Faith, Religion, God, the Bible, and all that

This was prompted by Farfolo's "There is no God" diary.

First, my biases: I am a spiritual agnostic Unitarian-Universalist who was raised Catholic. My opinions of Catholicism are mostly negative--tempered by some great Xaverian Brothers I had at my high school.

I'm an agnostic, as I said, so this isn't going to be about whether or not God exists. I have no idea what exists.

What I want to talk about is where religion becomes oppressive. Since I was raised Catholic and most of the oppressive religious people in this country are Christian, that's where I'm going to concentrate.

So, my problem is this: where faith and the Bible intersect.

More on the flip side.

I postulate this: if you are throwing a Bible at me, you are not relying on 'faith'. You are relying on what you see as 'proof'. Yes, there's an element of faith in all this: faith that the Bible is the "Word of God". But, still, people who throw their bibles around need it 'in black and white'.

As far as I'm concerned, that's not faith.

There's two problems here. The first is that the Bible is so self-contradictory that to use all of it as some kind of historical record of 'God' is futile. This is why so many on the Religious Right pick-and-choose and seem to just ignore the parts that don't support their worldview. The second is that, for Christians, the Bible remains the main 'proof' of God.

Without some sort of scripture, what do you have? Blind faith. Completely blind faith.

I have more respect for blind faith than I do for Biblical 'faith'. I also have more respect for people who use the Bible as metaphor and revealing-fiction than The Word Of God--because they're just using the writings to inform their faith.

The problem is those with a biblical worldview. First of all, it's a worldview thousands of years old. Second of all, it has little to do with 'faith'. It has to do with scouring the text to reinforce your own prejudices, and then somehow connecting those prejudices with 'God'.

There are exceptions. The parts of the Gospels that purport to record 'the words of Jesus' are, to me, an exception. But they're an exception because many of them don't require faith. Jesus taught things that speak to me--an agnostic--because so many of his teachings could be interpreted in a humanistic way. There are other parts similar to this.

But so much of it, almost drowns out 'faith'. Genesis, for one. If you need proof that mankind was 'created by God', that's not faith--that's searching for certanity. Moreover, it's searching for certainty about your own importance. "See! God created us! Says so right here! We must be special!" This is the core of the creationist belief--and it has nothing to do with faith.

Too much organized religion exploits this--because too much orgnaized religion isn't about faith. It's about control. The Religious Right favors school prayer because they want my kids to pray (their kids are already praying). They want my kids to be abstinent (theirs already are, or so they think). They want to take away my right to die (they've already given theirs away). This has something to do with faith? No, it does not.

If people need signposts, that's not faith. If they need written texts, that's not faith. If they need rules and regulations--and, most especially, if they try to extend those rules and regulations to those of us who don't accept them, that most certainly is not faith.

As far as I'm concerned, the Bible is an attempt to prove the unprovable--an attempt by mere humans to explain the unexplainable. If you see it in that light, it's a valuable thing. But if you think it does prove the unprovable, well, you have no faith. Stop saying you do. Faith doesn't need proof.

•  Tip Jar

  Not to be confused with Tip O'Neill <G>

  by ChurchofBruce on Sun Apr 03, 2005 at 11:19:53 AM PDT

•  proof? no way!

  There's a lot of religious types that apply the scientific method to the bible, using the text as some huge unwieldy set of axioms. From there they arrive at all sorts of proofs which tell them to reject science! Isn't that ironic?

  That's not appropriate. Would you hold the writings in the bible to the same standards as the New York Times? Please! This body of writings comes from ancient times. The important thing is that all the human emotions described in the Bible are still valid - people are as vain, greedy, foolish, brave, spiritual, kind, etc. in the Bible as they are in real life today. We can't evolve very fast physically since our boides live so long. But we must evolve very fast spiritually to meet the challenges of this century and reverse widespread environmental destruction.

  by Lefty Mama on Sun Apr 03, 2005 at 11:42:54 AM PDT

  •  Ancient texts

    What bugs me is that works like the Iliad/Odyssey or Gilgamesh are treated as dead text while the Bible is supposed to be living literature.  They're all living literature or they're all dead letters.  My brother the classicist insists (rightly IMO) that if the Bible is to be treated as still relevant, then the others should be too.

