Summary:
Defines theism and atheism and touches on Thomas Paine's deism. The author expresses opinions about the nature of faith.
"Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase," that's how Martin Luther King Jr. described the process of faith during a speech he delivered in the sixties. King Jr. was a strong advocate for peace and racial equality as well as a believer in Christ and a teacher for those who needed to be shown the right path. He taught people that having faith is a healthy tool for the mind that helps get us through the toughest times in our lives. Faith can be defined by Christian Virtue as a strong belief that something is true; in spite of evidence to the contrary that it is a belief beyond evidence or logical argument. To others faith is something that they use to have confidence about their daily lives and to many skeptics it is a complete waste of time. These skeptics say that having faith is a lost cause capable of giving no answers towards the understanding of who we are and what our purpose is. They say that if you can't see God, then he beyond a doubt cannot exist. Is seeing really believing, is having faith just one big hoax? Faith goes beyond seeing and believing, it starts with an action, with taking a step, with taking a risk. An explanation isn't always necessary in life.
The skeptics mentioned earlier unfortunately regard faith as something to laugh at being that they are so immovable in their own personal views thinking that science is the answer for everything. They think that only with in science and rationale explanations an answer can be found for every dilemma that arises and if science cant entirely prove it than it doesn't exist. That is their glorified reason for not having faith in God, just because it can't be proven by scientific means. Rather than simply having faith in the extraordinary, they take another route and resort to atheism.
Atheism is categorized by an absence of belief in gods; they actively believe that all gods do not exist. One of the most influential atheists was a deist named Thomas Paine. Paine was already influential in society as he wrote the first anti-slavery law of the United States. He also wrote the book "The Age of Reason", which is considered as the single most influential atheistic book ever written. He writes, "All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian, or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit." Atheists think that because life is so absurd, that there is no God and that the idea of God is inconsistent with the idea of freedom. They regard theist belief as "pigs flying", because they are so caught up in their belief that God doesn't exist due to the fact that they can't see him. Since when has Hide and Seek become a resourceful technique in determining whether or not God exists?
Theism can be defined as the belief in the existence of at least one god - noting more, nothing less. Theism is, literally, belief in the existence of God. A theist myself, I believe in a divine entity, God, that sets out our life as it sees fit. We believe that God is our creator because we choose to, not because we have to and apparently this is inconvenient and unacceptable to the atheist community. They think that nothing good can come from having faith in God, just a cluster of displeased practitioners with broken hearts; they are scared of could happen, and that is a threat that serves as a great injustice to their primary belief, a belief that sends them on an endless quest for answers to the questions that they face in their own lives.
There are some people who have beliefs similar to atheism as they lack a belief of God, yet they do have faith they just don't understand its exclusive meaning or where it is present. Then there is a group of theists that are confused and tired of the thought of worshipping an entity that isn't perfect, an entity that has flaws, an entity known only through a book, an entity that has yet to be proven real. This is where my roommate Drew fits in; he is a theist but only in the format that he believes in a God that makes absolute sense. Drew states:
I personally believe in a God that chooses to act within the laws he sets forth in this universe. Why does our universe have to be flawed and need God to interfere in order for flowers to bloom, species to be formed, plants to be made? Why would God break the own natural laws he created? After all, God gave man the ability to reason, if we can reason by his gift, then why would he contradict himself by performing acts contrary to the way the universe works"
These are all very valid point in which he places genuine concern. Why does God allow all the evil in the world to happen when he created a so-called "perfect world"? The reason for God allowing all of these chaotic events to happen can be found in the Bible, which says that God desired to create a person and eventually a race that would love him. But genuine love cannot exist unless freely given through free choice and will thus man was given the choice to accept God's love or decline it, the choice made the possibility of evil becoming very real. So blaming God for all the suffering and evil in the world is like telling God, "You shouldn't have given us a choice."
As human beings we all have a choice, a choice to have faith in anything we choose to or not to have faith at all. This choice relates to Catholics by us having the choice to position our faith towards a conviction in God or to look another way opposite of him. God allows us to have both faith and doubt in him. Lillian Smith, a famous Catholic writer who wrote the fiction novel Strange Fruit, made it known that having doubt with in faith isn't a bad thing at all. Rather she taught people that faith and doubt work hand in hand. Smith states, "Faith and doubt both are needed - not as antagonists, but working side by side to take us around the unknown curve." By this Lillian Smith is insisting that faith and doubt are necessary in order to move on in life.
At one point in time every single Catholic has experienced doubt in their faith with God and most of them learn from the understanding of how doubt can be used effectively in order to strengthen one's relationship with God. However some people didn't learn a valid lesson from their low points, instead a feeling of discontentment towards God grew within them as they excommunicated themselves from God's life. This applied to Drew as he was raised a Catholic through fifth grade so its safe to say that he has heard enough scriptures regarding Catholicism and its stories, but to this day he is still confused about the methods used by God to achieve his result. Drew still experiences a lot of doubt towards God and his way of resolving problems using catastrophic events "fix" something gone wrong. "In the end I feel it is much more Godlike for a God to start a process in motion eight billion years ago and have it go as planned than to have a deity make wombats appear out of mid air," explains Drew. Sure a pre-destined path to follow in life would be effortless, but that is what is so extra extraordinary about God, that he works in mysterious ways known only to him. God doesn't just go around saying, "Look here! This is what I want, and I command you to follow my will!" This isn't what God intended when he created us and gave us free will, he intended for us to live our own lives and figure out life for ourselves. This what faith is all about, it's about taking a risk, about putting all your beliefs on the line, more importantly its about action.
