Faith, that jolting experience. (I)

WARNING

This essay is the product of a feverish mind, so if you are not in the mood of delving into unnecessary pseudo-psychological thoughts, which would be the normal human state, my advice would be to skip it, make a good sandwich, get a nice glass or cup of your most liked beverage, and skip this with grace and easiness.

Faith as a scientific interaction

We live in an agnostic world in the best case, or in a nihilistic one in the worst.

This seems the current definition of our western society nowadays, but it is far from the truth.

We cannot deny there is a strong tendency to create a concrete world, based on science (whatever this means) and where everybody who do not toe the line to these beliefs is considered crazy, simpleton or moron and must be left behind with no one glance back, a kind of ostracism if you do not “equal” the herd model. This is effective with teenagers and some adults in need of a self-esteem booster.

This culture tries its best to keep humankind with the feet on solid earth, I am sure its followers are absolutely convinced they are right and performing a good deed. The question here is about what difference they make on reality.

When you make an exhaustive analysis of this phenomenon you find in a surprising way that, despite the efforts realized to keep everything accounted for, we are dealing with a huge slice of that thing most dreaded by unbelievers: Faith.

From long ago in the western religious fields Faith is one of the three theological virtues: Faith - Hope - Charity. The order was not aleatory. Faith opens the way to mystic environment where, based in Hope, will find the final Charity (Absolute Love). This seems to be an unacceptable way to achieve things and knowledge in this world without faith, but…

What is the path to achieve knowledge in the actual world?

Premise - Test - Evidence.

These are the three virtues of science; as a complement of this path, anyone can walk it and repeat exactly the same situations and conclusions.

Now, few of us can follow this path since we have not the training to do so. So what are we really doing? We believe the scientists are saying the truth, we have, hrrmm… sorry, faith in their work.

Here you go! The world is based on faith, or it will not work, it is impossible for us, all of us, to test and prove everything and anything.

If we do not develop an open mind we restrain ourselves to narrow paths and clearly set close boundaries to our learning.

Something cannot be proved by a set of concrete rules? Well, maybe it does not exist or maybe it does but cannot be proven by a set of concrete rules! This open-minded feeling should be the gist of agnosticism, not the “not believe until proven” which is the demanding action of these days.

We must remember that if this “open-minded” business is good in itself, it is subjective.

You have never seen a ghost… they do not exist for you.

Right! I agree.

You live in a haunted house… and ghosts go bumping in the night, they are very real to you.

Right! I agree.

Listening to many agnostics, one would imagine that this appeal to authority as a criterion is unscientific, though perhaps nowhere is authority appealed to so unscientifically as by modern scientists and modern critics.

Now, can you tell me why should I accept “scientific” faith and not “religious” faith?
I can hear your answer: “Because whatever a scientist said can be proved… (I add) by another scientist!”. What about me; I am no scientist, so I must believe whatever scientists say.

Cool! I agree.

Now again, whatever any mystic says can be proved… by another mystic! What about me; I am not mystic, so I must believe whatever mystics say!

Cool! I agree.

Despite my thought may seem “unscientific” I think we are attaching too much belief to science and too little to religion. And it is not just coincidence but causality. Since the famous (often misquoted) statement from Marx about the “opium of the people”, we are riding a crusade backward, doing the same thing crusaders did against those infidels but now against those faithful.

And we must not forget that for each agnostic abusing a faithful there is a faithful abusing an agnostic, fundamentalism does not help in any field!

From a psychiatric point of view, human beings are very much as a vacuum box, this vacuum is the outcome of the poor control we have over ourselves and our environment.

Notwithstanding all the efforts we have exerted since we become aware of being alive we cannot predict a small event in the next seconds of our time with absolute certitude. Oh yes, we can, with a grade of exactitude written in the unreliable laws of statistics, say what is going to happen but there always is a number, sometime a large one, of variables that must be left out of our equation since we cannot, even with a computer, manage them all.

And yes, maybe in the future we will be able to do so, but not now, which is the time I am interested in since I am not sure (there we go about predictions) if I will be alive the next five seconds.

We can see we cannot master our person or our environment so we feel: insecure.

We know we are in the maelstrom of events that can change our life in seconds; this is the essence of our feeling insecure, unsafe, and vulnerable. This condition is what creates the vacuum in our core; this vacuum is a strong need to find a safe harbour, a place where everything is accounted for and make us feel sure of ourselves and our environment.

This vacuum attracts anything that can promise, not even give the certainty, but only the promise of that certitude, of that safe feeling of being secure. Hence the need to believe in something, anything, so we start to take Nature (capital N), Science, People, Anything, Nothing as the fulcrum of our beliefs, and use the lever to assert our insecurities.

In recapitulation, we have two paths in our secular Faith: we believe what we want to believe, or we believe nothing at all!

So much for desacralized Faith!

Now, just for the sake of balance let’s review the opposite, sacralized Faith, this somewhat discredited path, but let's make a separate room for it.

(to be continued)



The music is a fragment of "4th Symphony" by Ludwig van Beethoven, performed by Jansons BRSO

© 2013 Od Liam.