    I reply (as a fan of ancient texts) that they are indeed treated similarly- many literature students are as bored with classic texts as many congregations are with Lovejoy-intoned scripture.

    by keirdubois on Sun Apr 03, 2005 at 12:50:59 PM PDT

•  Great comments!

  Without some sort of scripture, what do you have? Blind faith. Completely blind faith.

  Nah - before the church had the bible the church had...?

  ...the church!

  Oral transmission of authority and tradition. Ritual and practice, cant and creed all existed in the church long before the council of Nicea codified, and long long before Gutenberg printed and made widespread Bibolatry possible.

  Faith existed, and exists, in and by sustaining communities. We learn faith, true faith, by example.

  My one rule of thumb is to be leary of any faith perspective or defense of doctrinethat relies overmuch on scriptural quotes. My Catholicism is more based on tradition and practice and consensus. Show me teh example that I can relate to before you pull out the text.

  Reliance on scripture and text while trying to sustain oral tradition and authority can get you into embarrassing positions. I was listening to Gary Wills on the mothercorp this morning (an interview from 2002) and he brought up the Council of Trent where it was decided that the Latin translation of the Bible would be considered to be more authentic than the original Greek and Aramaic manuscripts. The idea was that the Holy Spirit would not have let teh church err for hundreds of years by letting it rely on faulty Latin translations, so the Latin versions HAD TO be right.

  Sort of teh same blinkered chauvinistic ethnocentrism causes certain dirty necked fundies to insist that the KJV is the last word in authentic WORD of the LORD.

  In any case, my faith is hardly blind. My faith is a constant war of doubt, revision, ecstasy and despair. Faith is hard work - it ain't for sissies. Which is why I too look with disdain sometimes at those whose faith seems to be founded on certitude and "proof". (This disdain of mine too is a fault of mine that I struggle with).

  If it can be "proven" then it ain't a subject for faith.

  I think this is the root of what ills religion in the US and, to lesser extent, the world. This confusion of discourse domains.

  The reason that the fundies are all in conniption fits over evolution is that they actually subscribe to the idea that faith can, or should, be "proven". Since they also make "proofs" out of bible metaphor and tribal allegory, they see any scientific fact that counters their position as a challenge to their "faith".

  All they have is "proof". If they had a modicum of "faith" no amount of scientific verification would challenge them in teh least.

  The problem is those with a biblical worldview. First of all, it's a worldview thousands of years old. Second of all, it has little to do with 'faith'. It has to do with scouring the text to reinforce your own prejudices, and then somehow connecting those prejudices with 'God'.

  There are exceptions. The parts of the Gospels that purport to record 'the words of Jesus' are, to me, an exception. But they're an exception because many of them don't require faith. Jesus taught things that speak to me--an agnostic--because so many of his teachings could be interpreted in a humanistic way. There are other parts similar to this.

  You touch on the true structural difficulty of the literal interpretation of teh Bible here and in other parts of your excellent offering. The fact is that the Bible is NOT a unified document. This can be plainly seen from the very beginning (In Geneis 1 to 2:5, one creation account, following that a totally separate account). The documents and sources that were redacted to make up the Bible (from about 500 BCE to about 400 CE) were written and selected for various reasons (pedagogical, musical, poetic, folklore, wisdom, romance, historical revision, apology, myth and legend, prescriptive ethics, etc etc.) and in a very wide variety of styles. As you say, contradictions abound.

  Its no surprise that the sayings of Jesus appeal to you - the "Q" document collection of Jesus sayings is thought to be the earliest source document for the Gospel accounts - which again speaks to teh  pre-eminence of Oral Tradition over text. The fact is that one of the appeals of Jesus was in his teaching - his reimagining of the Judaeo-Hellenistic world of his time. His message that "Hey people - this sucks but it doesn't have to" (Paraphrased loosely from the Synoptic Gospels). or "Be Excellent To One Another" (Gospel of Bill and Ted).

  DFooK

  by deepfish on Sun Apr 03, 2005 at 11:52:13 AM PDT

•  Maybe this is useful,

  maybe not, but I make a distinction between "faith" and "belief", and in my view, most of the self-proclaimed "faith-based" organizations are in actuality "belief-based" groups.

  Faith, to me, regardless of what that faith is in, does not require the faithful to be aggressive in their defense of it or to degrade others around them who don't share it.

