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THOUGHTS by Doyle Duke
RELIGIOUS FAITH
"I have no faith and that is accounted evil; but the world if it is saved will be saved by men of goodwill of much thought and of little faith... Faith stops thinking, and thought is the root of life without which we become beasts, faith is surrender and dependence and becoming children again, it is refusing to accept the unimaginable variety of truth and the unwillingness to permit another his variant. Faith stops progress, and legitimizes murder..."
The Frank Yerby quote above, though taken from a work of fiction, The Saracen Blade, sums up the fallacy of religions. For, as it states, faith stops thinking, and men who deny their physical senses deny reason. And if one denies reason there are no guidelines for truth. If one accepts faith as sufficient proof of a god, then we can use that same blind belief in faith to support Santa Claus, leprechauns, and unicorns; or, as some religions believe today, even a Satan. Without thought we would revert to the superstitious dark ages when science was equated with necromancy and mathematics was declared a tool of the devil. Faith without reason is equivalent to airliners without control towers or automobiles without vehicular laws. And in regard to religion, faith is only an excuse to believe the preposterous. Faith is surrender and dependence. And in most cases, especially that of the Christian, truth is defined for the believer and he must submit to Church teachings and authority. He is expected to adhere to set values; generally in the order of God, Church, family, etc. But what if there is no God? After all, there is no physical proof of any god. Gods are only known intuitively. And what if that intuition is nothing more than man’s sub-consciousness struggling to fulfill perceived values? Then imagine the waste of time, effort, and resources. According to one census a third of the world population is Christian; over two billion throughout the world. Just the ten percent annual tithes of over two billion incomes present a colossal and inestimable sum--a sum that is squandered each year in self-perpetuation. Trillions upon trillions of dollars are expended to build more churches, to bring in more converts, and to raise more revenue. Imagine what could be accomplished if those funds were diverted to address such problems as solving the world energy crisis, global warming, or providing medical, educational and economic aid to underdeveloped countries--or simply to feed, treat, and train the homeless? Imagine a United States where no one lives on the streets. And the wasted time--what if each Sunday was contributed to community needs? Now, imagine if all other religions could be induced to follow similar guidelines. Imagine no religious conflicts, no terrorists or religious warfare. To paraphrase John Lennon, imagine a world without religions. Faith is becoming children again. Children tend to ignore responsibilities. They would much rather an adult solve all the annoying problems. They’d rather play and enjoy themselves than study and reason. And if a question arises its so much easier to ask an adult rather than seek the answer. The majority of Christians are like children; they’re only interested in the “Bible Stories". Many can’t even understand the Bible and blindly place their lives, and the lives of their family, in the hands of other human beings. Very few question the validity of the Scriptures, and if they do find contradictions during their studies they quickly hide any doubt behind the blinders of faith. They are dependent, afraid to trust their own intellect. They refuse to accept the unimaginable variety of truth. The Bible is a model of misology--the hatred of reason. From the beginning, in the Garden of Eden, the desire for knowledge was stamped as evil. Paul also had much to say against knowledge and wisdom;
“See to it that no one makes a prey of you by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the universe, and not according to Christ” Col. 2:8.
“Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you seemeth to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise.” I Cor. 3:18
“For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this world? Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?” I Cor. 1:19&20
Has he? Quite the contrary, the wisdom of this world has made the word of God foolishness. In the early days of the Church they rejected many truths that can’t be ignored today, because those truths have been proven by science, astronomy, and philosophy. Tertullian, one of the foremost Church fathers, is quoted as stating, “It is philosophy that supplies the heresies with their equipment.” And, he wished “a plague on Aristotle". Martin Luther’s calls reason:
“’the devil’s bride,’ a ‘beautiful whore’ and ‘God’s worst enemy.’ ‘There is on earth among all dangers,’ Luther writes, ‘no more dangerous thing than a richly endowed and adroit reason, especially if she enters into spiritual matters which concern the soul and God. For it is more possible to teach an ass to read than to blind such a reason and lead it right; for reason must be deluded, blinded, and destroyed.’ … ‘Faith must trample under foot all reason, sense, and understanding, and whatever it sees it must put out of sight, and wish to know nothing but the word of God.’”
