Thursday, 20 November, 2003
A logical approach to faith?
I'm not the first person for whom a logical approach to faith has failed. Nor am I by any stretch of the imagination the smartest. At some point one recognizes that there isn't enough objective information to reach a logical conclusion about the nature of God. Reaching that point, one is left with the following options:
- Fully embrace God's existence and the tenants of whatever religion strikes your fancy. Some people seem quite happy with this solution. Fundamentalists (of whatever religion) are able to separate their spiritual beliefs from their logical thought processes.
- Deny God's existence entirely, proclaiming that the lack of positive proof is proof of His non-existence. This requires a complete disconnect between logical reasoning and spiritual beliefs. Real atheists are as illogical and inconsistent in their spiritual beliefs as any other type of fundamentalist.
- Give up entirely and put the whole question out of your mind. This is the true agnostic. Not only does he not know, he doesn't care. In all honesty, this is the only completely logical course of action given the available evidence.
- Except humans aren't entirely rational. Most of us keep searching. We want to believe that there's some meaning, but we can't figure out exactly what it is. So we build in our minds a picture of the being that we want God to be, and live our lives in a way that we hope will bring us closer to that being. I honestly believe that this is how the majority of people treat religion, regardless of their expressed beliefs.