Everyone has faith. Even if you don't.

Michael Keller on September 21, 2009

Everyone has faith. Eh? How so? It depends on how you define faith, of course. What if faith is merely those things that we believe and trust in? Defined that way, then we all have faith to some degree. For instance, we all trust chairs to some degree. We trust that they won't break when we sit in them. We trust our senses (unless you think we are all living in the Matrix) everyday. We trust that our senses are actually telling us the truth, and not giving us the wrong data. Can we prove our senses are always right? No. In fact, science shows us that our senses are often wrong. Can we prove a chair will hold us up every time we sit down in it? No. But we trust it. 

So if we trust basic things day in and day out like our senses and our perceptions, is it not possible that we are also trusting in deeper more life-orientating things as well--like our smarts, our careers, or a special relationship to give us purpose? Sure, most of you will say. So what's the problem? Well the problem is, if we all have these various faiths, which one (or ones) will not fail us, will not let us down, will not abandon us in our time of need? In other words, which faith is the best one to really put our trust in? How can we tell?



Still don't buy the fact that everyone believes in something? Don't take it from me---below is a clip from a NY Times article quoting a Professor of Anthropology:

NY Times Article

"Call it God; call it superstition; call it, as [Scott] Atran does, “belief in hope beyond reason” — whatever you call it, there seems an inherent human drive to believe in something transcendent, unfathomable and otherworldly, something beyond the reach or understanding of science. “Why do we cross our fingers during turbulence, even the most atheistic among us?” asked Atran when we spoke at his Upper West Side pied-à-terre in January. Atran, who is 55, is an anthropologist at the National Center for Scientific Research in Paris, with joint appointments at the University of Michigan and the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York… [S]ometimes he presents students with a wooden box that he pretends is an African relic. “If you have negative sentiments toward religion,” he tells them, “the box will destroy whatever you put inside it.” Many of his students say they doubt the existence of God, but in this demonstration they act as if they believe in something. Put your pencil into the magic box, he tells them, and the nonbelievers do so blithely. Put in your driver’s license, he says, and most do, but only after significant hesitation. And when he tells them to put in their hands, few will.

If they don’t believe in God, what exactly are they afraid of?"