveal the existence of something beyond them selves.
This partly explains why religious
discussions can become so personal. A person’s identity is so
integrally tied up with their belief system that to threaten their
system is to make a personal attack upon their whole reason for
being. Value judgments are automatically brought into play.
As an example consider the question…
“If there is a God then why is there so much suffering in the
world?”
A whole host of presumptions are in
place.
- That the god proposed has the capacity and intention to intervene in peoples lives
- That the god proposed is related to some form of moral code
- That the god in question has some reason for paying attention to the plight of people
- That such a god is constrained to act in rational ways
- That such a being can be understood by human enquiry
Such a question also implies that
suffering of necessity has to have a logical cause. What if suffering
just ‘is’? ‘Suffering Happens’. Period.
The question of “God’ is dragged
into the question because of the assumption that for God to be God (and
therefore to exist) then he, she, or it, has to have the ability and compassion to want to
intervene in human affairs… rather than being a two headed pixie on
a distant planet who is far more concerned with the pool game she is
playing to give a fig about events on a spinning globe whirling
around a distant sun.
An atheist may declare that the
existence of suffering makes the idea of a benevolent god seem
ridiculous. An agnostic may declare that it makes the claim of god
being a good god open to question. A believer in a benevolent deity
may suggest the suffering is evidence that there is a need for us to
allow the god who is there to intervene in human life.
Again it comes back to faith. The thing
about faith is that it is a matter of faith!
