A question that confronts anyone as they seek God (or the gods) is "Why do you believe as you do?" Some (perhaps) were present for an age of miracles, in which case faith would be nothing more than an acceptance of reality combined with a loving trust in those who made that reality. But few today have been so blessed to any degree.
Some unthinking individuals will say that they "know" their faith to be true. When one asks how, they'll say something like "I know it, I know it through faith", which is a nonanswer. Faith, by definition, is firm confidence in the absence of empirical evidence. The question that remains unanswered is whether that faith comes from within or without.
Others, doing but slightly better, will say that they were raised in their faith. This sort of faith doesn't seem very sincere. What one seems to be saying is that if one's parents had raised one in another faith, that one would have held onto that other faith just as firmly. But isn't faith supposed to be about some sort of external reality that is independent of the attitudes of those who raised one? By taking this stance, one is admitting that there is a disconnection between between the truth one is seeking and the beliefs that one holds about them. In other words, that one's beliefs bear, at best, an accidental connection to reality, that accident being having the good fortune to be raised by those who believe in The Truth.
But what reason does one have for believing that one was that lucky? Does one just arbitrarily choose to believe this to be so? But then, isn't one's faith nothing more than posturing? Can one really confidently believe that an arbitrary choice will by some mystical force be guided to the truth, when that force, should it exist, has failed to work for so many? Look at the wide variety of mutually contradictory beliefs about the realities of God and heaven, not one of which comes anywhere close to being held by a majority of humanity. On what basis would one believe that one was so favored, when so many plainly were not? Would this not seem to be unreasonably egotistical, pretty much to anyone?
One might say "my parents believe in this, and I have faith in their judgement". But it is also said that "the apple does not fall far from the tree". If one has such faith in them, does it seem so unlikely that they had a similar faith in their parents, who had a similar faith in their parents, who had ... back into the ages? Again, one is left with the reality that one is subordinating one's judgement to the accident of birth and hoping for the best.
What does it mean to say that one has faith in a belief, if one doesn't have any true confidence in the the truthfulness of the belief? Is this faith or merely a determined effort to pretend to believe, rooted in the hope that if one works hard enough at pretending to have no doubts, that one will eventually forget that one is pretending?
But those thoughts that one tries to banish, unanswered, merely go beneath the surface. All that one has accomplished by driving one's fears down into the subconscious in this fashion is to deny oneself the opportunity to resolve them. There they will remain, undermining a faith that is set to fall when it is tested and needed most.
An unexamined faith is no faith at all. It is a house of cards, built on a foundation of sand, waiting for the first wind to knock it down. If one believes that without faith one is lost, one must seek a better way if one is to maintain a real connection with the Divine.
Let us suppose that you were to begin from a position of not knowing who to worship, or if to worship at all. Our approach under those circumstances would be a simple one.
- Study every story that one can find about a variety of dieties Try to understand their significance. They will tell you something about the personality of the dieties in question. Find a number that you could feel close to. For example, if one values human life, even if Kali should happen to be real, are you sure that you want to contact her? Pray to those you can love. If you can't, what is the diety going to be feeling from you, and why would that incline her to be helpful?
Question : "Isn't this forbidden to members of my faith?"
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- Pray and see who answers. If your prayers, when they are worthy ones, seem to be getting answered more often than you would expect, that is a very good reason to believe that someone is there answering those prayers. Miracles might not be as flashy as they once were, but have no doubt, they still do occur. Well, perhaps I should wait until you have seen for yourself, before making that request. But I have seen this for myself, and invite you to look.
If you seem to be getting the opposite of what you pray for, with improbable consistency, again, you would seem to be getting an answer from someone, just someone who is quite displeased with you. One might examine one's life, and pray for the wisdom to understand the source of the displeasure. If this doesn't work out, one might conclude that it is simply a matter of personal dislike, and move on, respecting the diety's feelings on the matter.
If nothing seems to change, overall, it could mean that the diety that you are praying to doesn't exist. Or, perhaps he does exist, but feels that you don't need him in your life, and wishes you to invest your energy in a relationship that will be more helpful to you. Or, perhaps she seeks worshippers, because through them she can achieve certain goals on Earth, and you don't have a purpose to serve in her plan. Again, a call to continue your search - in this case, to find where you are needed.
If this last scenario sounds cynical, it may seem less so if one should happen to believe that those goals on Earth, to be an attempt to help us in some way, rather than an attempt to get us to help her. Each having a place in the scheme of things, in some divine plan to help all of us here on Earth, the relatively less fortunate (from their vantage point). This plan is not necessarily assumed to exist on a conscious level, but may, to varying extents, exist in the sense of being implicit in the diety's actions, as opposed to being consciously plotted out. We'll get back to that.
- Now that you know who to worship, you might want to formulate some ideas about theology. Form some possible notions as to the nature and psychology of those you worship, accepting that you can hope for no more than a crude approximation to reality at best (owing to the limits of the human intellect). Given that nature, try to imagine what sort of world would exist, were your notion correct, and see if it is plausibly close in nature to the world that you find yourself living in.
Is this process subjective? Absolutely. Reasonable people will come to radically different conclusions, if for no other reason than they will have differing ideas as to what as simple sounding a concept as "benevolent action" will mean, when applied to an omniscent being. One is not going to find absolute truth in this fashion, merely a feel for the plausibility of various notions of the divine. Having gone through it doesn't give one a license to go evangelising, an activity that I'm not about to endorse.
Then why bother with this? The answer is because that while you are forced to confront the fallibility of your own answers, the faith you find will be rooted in something real and sincere, not just in a halfhearted submission to conformity. The faith that has some depth is one that one can more deeply feel and will carry one through hard times, and maybe even will help you find the aid of someone who cares.
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Note : this material by Antistoicus bas been copyrighted 1999, all rights reserved. See notice.