  The aggression against, and intolerance of, others that we see so much of are not functions of faith, they are actions of believers who have not yet attained a state of faith. Belief inevitably requires reinforcement from time to time, and unfortunately, all too often that reinforcement comes by elevating the validity of one's own beliefs through the device of demonizing or otherwise diminishing the beliefs of others.

  Faith, on the other hand, is not vulnerable to threat or challenge. When one has faith in the infallability and power of one's own God, it is not necessary to attack others.

  The Crusades, the Inquisitions, the Witch burnings, all so-called Holy Wars, (a contradiction in terms if ever their was one), racism, gay bashing, interdenominational intolerance, etc.; all these represent the actions of belief-based zealots whose faiths are insecure. These are the creatures who murder in the names of their Gods. These are the one's who presume to claim the authority upon themselves to render their God's judgements onto others, like the zealots at the center of the Schiavo circus.

  May we all be protected from the depradations of the "believers".

  by sbj on Sun Apr 03, 2005 at 12:07:50 PM PDT

  •  Faith - "credo" is not what you believe

    It is what you trust.  It is possible to trust untrustworthy people (and texts).  It is also possible to trust people (and texts) in the wrong context; my doctor can be trusted to monitor my blood pressure, but I don't look to my doctor for legal advice.  It is also possible to put to much emphasis on trusting people (and texts) in a way that they never wanted to be trusted; some of my mentors would reject the idea of being a mentor.

    And I can believe anything I want about what I really trust.  It doesn't change the nature of that trust.

    Do believers really trust God, or are they just scared puppies?  Isn't this the real question between atheists and Christians?

    by TarheelDem on Sun Apr 03, 2005 at 12:21:14 PM PDT

    •  I agree completely

      that faith represents trust. And I didn't mean to imply that "faith" was automatically endowed with some intrinsic value, that it was, by definition a good thing or a bad thing. Nor did I intend to link the idea of faith so closely to God stuff. Certainly, as you say, there are plenty of people claiming to have faith in, or trust in, plenty of belief systems, many of which are extremely destructive. But I suggest that many of the people who think they have faith in the things they profess to believe in and trust really do not have that faith. They think they have faith, they really want to have faith, but they really have some not quite  secure beliefs they constantly seek ways to strengthen. If they truly did believe, then they could trust, and if they had trust, then they would have no need to defend against different views. But lacking faith while simultaneously, desperately wanting their beliefs to be strong, these are the people who attack others.

      I have faith, for instance, in the fundamental natural law know commonly as the law of "cause and effect". I have no way to prove the inviolability of such a concept, and yet, even though I can't claim to be certain this "law" will always work the way I think it will, I feel no need to prove it to myself every day, I certainly feel no need to defend this concept against threats from those who think differently, and as far as proving it's validity to others, I fully allow the dynamics of cause and effect to speak for itself.

      I have no belief nor faith in any religious authority, because for me all religious authority is arbitrary and self-appointed. I also have no faith or belief in any of the "quid pro quo" aspects of religious dogma; the "If you're good you go to heaven", or; "Obey the church or you'll be sent to hell" crap. These ideas cannot be shown to have any legitimacy at all on any level, and in the end one concludes that the reason for these kinds of teachings has more to do with controlof people than it does with their enlightenment.

      I have many beliefs, and faith in a few things. but I always try to recognize the difference, and to in no instanceimpose my beliefs on others.

      by sbj on Sun Apr 03, 2005 at 01:43:32 PM PDT

      •  My point

        It's not intellectual assent; it's commitment to a path of being.

        by TarheelDem on Sun Apr 03, 2005 at 01:59:22 PM PDT

        •  OK

          I'd be interested to know what the process or mechanism is that's used to define or describe the "path of being" you refer to.

          by sbj on Sun Apr 03, 2005 at 02:10:41 PM PDT

          •  Best I can say

            The process:
            Talk the walk and walk the talk.

            We each must find our own process to trust.  What is the process by which you trust a trustworthy parent?  (To use an oft-repeated metaphor in religions)

            The mechanism:
            Do what you are.

