Believing in faith
I have a confession to make: I believe that people should have faith—that people would be better off believing in God, maybe even in the context of some sort of organized religion. I believe in believing. But I’m not sure I can believe—at least not as an exercise of willpower. Is that hypocrisy? Or just heathenism?
The place I grew up (where I now live) was overwhelmingly Baptist. Most religious people belonged to the many varied offshoots of Baptists. The churchgoers went to their Baptist churches—I always assumed—because not doing so was to defy the instructions of the Bible, to be led astray by Evil, to doom one’s soul for all eternity to Hell.
The church I grew up in was the Disciples of Christ/First Christian Church. Our church was not as literal in its Biblical interpretations. If you wanted to believe in the Bible literally, you were welcome in the church—communion was every Sunday and always open to anyone who felt moved enough by the Holy Spirit to partake—but your particular views of scripture would not be the last word, as it were. It was fine with our church if you believed the Bible was a collection of worthwhile fables, except for Jesus, whom they believed to have existed. Needless to say, scriptural literalists tended to move along in search of a church whose views were more like their own.
It was easy to grow apart from a church that didn’t enforce dogma, that told you God meant love no matter what you did. If you didn’t set out to harm others, what problem could God have with your not going to church, not trying to read or understand the scriptural details? Keep your nose clean, try to be decent to others, and it’s all good, right? And as time passes, the sense that there is anything to the religion at all starts to look sketchy. It isn’t convenient, for one thing.
Funny thing is: as I’ve become much less spiritual over the years, I still believe in believing. I believe it’s worth it for most of us to believe in God in some fashion or another—even if I don’t find myself particularly capable of doing so. Life, the world, and what we know of it all—it’s all so incredible, so ornate, so incomprehensibly complex. To the constraints of the human mind, it all seems impossible without a motivating Supreme Something behind it.
Plus, health research says there’s physiological benefit to prayer as one of many forms of meditation. Gratitude—as in, being grateful for Your Maker’s benevolence to you—has also been found to be beneficial. Something in our wiring makes us want to believe. Even if we aren’t entirely sure exactly what.
Herewith endeth the sermon in primitive theology. As I say, I used to drink a lot. PTL.
I am late, I was so busy yesterday I couldn't get here, but, wanted to say I liked your piece about the voices...
Newsflash (I know, that's an old term): Senate passes $1.7 trillion government funding bill that overhauls U.S. election law" I have a problem with the way legislation is written. I do not think budgets and election law should be in the same bill. It isn't those two items, specifically, but the mashing of unrelated topics together and the fact that it a) distorts legislative voting, b) keeps us from truly knowing what our legislators think on individual items, or c) both of the above.