My Sunday Thought for 041518: Finding Faith

“Whether or not you believe in God, you must believe this: when we as a species abandon our trust in a power greater than us, we abandon our sense of accountability. Faiths… all faiths… are admonitions that there is something we cannot understand, something to which we are accountable. With faith we are accountable to each other, to ourselves, and to a higher truth. Religion is flawed, but only because man is flawed.”

-- Dan Brown, author "Angels & Demons"

The ancient Greek philosopher Socrates once said, “I cannot teach anybody anything. I can only make them think.”  This became known as the Socratic Method, a teaching method where a question is posed and the students direct and control the discussion of it.  I am a big fan of this method, as it makes the students think for themselves and develop their own ideas, solutions, and theories.  It is a method I use when discussing faith, and a method of which I have received positive feedback, from group participants, when ministering.  This method allows the listeners to participate and the speaker to learn through this feedback from these listeners.  The Socratic Method is a win-win method of learning; learning and not teaching, as both parties, the listener and speaker, can learn from each other.

I have found this method particularly valuable when opening alternate doors of faith and belief to those who feel they have lost their own or have been turned away by organized religion. In my humble opinion, there is nothing more devastating to one's self than losing faith in friends, family, themselves, life, religion, and/or God.  If we lose faith we lose our reason for being.

Doubt is not the opposite of faith; it is one element of faith.

-- Paul Tillich (1886-1965), Christian philosopher and theologian

What many don't understand is that doubt is nothing more than an element of faith, as light is an element of dark and good is an element of evil, you cannot have one without the other; the universe demands balance in all things. You can doubt your faith, but you will never know for sure if you even have faith until you seriously begin to look for it, at which point you evidence, by your very willingness to search, the existence of the faith you seek.

Every week I try to wake up the minds of those who attend my group meeting. Toward the end of the meeting, when I finally have their full attention, I stress the importance of doubting everything. Do not simply "go along to get along," believing everything someone says simply because they hold the title of teacher or preacher. Only you can heal yourself. Only you can walk your path. And, only you can find your own light so you can see the path you must walk.

“Doubt everything. Find your own light.”

-- Gautama Buddha (~500 BCE), ascetic, sage, teacher

Not holding to faith may be the very reason religions are considered flawed.  Religion requires faith, but faith does not require religion.  Some would say you must have faith in God before you can find salvation.  I say you must first have faith in self, for only then can you truly find faith in a higher power than yourself.  Help yourself before you can help others; heal yourself before you can heal others; love yourself before you can love others; find yourself and then search for your God.

The God of Abraham still endures misinterpretations by a multitude of heretics.  Each of the multitudinous faithful believes their interpretation to be right and all others to be wrong.  Some even lower themselves to the heresy of killing innocence and use their interpretation of God as an excuse for this sin against mankind.  If you are a member of one of the three Abrahamic religions, why do you think your cleric is any more important to God than you are?  No one is without sin, and yet, we place our "faith" in strangers where our own immortal souls are concerned?  Personally, I think I can go somewhere private, talk to God in silence, and I'll probably get better and faster results than pushing my desire for salvation through a flawed communication device with questionable connectivity... you know, clergy.

“The function of prayer is not to influence God, but rather to change the nature of the one who prays.”

-- Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855), philosopher, theologian, poet

I cannot believe in organized religion, as I have no faith in it.  Questions demand answers and when there are no answers religion falls back on the faulty logic of demanding you simply have faith in what religion says is right, without any reasonable expectation of proof.  This sounds like the same rhetoric we hear from politics, and we've all seen how great that is.  Maybe we should combine church and state; combining that much confusion and bullshit in one place would certainly create a black hole to consume all the ignorance and lies.  Whatever is left must then be the truth.  Why?  Well, we just need to have faith... right?

Again, I'm not saying to discard your faith. What I am recommending is that you make certain it is your faith, and not someone else's faith spouted from the pulpit of clergy more interested in fame, fortune, and position, than in your immortal soul. I am suspect of any clergy who consider their questionable righteousness the holy "conduit" for God's grace or your salvation. I also question clergy who egotistically hold themselves to a higher station in order to judge others. Who do they think they are to judge the servant of another?  And yet, I see this time and time again as some clergy prefer their own congregation to others.  How is their congregation, their religion, their path of judgement any more righteous than any other humble offering of faith?  I think their judgement says it all.

"Faith consists in believing when it is beyond the power of reason to believe."

-- Voltaire (1694-1778), writer, historian, philosopher

Editor's Note

(Re: disclaimer cum "get out of jail free" card)

Before you go getting your panties in a bunch, it is essential to understand that this is just an opinion site and, as such, can be subjected to scrutiny by anyone with a differing opinion. It doesn't make either opinion any more right or wrong than the other. An opinion, presented in this context, is a way of inciting others to think and, hopefully, to form opinions of their own, if they haven't already done so. This is also why, occasionally, I will present an "opinion" just to stir an emotional pot. Where it may sound like I agree with the statements made, I'm more interested in getting others to consider another viewpoint. 

It is my fervent hope that we keep open and active minds when reading opinions and while engaging in peaceful and constructive discussion in an arena of mutual respect concerning those opinions put forth. After over twenty years with military intelligence, I have come to believe engaging each other in this manner and in this arena is the way we will learn tolerance and respect for differing beliefs, cultures, and viewpoints.

We all fall from grace, some more often than others; it is part of being human. God's test for us is what we learn from the experience, and what we do afterward.

Pastor Tony spent 23 years with United States Air Force Intelligence as a planner, analyst, briefer, instructor, and senior manager. He spent 17 years, following his service career, working with a world renowned Institutional Review Board helping to protect the rights of human subjects in pharmaceutical research. Ordained 1n 2013 as an "interfaith" minister, he founded the Congregation for Religious Tolerance in response to intolerance shown by Christians toward peaceful Islam. As the weapon for his war on intolerance he chose the pen, to wage his "battle" in the guise of the Congregation's official online blog, The Path, of which he is both author and editor. "The Path" offers a vehicle for commentary and guidance concerning one's own personal, spiritual, path toward peace and the final destination for us all. He currently resides in Pass Christian, Mississippi, where he volunteers as lead Chaplain and Chaplain Program Liaison, at the regional medical center.