            Despite their claims, religions are means, not ends.   The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.  Don't think that that one doesn't scare the preachers.

            by TarheelDem on Sun Apr 03, 2005 at 02:40:56 PM PDT

            •  It seems we are not at odds

              with each other. I don't adhere to an organized plan or follow a precisely defined path. I believe and I question. I have faith and trust in certain ideas and concepts, yet have no need to defend them. I can acknowledge and respect authority when it is not imposed arbitrarily by self appointed despots. And as you say, religion, such as it is, is a means, not and end.

              by sbj on Sun Apr 03, 2005 at 03:04:43 PM PDT

              •  My main point

                It doesn't matter one whit whether I intellectually assent to "Jesus is the Son of God" or "the Bible is inerrant".  It matters where I place my trust and how my feet follow.

                by TarheelDem on Sun Apr 03, 2005 at 03:17:18 PM PDT

            •  I always thought God was made for man

              without man there would be no God and without faith and trust man would not survive. ?

              by mimi on Sun Apr 03, 2005 at 08:04:38 PM PDT

    •  Interesting

      Though I am an agnostic, I confront that-which-is-beyond-us every day.

      That happens because I'm a writer. Fiction and songs. And I get stuff out of nowhere. Melody lines that just drop out of the sky. Main characters in novels that come to me in dreams. Other things--my most recent novel is time travel, where a guy goes back in time to relive his own life, and it's fairly autobiographical, and in it my character has to relive the death of a dear friend. Obviously, since I've mentioned I had a friend that died in adolescence, this is part of the autobiographical influence.  To write that part, writing her death, I went 'elsewhere'--either deep inside or way outside, I'll never know which, but it wasn't my conscious mind writing it. My conscious mind couldn't write it--I'd be crying too hard. (Rereading it makes me bawl like a baby.)

      So, some of this writing stuff just comes from 'elsewhere'. I've chosen to anthropomorphize it--I call it "my Muse, Michelle." I've had Michelle since she was my imaginary friend when I was 2. There's always been Michelle. She's a tall redhead with green eyes <G>.

      Which gets back to your point. Do I 'believe' in Michelle? Nah. It's a joke. I know it. However, I do have faith that the-unknowable-I-choose-to-call-Michelle will be there, when I need her/it/whatever. Like all writers, I have periods where it just won't come. (Writer's block is damn near universal from what I can tell!) So, there's times where I don't write a word or a note. But I have faith, true faith, that 'Michelle' will, ultimately, not let me down. And that doesn't require actual belief in a real entity called Michelle.

      by ChurchofBruce on Sun Apr 03, 2005 at 07:09:42 PM PDT

  •  Belief, Trust, Creed vs Faith, Hope,...Love

    There are thousands of beliefs, perhaps only a few are right, or only one, or none.  Many trust in messages from others, but the others most often have proven untrustworthy.  

    Creeds define creedholders against all others.  But the audacity of any fallible people attempting to pretentiously define anything as the infallible Source is obviously an affront to whatever is truly Divine, and to those of us feeling a more humble approach to The Truth is most authentic.  Creeds must be seen as perspectives which may have had some value, but are limited condensations of a small group of people esteemed as wise at a given point of time.

    Disabling belief or creed hurts the community adopting it.  For instance, crimes committed in the name of 'predestination' and 'can't help myself fallenness' are self-serving failures and betrayals of us all.

    The sort of Hope I mean isn't about getting that SUV or hot date.  It's about the shared hope for a community seeking the best for itself and other communities.

    I'll accept as a valid Faith one that is about living within the wisdom and spirit of a tradition of trust in the Divine, one which most mature leaders of the faith will acknowledge that faith, when properly expressed, is fundamentally Love.  That's the sort of 'fundamentalism' which needs to be recognized as 'orthodox'.  If Love isn't fundamental, the religion is a lie.

    The government may want to encourage Love, but the attempt to buttress any creed, belief or tradition as being of God, or to define the nature of God in relation to this nation or it's governing bodies, is an unauthorized establishment of religion.
    

    by antirove on Sun Apr 03, 2005 at 12:46:32 PM PDT

    •  Oh, man, that's *perfect*

      "If Love isn't fundamental, the religion is a lie."

      Just perfect.

      I would like to put that on a sign, and stand next to the Fred Phelps's and Randall Terrys of the world with it.

      by ChurchofBruce on Sun Apr 03, 2005 at 06:56:36 PM PDT