When Galileo asserted that the sun was the center of our solar system, and tried to defend that position, the idea was avowed “heretical” and the Catholic Church, with the sanction of Pope Paul V, decreed it false and contrary to Holy Scripture. Galileo’s main antagonist, the Dominican Father Tommasco Caccini, allegedly preached hate-filled sermons condemning geometry as being of the devil, and mathematicians as the authors of all heresies. Galileo was brought before the ecclesiastical institution for combating or suppressing heresy, the Inquisition, and forced to recant. St. Augustine, considered by many to be the greatest of the early Church fathers, opposed reason. His opposition led him to point out that there were many “marvels” in nature that reason could not account for, “wonders of God’s working” that “the frail mind of man cannot explain…” What were some of those “wonders”--the “antiseptic nature” of the peacock that prevented it from rotting--a fountain that lighted quenched torches--and mares in Capadocia that were impregnated by the wind. Reason has freed us from such ignorance and superstitions. Do we really want to cling to such a past? This hatred of reason is one of the Bible’s most repulsive traits. The constant demand that one must believe without evidence or thought, that stupidity is a desirable aspect of Christianity is a terrible policy. And what can be a greater negative “truth” than the bond between faith and virtue. Doubt and disbelief is equated with immorality, one cannot question the Christian doctrine by reason; instead one must believe blindly or be condemned as immoral. I’m sure that about now my reader is thinking, “All that was back in the Dark Ages, we’re more enlightened now.” Yes, you’re right--but would we be without thinkers such as Galileo, Newton, Darwin, Einstein or Stephen Hawking? Without “men of goodwill of much thought and of little faith...” might we not still be in those Dark Ages? And is the Church really free of backward, ignorant, ideas? Evolution is now a commonly accepted theory of origin. Where does the Church stand? What about celibacy in the priesthood and homosexuality? In some churches alcoholic beverages are not simply considered a social menace, but an actual demonic weapon. But the most insidious disease the Church fosters is the subtle doctrines that conflict with reason, especially when they are perpetrated upon immature children. Children and young people are enticed into the churches by an attractive social life with activities geared to their interests such as youth camps, field trips and sports. And while church attendance generally isn’t mandatory, peer pressure and a sense of obligation draws many into the church, where their minds are quickly saturated with guilt and the need for a divine redeemer. There are many ‘truths’ in our world and few, such as the ones mentioned above, are absolute. Truth to one might not be recognized by another and what is truth in one instance might not be so in another. We live in a constantly changing world where knowledge is imperfect, for that reason blind, unsubstantiated, faith, without analytical investigation, is a very foolish and dangerous assumption. Can every question be answered by logic or scientific deductions? Of course not, there are many things science, reason and logic cannot answer for us; but use of these standards do not lock us into ignorant, irreversible, and sometimes destructive, false convictions. There are many truths, of which we are ignorant because we refuse to release erroneous ideas. Blind faith in the presumed existent of a god is one of those ideas. “Faith stops progress, and legitimizes murder…” Just study the history of Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, the old pagan worships--almost any religion, and you’ll find the most horrendous, wicked, despotic, organizations that ever existed upon this earth. By what law, what reason then, can mass religious genocide be condoned? Is there any such thing as a righteous holy war? Can it be the will of a benevolent deity that we exterminate one another in His name? Is there one true form of worship--one correct religion? If so, how do we determine the chosen one? Is it enough to rely on faith? Does the self-assurance that swells your breast, in righteous indignation, not also beat within the Hindu, the Moslem, Jew or pagan? In the end there is only one difference between you and that heathen and it isn’t because you were lucky enough to just stumble upon the truth --it’s simply your place of birth. Had you been born in China you would have, in all probability, been an adherent of Buddhism. In India you would probably be a disciple of Vishnu. Or, in Iraq, today, you might be a walking bomb for Islam. And don’t be so naive as to think your god ordained your place of birth. People think the same and derive conclusion in the same manner--only circumstances change the values. And the major disruptive difference is religious faith.
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