Testing Faith

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Testing Faith (to Debutante, Ellen, Clinto)
Monday, 02-Oct-00 20:24:56

204.17.178.41 writes:
 

When, it seems to me, a person goes to a hospital for surgery, they are expressing their belief (and faith) in medicine in a concrete way. Or, when they step on an airplane they are similarly expressing their faith in technology and the principle of aerodynamics, in no uncertain terms.

In the gap of doubt that exists regarding the outcome of a surgery or an airplane flight, a believer may pray and feel they are placing their fate/faith in God's hands, but to an objective observer it would be clear that the actions for which there are real potential consequences -- i.e., being cut with a surgical knife or transported at 30,000 feet -- are in fact acts of faith (and belief) in technology and science. The appeal to God for one's safety in those circumstances is a marginal act that does not really register on "faith-scale," if by faith we mean a willingness to suspend one's uncertainties over something specific in deference to a larger belief that covers ALL specifics, and then place our trust in that belief when at risk.

This is why we don't see believers stepping off the edge of cliffs to take a shortcut to the beach, jaywalking across the freeway to get to work, or initiating the sport of skydiving without a parachute!

Can those of you who are believers name any test of your belief, in which there are concrete consequences that are risked solely by virtue of your faith in God, where such faith is not in fact secondary to a faith in science, technology, or other human intervention? (Forty days in the desert doesn't count -- it's been done without belief!)

Absent such a test of belief, I will submit that believers don't really "believe" in God at all, but rather they believe in the ideal of God, an ideal which is a mental construct created by humankind -- one which has become entangled in the folklore of religion. Which, by the way, I don't think is altogether a bad thing, in fact I think it is a good thing to the degree that it at least expresses our human inclination toward making codes of ethical and moral behavior.

Unravel that inclination from the confusion of supernaturalism, and we may have a chance as a species!

roseweed

Fred Askew's Response

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