I don’t necessarily mean faith as it pertains to religion, although that is by far the best example of how faith can completely negate ever having to think for yourself. Ever again.
When I talk about faith, as defined by; “A complete trust or confidence in someone or something.” you can perhaps see where faith can be a force of tremendous good, or horrific bad. When you remove the need to question something, you remove any reason for that thing to change. When your most valuable asset; your ability to reason, is subsumed into a concept not of your making, you have lost your individuality, your uniqueness. You have lost your sense of self.
When humans first became self-aware (estimated at around 60,000 years ago), the number of things to fear rose exponentially. Animals don’t fear an eclipse, but humans managed to attribute countless negative interpretations to this natural phenomenon. With self-awareness comes both the need for rationality (a reason for something), and the trait that I think truly defines us most as human;
Curiosity.
When you are absolutely certain of something, you can effectively ignore it; I have absolutely faith the sun will rise tomorrow or why would I bother getting out of bed? I have absolute faith that my wife loves me or why would I be with her?
The difference between the above paragraph’s examples, and faith in religion (for example), is both tangibility and direct experience. The sun has come up every day I’ve been alive (except the few days I spent in Scotland), and I’ve been with my wife for 10 years. That’s proof enough for me. But what if I base my faith on a concept that has only been passed on by others? Or out of a book? What does that do to our thinking? In some cases clearly not much, but some of the worst horrors in history have been perpetuated based on interpretations of words written centuries before.
And what happens when such thoughts becomes mandatory? When not having the same thoughts becomes a valid reason to violate the rights of others. Again, this is not just religion, but science and even sports aren’t immune from unshakable faith. Scientists and fans alike have committed atrocious acts because in their mind the victims were so wrong that their very lives were forfeit.
It’s a combination of things that keeps this destructive force self-perpetuating; from bigoted parents teaching their kids to hate, to inflexible older generations unable or unwilling to adapt, to a general unwillingness to admit when you’re wrong. Hiding bigotry against sexual orientation behind the bible, racial bigotry behind past atrocities, and murder behind a God all have their roots in the natural byproduct of misplaced faith; ignorance.
I have no answer for this, all I can do is not be part of the problem. Life is not fair, life just is, and YOUR life is what you make of it. That fact remains that it is already difficult enough to find sufficient happiness to make the life you have worth living without making it difficult for yourselves by hating, and hurting everyone around you by your selfish actions.
Believe in whatever you want to believe, just leave the rest of us out if it.
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