What is Faith

Human beings in a mob

What’s a mob to a king? What’s a king to a god?

What’s a god to a non-believer who don’t believe in anything?

Will he make it out alive? Alright, alright, no church in the wild

 

 Is it an unjustifiable urge in believing someone or observing an obligation to something without questioning its metaphysical existence or autonomy. A placebo inspected by humanity in an endeavor to escape from true nature of things. Or perhaps an ideology or proof of concept for assurance of things hoped for or an evidence of things not seen.

Whatever it may be, one is certain; it is definitely not related to religion. The religious aspect of faith has only been evident from last 7 centuries and is largely responsible for the introduction of the “blind” as a prefix to it. This prefix has poisoned it roots from pagan and dharmic contexts.

I believe that we only show faith in things for which there is no evidence or things we cannot see or have not seen; but as soon as evidence is made available no one dares to speak of “Faith” suddenly it’s substituted with words like confidence, certainty or sureness. The introduction of evidence shatters the charms or aura of faith. Tell me, where is! the talk of faith when it comes to gravity, two two’s are four or that some day one is bound to die. We drag faith out of its coveted shell only when we wish to substitute emotions for evidence.

It aptly said: “The substitution of emotion for evidence leads to strife”, as emotions always change on individual or group perspectives. Hindus may have faith in Rebirth, A Christian may show similar faith in resurrection as a Muslim would in virgins of Heaven or communists in Marxism or an optimist in utopia. But can this faith be defended rationally; No! it cannot be hence it is defended by irrational justifications, propaganda and if necessary by war. Faith has always be equated to confidence on one’s perceived degree of warrant and almost always depend on context. Faith is not only fideism or obedience to a set of rules or statements we must conceive and understand what and why is it required, as having faith without understanding is blind faith which is not true and fair to laws of nature. Evidently introducing “Faith” in a conversation is the best method of avoiding intelligent and intellectual discussions which are resonated by the fact that the root word for faith is “pistis” meaning “to be persuaded”.

Richard Dawkins once said:

” Faith is a process of active non-thinking, a practice that only degrades our understanding of the natural world by allowing anyone to make a claims solely on their personal thoughts, and possibly distorted perceptions as it does not require testing against nature, has no ability to make consistent predictions, and is not subject to peer review”

 

DHARMA vs RELIGION

Interestingly, oldest religions or dharmic religions as opposed to Abrahamic ones address faith with an undertone of philosophy and argue that faith or belief depends, less on strengths of evidence but more on the weight of idea that it represents. They say faith is courage as well as resolution, it’s steadfast and often leads to enlightenment. They encourage to question faith, investigate its validity as for them it is rooted more in curiosity than on or around god.

Faith for me is all about conscious knowledge, good deeds, obedience, in-depth understanding, convictions in things, determinations in seeking goals and the joy of the drive to enlightenment.

The Cycle of Faith in Religion Compared to Phases in Life

Faith is a principle of action and power

Whenever we work toward a worthy goal, we exercise faith