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Faith

Faith is the fundamental requirement of Christianity.

Yet the biblical idea of faith is nonsensical and unachievable.

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According to the Christian story, the only way to avoid going to hell is to have faith.

Faith is believing something that doesn't seem very likely, and being certain of it.

That might be a somewhat facetious statement, but it's basically what the bible says. A few days after being put to death, Jesus dropped in to see his disciples.

Jesus appears to the apostles

They were quite taken aback. Obviously, coming back after he had died wasn't something they were expecting. Thomas wasn't there when this happened though: the others told him about it when he got back. Of course, Thomas thought they were having him on and said he wouldn't believe them unless his saw Jesus himself. Most of us probably would have done the same. Jesus came back later when Thomas was there and reprimanded Thomas for questioning what his mates had told him. Jesus expected him to believe what he had been told without question. (see John 20:19-29).

This is what faith is - believing whatever we are told without question. Hebrews 11:1 defines faith further (in the New International Version) as follows: "Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see." So faith not only requires us to believe things that don't seem very likely, but it also requires us to be certain of them.

Faith, thus defined, is something that most people would find impossible. We can't voluntarly believe something that doesn't seem likely. But even those who think they can be certain need to realise that quite a few people are equally certain of the truth of other religions. And they can't all be right. So it is possible to be certain and yet be wrong. Once we realise this, we can never be certain that we are right. For those who think well enough to realise this, certainty is impossible and thus faith is impossible.

Actually, in other places, the bible sort of recognises this. Ephesians 2:8 says "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast," (Ephesians 2:8-9). So faith is not something we can achieve by ourselves, but is a gift from God. If he gives it to us, great; if he doesn't, bad luck! The 'not by works' phrase reinforces the idea that being good won't save us: faith is the only way.

This idea that we have no control over our destiny might seem harsh, but there are plenty of other verses to support the view; see here.

Even if we are capable and willing to believe whatever we are told, there is another problem: different people tell us different things - and contradictory things. The bible tells us one thing; the quran tells us quite a different thing. It is impossible to fully believe both. Even different Christians tell us contradictory things based on the same bible. The most logical thing to do in that situation would be to use our common sense to see which of the contradictory statements would be most sensible to believe. But then we are using reason rather than faith and that is exactly what Thomas was reprimanded for.

The whole concept of faith and salvation by faith thus makes no sense. The requirement for salvation is incoherent and impossible to satisfy. Thus it is impossible to be Christian and to be saved. Anyone who does consider themselves to be a Christian would have come to that conclusion by not reading the bible properly and not thinking through what it says. God's word should stand up to logical scrutiny. But it doesn't, not even in regards to the most fundamental and important questions of what God expects of us and how we get to go to heaven rather than hell.

As most people cannot believe everything they are told, people tend to believe what they are told first. When later they are told things which contradict what they have already accepted, then the normal course of action is to ignore the contradictory claims and stay with the first thing they were told.

There is an obvious evolutionary advantage in this: our parents are generally the people who care most about our safety and they are the ones who tell us things first. They might tell us not to play with snakes, scorpions and spiders. Other people later might be less concerned about our safety and encourgae us to play with dangerous animals. Those who accept on faith what they are told first and disbelieve anything that later contradicts it tend to survive better than those who don't.

As a result of this evolutionary adaptation, people brought up with one particular set of religious doctines, be they evangelical Christian, Catholic, Lutheran, Jehovah's Witness, Mormon, Islamic, Hindu, atheist, Zoroastrian, Wicca or one of the many others, tend to accept them on faith and reject anything later that contradicts them. This explains why people brought up in Islamic families and societies are nearly always Muslim, people brought up Hindu are nealy always Hindu, etc. It doesn't mean that the accepted religion is right; it just means that it was the one they were exposed to first.

Islamic students

This evolutionary adaptation also makes young children easy to indoctrinate into any ideas, be they sense or nonsense. If they are told about a fat man in a red suit who climbs down chimneys to deliver presents and who knows whether they've been good or bad, they readily believe it because they don't understand the world enough to know that it isn't likely to be true. It's the same with the religious stories we are told as young children. It is easy to indoctrinate young children into both the locally prevalent religious dogma and into the acceptance of faith as an appropriate way to understand the world.

The indoctrination into faith thinking makes faith a widely held expectation in Western Society and, although reason tells us that critical thinking (where one assesses the evidence for a claim and the likelihood of its being true before accepting it) is the better approach to life, faith is accepted as superior by a large proportion of the population.

Because of the widespread acceptance of the appropriateness of faith thinking and associated demonisation of critical thinking, most people have a tendency to believe all sorts of other things without adequate evidence - not just religious dogma. That tendency has, over the centuries led to the widespread acceptance without evidential basis of astrology, various superstitions, new-age ideas and so on. The advent of the Internet has made it easy for people to be exposed to a multitude of conspiracy theories: anyone can make any ridiculous claim, post it on the Internet and get followers. Many people who lean towards faith thinking rather than critical thinking have a tendency to accept anything that doesn't contradict what has been accepted before and to reject anything that does. Thus they tend to readily believe many of the conspiracy theories and are then immune to any other viewpoints, including evidence against them. As a result, democratic societies often go ways that critical thinkers would not go.

As faith thinking is indoctrinated from a young age by parents and, in many cases, churches and schools, critical thinkers might wish for critical thinking to be given at least equal prominence as a valid alternative. While this might be gaining some traction in schools, it is a slow process. Of course, it won't gain any traction in Christian homes or churches.

Faith thinking is holding us back. However, the situation in predominantly Christian countries is better than that in many countries with other religions, where expressing thoughts at odds with those prescribed by the religious authorities can in some cases incur the death penalty. This of course makes any sort of move towards encouraging critical thinking or other views of the world very difficult and secures the perpetuation of those religions.

What Does It Mean to be Born Again?

Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again. [John 3:3]

People who have just been born are little children. Is this what Jesus meant by being born again? – becoming little children? Yes.

And he said: "Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. [Mathew 18:3]

In what way are we expected to become like little children? Not in stature obviously, not in dependence on our mother. No, it is believing what we are told without question, reducing our critical thinking to that of a small child and being willing to accept any story without resistance.

This is after all exactly what faith is. Just as Jesus expected Thomas to believe what his mates told him, totally and without question, we, born again as small children are expected to believe whatever anyone tells us without question.

And, if we can’t do this, we don’t have faith and so cannot be saved.

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Image Acknowledgements

Jesus: Lawrence OP on Flickr

Islamic students: Rawpixel