Faith and Foolishness
Like everyone else in the known universe, I’ve been reading and enjoying the writing of the Real Live Preacher. While he sees things very differently from me philosophically, he’s clearly an honest, intelligent man with a great gift for storytelling. It’s quite impressive that he’s managed to win the respect of so many thoughtful and, frankly, skeptical people in this forum. One thing Preacher man isn’t doing is preaching to the choir, and for that he deserves plenty of credit.
The Preacher obviously draws on his faith to give him strength and hope, and to fortify his deep commitment to good works and social service. That’s a vision of religion that even non-believers can get behind, and if that’s all there were to it, I don’t think skeptics and secular-minded folks would have any problem with it. Unfortunately, the Preacher’s strong, affirmative brand of faith does not represent the majority view of self-professed religious people, at least in my experience. Consider one of the comments that the Preacher received, from another clergyman, Joey Kelly:
…Faith is believing in God and the things of God, no matter what the circumstances appear to be. The fundamentals (the virgin birth, miracles, sinless life, death, burial and resurrection of Christ, sanctification, justification, redemption, etc., etc.) are non-negotiable. Without this bedrock, any ministry is founded upon shifting sand. You’re headed for burnout.
According to Kelly, it is impossible to derive ethical and spiritual strength from Christianity without accepting the most intellectually offensive and preposterous supernatural claims that the dogma demands. It’s apparently not enough that Jesus lead an exemplary life and professed doctrines of peace and wisdom. In order to use those teachings as motivation in one’s own life projects, one must accept all the superstitious bag and baggage of a 2000 year-old cult (as modified over the years, for transparently self-serving reasons, by a clerical elite working hand-in-glove with various hierarchical political institutions) – otherwise, “burnout” is the inevitable result.
Such a simple-minded view of religion encourages people to move from the affirmative qualities of faith toward the vices of credulity, rejecting the manifest benefits of human reason as a tool for separating truth from fantasy. When we come across outlandish claims in old folk tales, we can confidently dismiss them as myth, literary embellishment, ignorance or allegory. For some reason, believers seem to feel that religious doctrines must remain exempt from this common-sense approach in order to remain a meaningful philosophy. Why is the deliberate refusal to question fantastic assertions about the supernatural – e.g., “faith” in Kelly’s formulation – considered the hallmark of true religious spirit, rather than the ability to absorb the genuine truths and insights of the text and put them to use in your real life?
Believers may genuinely feel the objects of their faith to be as real as things in the physical world. But unlike nature, which yields itself up to study and examination, matters of faith are entirely internal, and often notoriously difficult to articulate. There is only the dubious morass of scriptural authority – itself a matter of faith – to anchor the discourse in any kind of agreed-upon basis. Perhaps there are truths that are valid without any means of testing them against sensory experience, but there is simply no way to reliably separate them from the political, psychological and personal agendas of the people or institutions who are espousing them. By taking these assertions “on faith,” believers put themselves in a situation where their credulity can easily be exploited, usually for purposes at odds with their sincere convictions.
As a result, many wars have been fought over competing non-provable claims about the nature of the supernatural. If you believe scripture is true, and enforcement of a particular interpretation is important, then those wars are worth fighting. But the historical record shows an enormous volume of misery produced by this worldview. By the time the US Constitution was framed in 1787, it was clear beyond the shadow of a doubt that when faith becomes the basis of public policy rather than private belief, irreconcilable conflict is the inevitable result.
Everyone is entitled to follow their conscience. For some, the doctrines of religion resonate with their internal needs and imprint themselves as truths, such that the presence of God is as real as to them the chair I’m sitting on. The secular state should never strive to banish that belief from their hearts – though it should not fail to punish those whom belief leads into evil behaviors. At the same time, there must be some recognition of the limits of faith as a system of thought for explaining a complex world. When we base our public actions on subjective beliefs and do not seek to justify policies through logic and reason, we deprive ourselves of the manifest benefits of a powerful tool for predicting future outcomes. In these cases, faith is not a strength – it’s just wishful thinking.
10:11:50 AM 
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