Taking action through faith is something all Catholics have done by simply keeping true to the fourth commandment. Edith Hamilton, a famous educator, writer, and historian, wrote, "Faith is not belief. Belief is passive. Faith is active," this statement can be most appropriately used in following the Sabbath and keeping it holy. Just attending Mass is only the half of it in order to fulfill the expectations sent down from God the practitioner must do as its name suggests, practice ones faith just standing around isn't going to cut it. Going to church is beneficial to Catholics as they can pray within a congregated community to give thanks for all that God has so generously given them, it also allows us to come closer to Jesus strengthen our bonds with him as well as the whole Catholic society.
Many people however disagree with the whole idea of going to Church saying that it is simply something else to do on a Sunday morning in order to keep people busy and that the idea of Church itself was a scheme thought out to heighten Catholicism's popularity in order to "recruit" more people. When asked about his feelings towards going to Church Drew feels that organized religion isn't essential to the belief in God. He states, "The vast sum of religious denominations speaks to me that there is a great deal of idiocy in the affairs of organized worship. I do not feel that a personalized doctrine or very small doctrine is heretical." I can relate with Drew on this topic, yes there are way too many different organizations regarding religion, but these denominations all have either a completely different outlook or a similar with slight variances. Point of the matter is this is what people want, and it wouldn't be fair to take their religion away from them. According to Drew he would rather see just a basic belief in God rather than a million different kinds of religions that generally propose the same virtues and ideas. Having a religion is important because it unites people with parallel ideas of faith and allows them to communicate to their personal deities as a collective assembly in a form of worship.
As a Catholic I believe that going to Church isn't a chore or considered as something else to do on Sunday mornings rather this is what gives me tranquility and allows me to further the relationship between God and I through scripture readings. This is how I appreciate God's love to me, by joining together with my community and praying for friends, family, and to God. It is by this that I grow to understand God and his mysterious ways and learn to live by his teachings. Thankfully for though God doesn't demand perfection among his sons and daughters, he loves us all no matter what the circumstances may be. Everyone is shown compassion.
Faith is directly related with life as it is evident in activities that are stationed in everyday life. Technically every human on Earth has practiced faith at one point in their lives, this can range from the idea of having faith that God exists or having faith that the chair that someone is sitting in won't collapse. Some people have faith in the idea that the universe in which we live in was created for us by God himself and other people such as atheists have faith in that the universe was created by a scientific occurrence of astronomical proportions. Either way faith is used to a certain extent in everyone's daily lives including atheists. Atheists too have faith it is a faith that God doesn't exist, so even though they don't believe in God they still use faith in their beliefs. This is allowed by God as he gives us the choice to choose what we want to do with our lives, we have the choice to deny that God exists or to accept him and give thanks for all that he has done for us. God is very accepting and no matter what continues to show love and compassion to everyone, even if they don't believe in him it makes no difference God will always care about all of his sons and daughters.
So we are left with the question that has perplexed every human since the time of Jesus Christ. Does God really exist even if we can't see him? If seeing is truly believing than how do we know that our bodies our filled with blood? If we can't see the blood immediately then how do we know that it's really there? When man was first created they had no idea that a thick red substance was inside of their body until they took a risk. Whatever the risk may be they noticed that a red substance was coming out of the wound and millions of year's later scientists came to the conclusion that blood was a vital element of the human body. The same basic principle can be applied to the existence of God; only after taking a risk can we learn more about ourselves. Through taking a risk sometimes the result can make us feel the worst we have ever felt causing a state of unwanted depression placing us into a downward spiral. This is where faith comes into play, having faith in something can give one closure and a sense of peace and tranquility. Many people who have had major problems in life such as Drugs, violence (incarceration), and depression have put their faith into God and have experienced wonderful results. With risk comes faith and understanding creating an overall positive attitude towards life showing that faith is indeed a healthy tool for humans both spiritually and physically.
Through faith comes the understanding of things that cannot be seen, there are too many questions about life that need answered but instead of one wasting their whole like searching for these answers why not just live a little, take life as it comes, and enjoy it? This is still not good enough for atheists as they see faith as a non-rational belief in some proposition and that it is an affirmation without an ongoing test of evidence. Even with their objective views towards God, Catholics still remain strong and un-swayed about their belief in God. The latest surveys tell us that over 90% of the people in the world today believe in the existence of God or some higher power. Just because you can't see him isn't a good enough explanation for not having faith. If God so desired, he could simply appear and prove to the whole world that he exists but if he did there would longer be a need for faith. So is faith just one big hoax? A couple of years ago I would have said hoax, but now as I grow and mature mindfully and spiritually I now finally understand what faith is truly about. Faith is about enriching one's soul preparing that person for anything that's to come in life. So when the day comes that we die, transcend into heaven, and meet God face to face I guess we can all say that seeing isn't all that its really cracked up to be.
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