Discussion Group

by Mark Morgan

Faith gives meaning to life

Faith tells us that we will be rewarded in the afterlife. It gives us hope in times of despair.

In a fit of pique, I've been known to call this the peasants argument. "Now listen, you peasants, there's no need to try to change this life because you'll be rewarded in the next." My hope in times of despair comes out of my determination to end whatever is making me despair. A few years ago I went through a Post-Marriage Holocaust. I did not rely on faith to pull me through. I got two jobs and cried on my Grandma a lot. Faith is an unnecessary multiplication of entities when it comes to hope.

A variation of this is, "I know God loves me, no matter what." Ultimately unsatisfying, because the better way out of the despair of loneliness is through connecting with other human beings. In fact, making those connections will serve you just as well in times of despair as believing in God. And the reward is more immediate--a good friend will be on your doorstep in ten minutes, at a time when you really need concrete evidence that someone cares. At least that's how it is for me. Human contact is a balm that faith cannot match.

And another variation of this is, "I take comfort in the notion that evildoers are punished in the afterlife." I can take the same comfort in working through my anger at the situation. I can help people. I can work to change the justice system and the society that let this happen. I can be active, instead of passive. And I'd rather do that, than rely on an afterlife I can't verify to do my work for me. I know, you can do both; but if one is sufficient, why add the other? If you had to choose, which one would you choose? Active or passive?

We would have no morals without faith.

Or, to be more specific, humans need the promise and the threat of Hell to keep them from doing whatever they want to without worrying about the consequences. I question that. We are a notoriously short-sighted species. We have a history of putting off long-term consequences in favor of short-term rewards. It would-be an utter catastrophe to abandon worldly punishments in favor of spiritual ones, wouldn't it? We fear the State Police on the highways more than the threat of going to Hell when deciding how fast to drive. In fact, it seems as if we are doing okay here in America having a law enforcement system based entirely on worldly punishments. It's not perfect, in fact it has some gaping holes. But would it improve if, after you were arrested, you were also excommunicated? No. So a secular rulebook for morality and ethics works just as well as a non-secular one. Faith, the key component of religion, seems pointless here, as well.

There are just some things you can't explain.

The God of the Gaps? Are we to assume that, if you can't explain it, faith is the only answer? But as we explain more and more using empirical evidence, the role of faith gets pushed further and further in the background. Sure, there are some things we can't explain--now. But we'll get to it eventually, unless we blow ourselves up or plague and pollute ourselves into extinction. We must search for the explanation, not just rely on faith. So again, faith adds nothing to my life that I can't get without it, does it?

A variation of this is, "My faith lets me see the wonders of my deity in the universe." How magnificent the universe is,when we see it as part of God's plan, or Allah's, or if we see the Goddess in every leaf. Explaining it just ruins it. Ah, but I disagree with that feeling. I look into the woods, and see the miracle of leaves that use evaporation to suck nutrients thirty foot high into the redwoods. I look into the universe and see vast distances filled with wonders like black holes at the center of galaxies and mysterious particles that pass through us like ghosts (they're called neutrinos). Whatever wonder in the universe your faith provides, my explain-it-all view matches. It's fantastic. No faith needed.

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